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1990-04-24
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ATCSIM V1.4B
------------
Air Traffic Control Simulator
-----------------------------
A 3-dimensional graphical game with synthesized voice reply.
Table of Contents
-----------------
Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
System Requirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Files Distributed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Quick Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Graphics Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
To upgrade from V1.0-1.3 to 1.4B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
What is ATC ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
A word about 'headings' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Flight Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
What is a Flight Progress Strip (FPS) . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Departure Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Arrival Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Emergency Situations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Other commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Why paid & register? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Skill levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Notes on Shelling to DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
My advice to hackers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Distribution Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
License Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Revision History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2
ATCSIM V1.4B
-----------
Air Traffic Control Simulator
-----------------------------
Features
--------
- first air traffic control simulator with 3-dimensional
graphical display. You can actually see an aircraft leave
the ground during takeoff.
- first ATC simulator with synthesized voice reply, just like the
real case over the radio.
- simulation of a secondary surveillance radar display with a
datatag attached to each aircraft, showing its call sign,
altitude and speed.
- an airport at the center with 4 possible runways and 5 exits at
the edges.
- 2 types of aircraft simulated (Boeing 747 and Cessna 182) but
you can change their performance and add another 2 types
using the Aircraft Specification Editor (see below).
- aircraft speed up on descend and slow down on climbing.
- detail self-explaining on-line help.
- variable wind effect which can be toggled on and off.
- emergency situations such as hydraulics problem and engine
failure requiring immediate actions to direct the aircraft
to land as soon as possible.
- 5 sound levels.
- option to toggle between 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional
display.
- change the speed of play from 1 - 9 seconds per 'tick' subject
to skill level restriction.
- 6 skill levels from beginners to experts handling 6 - 22
aircraft generated at different speed.
- option to shell out to DOS. If you have 189K of expanded memory
or free disk space, the program will swap most of itself out
using less than 4K of conventional memory.
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- option to save the game to disk and resume playing later.
- change the aircraft performance characteristics using the
Aircraft Specification Editor. You can optionally add 1 - 2
aircraft types.
The game distributed is in a demonstration state. Although
it allows you to try all 6 skill levels, it is limited to 5
aircraft for all levels. US$20 registration allows you to play as
many as 22 aircraft in level 5 and 6. See topic "Skill Level".
System Requirement
------------------
- Intel (TM) 8088,80286,386,486 processor running at any clock
speed
- graphics adaptor card: CGA, MCGA, EGA, VGA, IBM 3270 PC, AT&T
6300 and Hercules (TM)
- DOS 2.0 or higher (but not MS-DOS 2.11!)
- at least 256K of memory
- hard disk optional
Files Distributed
-----------------
ASE.DOC - explains how the Aircraft Specification Editor
works
ASE.EXE - Aircraft Specification Editor
ATC.DOC - this file
ATC.EXE - the game
REG.DOC - registration form
REG.EXE - program to enter the registration password into
ATC.EXE to unlock all the features
* .BGI - graphics drivers
* .DAT - data files
Only the corresponding .BGI and .DAT files for your graphics
card is needed to run ATC.EXE (see Graphics Driver on the next
page). REG.EXE is only needed to enter the password. Afterwards,
it is not needed to run the game.
Quick Start
-----------
If you are already familiar with air traffic control (ATC),
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you can play the game right away. Run ATC.EXE, choose your skill
level, when the radar display appears, press <ESC> to see the
menu, then press <H> to display help on command syntax, exit
radials and restrictions. On the right of the radar display is a
"rack" of flight progress strips (FPS), upper half for departures
and lower half arrivals. If you find the wind effect too
difficult, press <ESC><W> to toggle it off. If you find the
simulation speed too fast, press <ESC><D><+> to increase the
update interval.
Graphics Drivers
----------------
The program will detect the following 10 types of graphics
card and load the corresponding .bgi driver and .dat data file.
If the program cannot detect your graphics card, you can manually
specify the graphics driver to be loaded by adding a command line
parameter when you execute the program. For each graphics card,
there is a default mode which is the best for that card. You can
override it by specifying a second command line parameter.
