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Text File | 1992-03-27 | 28.5 KB | 661 lines

/**** GOOGOL MATH GAMES VERSION 3.4 DOCUMENTATION ****/ Copyright (C) 1992 by: Paul T. Dawson P.O. Box 682 Chincoteague, Virginia 23336 U.S.A. /**** INTRODUCTION ****/ Thank you for trying my program, Googol Math Games. I wrote these games to help kids (and parents) have some fun while learning math. Parents, teachers, and children from all around the world have become registered users of Googol Math Games! As of March 1992, I have received letters and registrations from 49 states in the U.S.A., and Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Belgium, England, France, Germany, Guam (USA), Guatemala, Ireland, Israel, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, and Thailand. Several of those countries have just one or two registered users! /**** SPECIAL THANKS TO... ****/ Thanks and a tip of the hat to: Microsoft : BASIC P.D.S. V7.1 Compiler Genus Microprogramming : PCX Programmers Toolkit : GX Text : GX Effects Fabrice Bellard : LZEXE /**** CONTENTS ****/ Shareware and Registration Information......2 Getting Started.............................3 Googol Climber..............................4 Googolpede..................................5 Googolvaders................................6 Command Line Options........................7 - 8 Miscellaneous Keys..........................8 - 9 How To Print Graphics Screens...............10 More Miscellaneous Info.....................11 Googol V3.4 Documentation - Page 1 /**** SHAREWARE AND REGISTRATION INFORMATION ****/ Shareware lets you try software, and then pay the author after you decide to use the program. When you register Googol Math Games (for only $10), you will receive the following bonuses: <> The latest version of Googol Math Games. <> One free disk... your choice of: Googol Bonus Disk (Six original CGA games) Googol Review (640K CGA) Paul's Classroom Math (99% math) Flashcards (EGA) Lugnut City (Incredible EGA game!) Wolfie's Music Games (EGA) <> A sincere thank you! If your kids try the program once or twice, like it, and continue to play the games, then you really should register! "Super Registration" is just $35, and includes the latest version of ALL SEVEN programs listed above. These programs contain over a dozen different games, all for less than the price of just ONE commercial program. Everything is completely guaranteed! If you are not completely satisfied with any of the programs, I will refund your money. If you have doubts about sending a check to a mysterious Post Office Box on an island (really!), please just send a postcard first. Ask for more information, and I'll send you an up to date listing of all my programs! Thanks. There should be a separate text file on the disk, called "GOOGOL.FRM". You can print this out, or if it's missing, just print the form from within the game itself. If you have any questions or suggestions about the program, please include them with your registration form! All information on the order form, including your name and address, is strictly confidential, and not for sale to anyone for any reason. I'm in the educational software business, not the mailing list business! -------------------------------------------------- | In Australia only, you may register by | | sending A$15 to the Official Distributor: | | | | Alphon Edugames | | 221 Ridley Road | | Bridgeman Downs 4035 AUSTRALIA | -------------------------------------------------- Googol V3.4 Documentation - Page 2 /**** GETTING STARTED ****/ To run the Googol Math Games V3.4, you need: <> An IBM or compatible computer. <> CGA graphics (or higher). <> At least 512K memory. The games will NOT run on a Hercules monochrome system with a "CGA simulator" program. If you see the error message "Out of String Space", this means that not enough RAM is available. Remove all memory-resident programs, and try again! /**** GETTING STARTED - FLOPPY DISKS ****/ Never run this or any program from the original disk. Make backups and run from them! Use DISKCOPY on your DOS disk to copy the disk. If you are not familiar with DOS commands, please find someone who is, and have them explain it all to you! Now that you have backups made, put the original disk away in a safe place. If all goes well, you will never need it again! Do not put a write protect tab on the disk! All of the games need to read and write high score files to the disk. Put the disk in your active drive - usually drive A, but any drive will work. The games are all in one giant EXE file. Just type GOOGOL at the DOS prompt to get started. It takes a while to load, but after that there are no delays between games. Don't take the disk out of the drive until you are all finished and back to DOS, because the games write high scores to the disk. /**** GETTING STARTED - HARD DISKS ****/ Follow these directions to put the Googol Math Games onto your hard disk. If you are not completely familiar with the following commands, please find someone who is, to help you! 1. Your hard disk must have at least 300K free. 2. Use MKDIR or MD to make a new subdirectory. (MD GOOGOL). 