Jason Aller Floppy Collection/184.img/ITCAME!1.ZIP/README

Text File | 1990-10-05 | 10KB | 231 lines

^7               ADVICE ABOUT PC "IT CAME FROM THE DESERT"

^4   If you have a hard disk, you should install the game onto it.

   If you do not have a hard disk, but have two floppy disk drives,
   you can put one game disk in each drive to reduce disk swapping,
   if the drives are:
   * both 5 1/4 inch 360 MBytes (the usual type), or
   * both 3 1/2 inch 720 Mbytes (again, the usual type).

   THIS MAY NOT WORK WITH OTHER TYPES AND COMBINATIONS OF FLOPPY DISKS.
   So if you have mixed types of floppy disk drives, or have high density
   drives (e.g 5 1/4 inch 1.2 MBytes, or 3 1/2 inch 1.44 MBytes), you
   should only insert one disk at once.

   If you are playing from floppy disk, turning off music and/or sound
   effects will reduce the number of times that you need to swap disks.

   "It Came From The Desert" is a large and complex game, the original of
   which needed 1 Megabyte to run. We have done many months of work to squeeze
   the same game into less memory, and now the practical minimum is about
   460000 bytes free. Use the command CHKDSK to find the number of bytes free.

   The game will read from disk less often if it has more free memory. Remove
   unnecessary TSRs such as ^4mouse drivers^8 and (on 512K PCs) ^4disk cache
^4   programs^8.

   If you have only 512K main memory and wish to play from floppy disk, you
   may find the game accessing its floppy disks frequently. You can reduce
   this by choosing the full-function CGA mode, or a "clone-friendly" mode,
   either of which allow the game to make better use of the memory available.

^7   Installation: Video mode

   Run the Installer by typing DESERT. It asks you to select options in
   turn, starting with the video mode (display type).

   To provide compatibity with all IBM PC and PC Clones a total of 13 video
   modes are provided. Because of the wide variations in display and
   processor hardware, the game cannot always be certain about the best
   mode for your computer, so it will advise, but you will have to choose.

   To help you, the 'highlight bar' starts on the display mode which the
   game thinks is probably best. The ones it thinks are next best are shown
   in white, and the ones it thinks won't work are shown in grey.

   Use numeric keypad 8 (up arrow) and 2 (down arrow) to move the highlight
   if you wish, and press enter to choose the display mode it is on.

^4   NOTE: AN "ANALYSE" PROGRAM IS ALSO PROVIDED ON REEL 1 TO HELP IF YOU DON'T
^4   KNOW ABOUT THE COMPUTER'S DISPLAY HARDWARE (E.G IF YOU'RE BORROWING SOMEONE
^4   ELSE'S MACHINE) AND TO HELP TRACK DOWN A POSSIBLE PROBLEM WITH JERKY
^4   SCROLLING ON A FEW VGA OR EGA DISPLAYS. IT IS DESCRIBED AT THE END OF THIS
^4   HELP FILE...

^7   MCGA, HERCULES, TANDY 1000 display cards

   Select the full-function MCGA, HERCULES or TANDY 1000 mode at first.

   On TANDYs, if the game runs too slow, use the full-function CGA mode and
   consider turning the sound effects off.

   On MCGA, if the game runs too slow, use the clone-friendly CGA mode.

^7   CGA display cards

   Select full-function CGA. If you notice display problems, then restart the
   game with the clone-friendly CGA mode.

^7   VGA,EGA display cards

   On VGA or EGA if the game runs too slow, use the full-function CGA mode.

   If you notice jerky horizontal scrolling, use the "Analyse" program to
   see if running the game with a different option will help.

^7   Installation: Joystick

   If selecting "Joystick and Keyboard" causes the computer to lock-up or
   otherwise misbehave, then restart the game and select "Keyboard only".

^4   CENTRE THE JOYSTICK BEFORE YOU LOAD THE GAME.^8 This is most important. Then
   leave it alone until the intro sequence has started - you're safe to move
   it again once the "Cinemaware" logo has appeared.

   If you find that one or two of the directions up, down, left or right
   cannot be selected then the joystick was not centered when you ran the
   game. Restart the game, following the advice above.

^7   Installation: Music

   Select one of the options displayed. (If you have a "^4Game Blaster^8",
   select the "AdLib" option.)

   If you select "AdLib" or "Sound Blaster" and you do not have an AdLib
   compatible sound board connected, the game will continue but no music
   will be heard.

   If you select "Internal Speaker", then the melody of tunes will be played
   on the PC's internal speaker.

   If you are playing from floppy disk, turning off the music will reduce
   the number of times that you need to swap disks.

