1998-1999 Internet rereleases and RISC OS 3 support by
Acorn Arcade - http://www.acornarcade.com
Well, here it is. One of the first great conversions by Krisalis' Shaun
Hollingworth, we've obtained permission to rerelease the game for you...
free to download from Acorn Arcade. The game is freely distributable now,
thanks to Krisalis.
________
Running /
________/ Just doubleclick on the !Terramex icon.
Risc PC and A7000 owners:
Here is a suitable Monitor Definition for the mode the game runs in, which
works on AKF60 monitors. Copy it onto the end of
!Boot.Resources.Configure.Monitors.<your monitor>
# 320 x 256 (100Hz)
startmode
mode_name:320 x 256
x_res:320
y_res:256
pixel_rate:14038
h_timings:36,26,12,320,12,22
v_timings:2,48,0,256,0,22
sync_pol:2
endmode
Terramex can now be quit once running by pressing Ctrl-Escape
===========
_________
Oddities /
_________/
RTFM or serial port joystick support can be engaged by running
!RTFMjoyen or !Joystick (supplied on your interface disks) before running.
Sound effects are only available if you select the old music, but then THE OLD
MUSIC IS MUCH BETTER. (It's in tune). I have therefore changed the game to
default to the old music.
If you don't use the supplied Mode Definition, the game is likely to run too
slowly. Thanks to Robert O'Sullivan and David O'Shea for the Vsync trapper
which now works with the RISC OS version.
______
Instructions /
_____________/ Just click 'Help' at the options screen when the game loads.
Background
==========
The original game was supplied as an L-format (640K) disc, intended for
use on Arthur 1.8 systems but found to work acceptably on RISC OS if
the old-fashioned running method was used, ie: the computer booted from
the floppy disc.
This is clearly unacceptable on RISC OS which has a nice multitasking WIMP
(Arthur had WIMP, but only single-tasking; ie a single program could use
built-in windowing features)
So I grabbed a nice icon and fiddled it all to run now from a self-
contained application. Unfortunately, not even Alt-Break would quit the
game once running; Arthur programs just weren't given the facility to
quit as there was nothing to quit to.
This later version already contained RISC OS support, but lacked support for slowing the screen rate on RISC PC's to allow normal speed running. I have now added this, in addition to the choice to interlace the screen to make things look nicer on high-res monitors, and a later version of the musmod