3. Use CHDIR or CD to get to the subdirectory. (CD GOOGOL). 4. Put the Googol Math Games disk in drive A. 5. COPY A:*.* will copy all the files into the subdirectory. 6. To play the Googol Games, just type: CD\GOOGOL GOOGOL 7. Good Luck! On a hard disk, always use the DOS command "CD" to change to the proper subdirectory. Don't use the PATH command, since PATH usually only finds COM, EXE, and BAT files. Googol V3.4 Documentation - Page 3 /**** GOOGOL CLIMBER ****/ At the Googol Climber menu, use the up and down arrow keys to choose the type of problems that you want to work with, and the left and right arrows to choose the speed. FAST will be too fast on 286 or 386 machines, and SLOW will be too slow on older machines. Experiment to see which works best! Press RETURN to begin the game! An incomplete equation will flash at the bottom of the screen, then eight numbers will appear. Only one of these numbers is the correct answer! Your goal is to guide the little climber to this answer, and make him jump up and hit it! As soon as the eight numbers are on the screen, the action begins, and the little climber starts hopping across the screen. You control the climber with the left and right arrow keys, and make him jump with the up arrow key. Remember to just TAP the keys, if you hold them down you're likely to run into serious trouble! If the correct answer is on a higher floor, you will need to carefully jump through the tiny hole in the floor. If you miss the hole and bump your head, you will lose 1 climber, and have to start over! If you need to go to a lower floor, you will need to wiggle back and forth with the left and right arrow keys until you fall through the hole in the floor. You must avoid the 4 balls at all times. You can hop over them, or run away, and go through the "back door" to get away from them. Be careful when changing floors! If you hit a ball, you will lose 1 climber, and have to start over! When you are under the correct answer, press the up arrow to jump up and hit it. Since the higher floors are harder to reach, the answers are worth more there. Also, as you advance to higher levels, the point values go up! If you need help with any problem, just press X for a complete explanation. There is no score penalty for watching this explanation, however there is a time penalty - you will have to watch the entire explanation. There is no way to stop it once it has started. After you solve 20 problems, you will advance to level 2, and the 4 balls will move faster. You will continue to advance one level after every 20 problems, until level five. This is the fastest speed. You begin the game with 3 climbers, and when they are all gone, the game is over. You will have one chance to play "Match Score" to win one extra free life! There's a 10% chance you'll match the spinning number! Googol V3.4 Documentation - Page 4 /**** GOOGOLPEDE ****/ At the Googolpede menu, use all four arrow keys to choose the type of problems that you want to work with, and the speed, then press RETURN to begin the game! Speed 1 is very slow, 4 or 5 is medium, and 9 is incredibly fast! On fast machines, speed 9 is too fast to be playable, but speed 8 should be just barely manageable! An equation will appear at the bottom of the screen. It will be either TRUE or FALSE. In the center of the screen a T and F will appear, and the Googolpede will start moving across the screen. Your goal is to guide the Googolpede into the T, if the equation is true, or the F, if the equation is false. Every once in a while, a "Bonus Block" will appear. If you hit this block, the Googolpede will get longer, so your final score will be higher! Remember to just TAP the keys, if you hold them down you're likely to run into serious trouble! While playing the game, if you are moving in any direction, you can not instantly go the other direction. For example, if