   If you get the error message "No interrupt IRQ2 from Roland Board", then
   the IRQ "link" is probably missing or set wrong. Consult the manual for
   your Roland card.

   If using "Sound Blaster" causes problems, check that the three links are in
   their "Factory" setting: I/O addx = 220, IRQ3, DRQ1 (DMA enable). Consult
   the Sound Blaster manual.

^7   Installation: Sound Effects

   Select digitised speech and sound effects through the PC internal speaker.

   If the "Music system" is "Sound Blaster" then the digitised sound is
   played through the Sound Blaster and not the internal speaker.

   If the game runs slowly on your PC with internal speaker effects, try
   restarting the game with Sound Effects turned off.

   If you are playing from floppy disk, turning off the sound effects will
   reduce the number of times that you need to swap disks.

^7   Installation: Acknowledgment click

   Select this if you want the PC internal speaker to "click" when you press
   spacebar (or the joystick button), e.g when selecting from a menu, or to
   continue after a ^8text message^8 is displayed.

   We provided this for those times when you forgot to select a menu entry,
   but think you did, and find yourself sitting staring at an unchanging
   screen. A click response makes selection much more positive.

   However, the click will briefly disrupt music played through the internal
   and is not to everyone's liking, so you can also turn it off.

^7   Installation: Run game

   When selected, runs the game with the options choosen. The options are not
   saved, and will have to be re-entered the next time the game is run. This
   always appears when running from floppy disk. On hard disk use the command
   "DESERT /I" to make this option appear.

^7   Installation: Copy game to hard disk

   The game will be copied from floppy disk to hard disk.

   You will be asked for a drive letter and path name, you can use BACKSPACE
   DELETE, left arrow and right arrow to edit the drive and path name.

   Press Enter; you will be asked to insert each REEL in turn. Press SPACE
   each time to make the program continue.

^7   Installation: Save options

   This option appears only when the game is run on hard disk. To save time,
   the game by default runs with the options set up during the installation
   from floppy to hard disk.

^4   To change the options on hard disk, type:             DESERT /I

   To add /V if previously omitted type:                 DESERT /I /V

   To remove the effect of /V if added accidently, type: DESERT /I

^7   SAVE GAME

   On hard disk to the current state of gameplay can be 'saved' so that the
   next time you play the game you can continue from where the last "SAVE
   GAME" occurred. Click on the "SAVE GAME" icon at the top left of the
   "MAP". When you next play the game click the "YES" reply to the "If you
   want to load a saved game, select 'YES'" question.

^4   On floppy disk, before running the game, format one of your own blank
^4   disks.^8 Click on "SAVE GAME" or select "YES" as for the hard disc version.
   You will be prompted to insert your disk when the game needs it.

^7   ANALYSE program

   If you have problems with the game display, please run the ANALYSE program
   before you try to play the game again.

   Insert REEL 1 either drive A or drive B.
   type:    A:             (or B:)
   type:    ANALYSE

   1) And the program will show you...

   * The type of your video card and the type of display monitor.

     (If you have a VGA card that provides emulation of non-VGA modes you
     may find that the "primary video card" is not displayed as "VGA": in
     this case you may not be able to run any of the full-function modes.
     Consult the manual for your VGA card; it may have switches which allow
     the hardware emulation mode to be set.)

   * Any comments stored in your ROM by the manufacturer of the video card.

   2) Next, if your display is EGA or VGA, the ANALYSE program asks you to
      press SPACEBAR twice to carry out a scrolling test.

      This is needed because a few video cards give jerky scrolling with the
      normal settings used by the game. Analyse includes two tests to
      diagnose this problem, so you can run the game with the right settings.

      A pattern of "Level 9" is repeated across then screen which should
      scroll left. You will have to compare the smoothness of the scrolling
      with the test that follows.

   3) Again press SPACEBAR twice and look at the smoothness of the scrolling.

   If the last test (number 3) gives a smoother scroll then the previous
   test (number 2) then please add the command-line option "/V" when you
   run "IT CAME FROM THE DESERT".

   (Instead of "DESERT",   type "DESERT /V", and
    instead of "DESERT /I" type "DESERT /I /V")

   When the game is installed to hard disk, the setting of the /V option is
   saved too, so you don't need to enter it again.

^7 ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
^7 │      This IBM version of "It Came From The Desert" was converted by,       │
^7 │                    and uses the H.U.G.E system of:                         │
^7 │                                                                            │
^7 │          Level 9 Computing. Fax International (011-44) 703 331523          │
^7 │                             Fax England               0703 331523          │
^7 └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