you are moving to the right, only the up and down arrow keys will work. If you want to reverse, you must turn twice! There are three ways to lose. You can hit the wall, or hit the wrong answer, or hit yourself. When you lose, the game is immediately over! There's no second chance in Googolpede! Every time you hit a correct answer, your Googolpede will get longer. This will raise your score, but it will also increase the difficulty, since there will be more of "yourself" to run into! If you need help with any problem, just press X for a complete explanation. There is no score penalty for watching this explanation, however there is a time penalty - you will have to watch the entire explanation. There is no way to stop it once it has started. When you lose, your final score will be calculated. The length of the GOOGOLPEDE will be multiplied by the speed, and by the skill level (addition = 1, subtraction = 2, etc., up to all four = 7). Therefore, if you are playing at speed 1, level 1, you will only get 1 point for each segment of your GOOGOLPEDE, and if you play at speed 9, skill 7, you will get 63 points for each segment! If you don't like the flashing screen at the end of each round, the "/SD" command line option turns this off. Googol V3.4 Documentation - Page 5 /**** GOOGOLVADERS ****/ At the Googolvaders menu, use all four arrow keys to choose the type of problems that you want to work with, and the speed, then press RETURN to begin the game! Speed 1 is the usual beginning speed, with one new problem every 5 seconds. Speed 2 delivers two problems every 5 seconds, and Speed 3 presents three every 5 seconds. After the introduction, the game screen will appear. Your shooter is at the bottom of the playfield, and incomplete equations will begin to descend from the top. Use the left and right arrow keys to move back and forth, and press the number keys (at the top of the keyboard, above QWERTYUIOP) to fire the missing numbers up to the equations. To shoot a number from 1 to 9, just press the matching key. To shoot a 1O, press the 0 (zero) key. To shoot an 11, press the - (minus) key, and to shoot a 12, press the = (equals sign) key. These are all in a row at the top of the keyboard. When you shoot a correct answer, the key buffer is untouched, so you can "type ahead". If you make any mistakes, then the key buffer is cleared! Your goal is to defend your base as long as possible from the descending invaders. Eventually you will lose! You will see why when you get to Speed 5, where there are 5 new problems every 5 seconds. That's just a little too much to keep up with! Every time that you shoot a correct number, your score will be increased by the following formula: 10 x speed (1 to 5) x skill (1 to 7) Every time you make a mistake, which is shooting a wrong answer, or shooting at a blank column, your score will be decreased by half of that amount. After you solve 20 problems, you will advance to level 2. You will continue to advance one level after every 20 problems, until level five. This is the fastest speed in Googolvaders! If you need help with any problem, just press X for a complete explanation of the bottom problem in the column that you are under. Just as in the other games, there is no score penalty for watching this explanation. When playing Googolvaders, the robots will never appear during Speed 4 or 5. You have to concentrate on math at those levels! Googol V3.4 Documentation - Page 6 /**** COMMAND LINE OPTIONS ****/ There are several different command line options. They can be used in any combination. /CGA Use CGA color menu on EGA or higher system. /D Use database file. /N Noise off. /R Robots off. /SD Special Googolpede switch (see below!) /T Take Turns option. /\SUBDIR Specify subdirectory for score and data files. The /CGA option should not be necessary! The program detects your graphics card type, and automatically chooses CGA or EGA color menus. But... if you run into any mysterious problems with the EGA menu, you can use the /CGA option. Then the program will use the "old" color menu. Type GOOGOL /D at the command line for "Database". This will save all the information from every game to the file GOOGOL.DAT. If this file becomes too large, just delete it from the DOS command line, and the program will start a new GOOGOL.DAT file. The /N option starts Googol without noise. You can turn the noise back on by pressing "S" anytime in the games. There are now two different "Robots", and if they become tiresome, you may type GOOGOL /R at the command line to turn them completely off. The /SD switch turns off the color flash when you "crash" in the game Googolpede. This option is not necessary for 99.99% of computers, but if you run into Googolpede problems, try it! Type GOOGOL /T at the command line to "Take Turns". This will simply pop up the Rename screen after each game. The subdirectory option NEEDS accurate input! There must be a forward slash, a backslash, and then the directory name. Here are some samples: GOOGOL /\MYDIR GOOGOL /\GAMES\GOOGOL\MEGAN Googol V3.4 Documentation - Page 7 /**** COMMAND LINE OPTIONS - CONTINUED ****/ All of the command line options may be combined, in any order. Spaces aren't important - but don't ever put any spaces in any subdirectory names! Here are some more samples: GOOGOL /N /D /\MATH GOOGOL /T/CGA/SD/R /\TEMP /N /D GOOGOL /R /N Here are some ILLEGAL samples - these won't work: GOOGOL D N (Missing slashes) GOOGOL /\ NONO (Spaces in subdir name) I hope this isn't too confusing. If you are familiar with DOS and batch files, you can write a one line BAT file for each user. /**** MISCELLANEOUS KEYS - B - "BOSS" BOGUS SPREADSHEET ****/ This is a synthetic spreadsheet screen which is almost always available during the Googol games, by pressing the B key. The spreadsheet doesn't do anything, but you can move the cursor around! Press the spacebar to return to the game. You can NOT get into the BOSS subroutine if you are in any other subroutine, such as Change Colors, Display High Scores, Help, etc. /**** MISCELLANEOUS KEYS - C - COLOR MENUS ****/ Googol now has two color menus, one for CGA systems, and one for EGA or VGA. The screens are still four colors, but the new EGA menu has many more possible combinations! Press "C" almost anytime to pop up the color menu. The program will use the CGA or EGA menu, depending on your graphics card. The CGA menu has 52 combinations. If this isn't the ultimate CGA color menu, let me know! Use the up and down arrow keys to change the background color, and the left or right keys for the palette. The EGA color menu lets you choose from 43,680 different color combinations. That's 16 x 15 x 14 x 13. When you're moving around this menu, you will automatically "hop over" any matching colors. There are lots of interesting combinations, and quite a few that are just barely readable! Your color selections are saved in the GOOGOL.SCO file, so the same colors will be used the next time you run Googol. /**** MISCELLANEOUS KEYS - D - DISPLAY HIGH SCORES ****/ Just press D to display the top ten scores for any game, and the spacebar to return to whatever you were doing. Googol V3.4 Documentation - Page 8 /**** MISCELLANEOUS KEYS - G - GOOGOL DEFINITION ****/ A Googol is a number consisting of 1 followed by 100 zeros. Exactly 10,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000. Press "G" almost anytime to see this on the screen! /**** MISCELLANEOUS KEYS - H - HELP SCREENS ****/ These screens display quick instructions for the three Googol Math Games. They are automatically displayed at the beginning of every Googol game, and may be seen again almost anytime by pressing the H key, or the F1 key. /**** MISCELLANEOUS KEYS - L - LEVEL MENU ****/ Press "L" for the Level Menu, to choose the highest number used by the games. You still have to choose the type of problems from the game menus, but the Level Menu controls the highest number. /**** MISCELLANEOUS KEYS - P - PAUSE GAME ****/ Press "P" for new "transparent" pause during games. Then press the spacebar to continue with the game. The "Pause Sprite" loops through almost every type of special effect in the Genus FX library. In order, the effects are: Wipe, Split, Crush, Slide, Sand, Drip, Explode, Diagonal, Spiral, and Random. /**** MISCELLANEOUS KEYS - Q - QUIT ****/ Press the Q key or the ESC key almost anytime to quit from any of the games. You will be asked "Are You Sure?". Press Y to quit, or N to go back to what you were doing. Please note that if you quit while playing a game, your score will not be saved! /**** MISCELLANEOUS KEYS - R - RENAME YOURSELF ****/ This option lets you change the name of the current player. Press the R key if someone else wants to play, or if you want to call yourself QWERTY instead of ZXCVBNM! If you press RETURN without entering a new name, your old name will still be in effect. /**** MISCELLANEOUS KEYS - X - EXPLANATIONS ****/ If you press the X key while playing any of the Googol games, you will see an explanation of the current problem. There is no way to stop this once it has started! Googol V3.4 Documentation - Page 9 /**** HOW TO PRINT GRAPHICS SCREENS - PART ONE ****/ Before running Googol, or any other graphics program, you have to run a program called GRAPHICS.COM. This program should be on your original DOS disk, or in your DOS subdirectory. When you run GRAPHICS.COM, it doesn't print any messages! It just skips a line and gives you the DOS prompt again. There are a few things that can go wrong, however... If you have a laser printer, it probably requires a special driver program. This is something that may have come with the printer, or you may have to ask the dealer or manufacturer for help. If you are using DOS 4.01, then a file called GRAPHICS.PRO is also required. This is on one of your original DOS disks, but the installation process doesn't copy this file! You'll have to find those original disks, and copy GRAPHICS.PRO to your working disk. If you have DOS 5.0, then you'll have to look at the manuals! After GRAPHICS is loaded, you should be able to print the certificate, or any screen, just by pressing Shift-PrtSc. If all else fails, you may want to try booting from an absolutely plain boot disk, with no CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT files. Then load GRAPHICS, and then run the games. This would avoid any possible conflicts with other programs. To make a plain boot disk, just FORMAT /S a new disk, and copy COMMAND.COM to it. On a hard disk system, you can use a batch file like this: CD\DOS GRAPHICS CD\GOOGOL GOOGOL CD\ There is a simpler way to write that batch file, but this is the straightforward, easy to understand version! It assumes that the GRAPHICS.COM program is in the DOS subdirectory, and that GOOGOL is in the GOOGOL subdirectory. /**** HOW TO PRINT GRAPHICS SCREENS - PART TWO ****/ Press "!" almost anytime in the program, and you will see a little "Yes / No" box. If you choose Yes, then the screen will be saved to a standard PCX file. That is, the screen >under< the little box! The file is always named TEMP.PCX. Then you can load this file into your favorite paint program, and print it from there! Every time that you save the TEMP.PCX file, it will overwrite any previous TEMP.PCX file. This should help to avoid "hard disk clutter", since there won't be dozens of different PCX files (unless you rename them from DOS). Googol V3.4 Documentation - Page 10 /**** ERASING THE HIGH SCORE FILE ****/ The high scores are all contained in a standard DOS file. If you delete the score file, the games will automatically create a new, empty file. Just type: DEL GOOGOL.SCO Note - If you try to TYPE the score file, you will see the message "Googol Math Games Version 3.4 High Score File", then a beep, then nothing! The scores are after a "fake" end of file marker, so you can't see them. If you use a file viewing program such as "LIST.COM", you will see the data, but it's encrypted! Unlike some games, you can't simply type your name and "1,000,000" into the high score file. In fact, if the Googol program finds anything funny in the high score file, it will create a new, empty file! So, no cheating! /**** PRODUCTION HARDWARE ****/ The Googol Math Games were produced on a Tandy 1200 system. The original 8088-4.77 has been replaced with a SOTA 80286-12 card. It's not the fastest machine on the planet, but it just keeps on running! One floppy disk drive wore out, after copying several thousand disks, but everything else is still perfect! The venerable Tandy machine is now overshadowed by a new "Snap It Together Yourself" generic 386 computer. It's a lot faster! /**** PRODUCTION SOFTWARE ****/ The Googol Math Games were produced with the Microsoft BASIC P.D.S. V7.1 compiler, Z-Soft's PC-Paintbrush, the Genus PCX Programmer's toolkit, and dozens of utilities too numerous to mention! There are about 200,000 bytes of source code, and almost 100,000 bytes of graphics files. The README-1.EXE program was written in Borland's Turbo C. /**** CONCLUSION ****/ The Googol Math Games have been floating around the Shareware world for almost three years without documentation. I have tried to answer all of the most common questions in this document. If there is anything else that you would like to know, please write! Thanks again to all the kids, families, and schools who have registered their copies of Googol Math Games! Paul T. Dawson Chincoteague Island, Virginia U.S.A. March 27, 1992 /**** THAT'S ALL, FOLKS! ****/ Googol V3.4 Documentation - Page 11