P1 Driver Driver File Data File P2 Mode
-- ------ ----------- --------- -- ----
1 CGA CGA.BGI CGA.DAT 1* 320 x 200 color
palette 1
CGAHI.DAT 4 640 x 200 black
& white
2 MCGA CGA.BGI CGAHI.DAT 4* 640 x 200
3 EGA EGAVGA.BGI EGA.DAT 1* 640 x 350
16 colors
4 EGA64 EGAVGA.BGI EGA.DAT 1* 640 x 350
5 EGAMono EGAVGA.BGI EGA.DAT 3* 640 x 350
7 Hercules HERC.BGI HERC.DAT 0* 720 x 348 black
& white
8 ATT400 ATT.BGI EGA.DAT 4* 640 x 200
9 VGA EGAVGA.BGI EGA.DAT 1* 640 x 350
16 colors
10 PC3270 PC3270.BGI EGA.DAT 0* 720 x 350
Legend
------
P1 is first command line parameter
P2 is second command line parameter
5
an asterisk(*) beside P2 is the default mode
For example, type "atc 3" to specify EGA graphics card with
default 640 x 350 mode; type "atc 1 4" to specify CGA with 640 x
200 mode.
To upgrade from V1.0-1.3 to 1.4B
--------------------------------
If you are already a registered user of ATCSIM V1.0-1.3,
version 1.4B is free. Replace all the files of the previous
versions with those from this version and run REG.EXE using the
same password I sent you before. If you have lost your password,
send me the registration form quoting your registration number
and I shall send you the password again. Please note that if you
have V1.4 and it runs, you DON'T have to upgrade to V1.4B This
version only fixed the bugs which hang 386 and 486 machines. See
Revision History below.
What is ATC ?
-------------
Aircraft fly in and out of a large airport in fixed routes
called airways. They are equivalent to the freeways for cars.
Unlike driving where you can stop and look around, aircraft must
keep on flying. The job of the air traffic controller is to
direct aircraft from one place to another via radio and to keep
them separated to avoid collision. He achieves this with the help
of radar.
In this game, the radar display shows the airport at the
center of the screen as a light-red[1] triangle of 3 dots. There
are 2 runways. Each can be used at either end. At the start of
the game, the program will decide which runway or runways may be
used for takeoff and landings. There may be only one active
runway or all 4 possible runways may be active. An active runway
is shown on the radar display as a yellow dotted line together
with its approach area shown as a light-blue rectangle. There are
5 exits where departing aircraft will leave. They are shown as
light-green brackets together with their names near the edges of
the radar display.
If the wind effect is on, a light-green wind direction
indicator will be displayed on the upper right corner of the
[1]The color specified here is for EGA/VGA and it will vary
depending on the graphics card.
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radar display showing the direction and speed in knots. Wind
speed is from 6 to 25 knots. To see the actual direction of the
wind in degrees, press <ESC><H><W> for help on wind.
You have to direct departing aircraft to take off, climb to
a certain altitude (at least 6,000 ft), to turn left or right so
that they fly towards their destinations (the 5 exits). You have
to direct arriving aircraft to descend to a certain altitude
(maximum 4,000 ft), to turn left or right so that they fly into
the approach area (rectangle), 'clear' them for approach and
clear them to land.
To prevent collisions, aircraft fly at heights at least one
thousand feet apart. When 2 aircraft are vertically separated by
less than 1000 ft. and horizontally less than approximately 0.5
inch on the radar display, a collision is likely and the
condition is called "near miss". The game ends when 2 aircraft
collide in midair.
A word about 'headings'
-----------------------
Flying is like sailing where direction is measured on a 360
degree basis. North is heading 0, east 90, south 180, west 270.
Therefore, if you direct an aircraft to turn right heading 135,
you tell it to fly south-east.
Runways are named by its heading in tenth's of degree.
Runway 09 is heading 90-99 east, runway 16 is heading 160-169
south south east. The reciprocal runways (takeoff and landing in
the opposite direction) are respectively runway 27 and 34.
Wind direction is measured from where it is blown. 180
degree wind means it is blowing from south towards north.
Flight Levels
-------------
Aircraft fly in heights measured in hundreds of feet called
flight levels. A flight level of 30 means 30 hundred feet or
3,000 feet. Throughout this game altitudes are measured in flight
levels and so are your altitude changing commands.
What is a Flight Progress Strip (FPS)
-------------------------------------
Air traffic controllers keep details about each aircraft on
strips of paper called flight progress strips (FPS). These FPS
are displayed on the right of the radar display in 2 sections,
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the upper half departures, lower half arrivals.
The FPS of each aircraft consists of 2 lines of data, e.g.
24X 747 XKL 580 09
120 140 16 60 135 100
24X is the identification of the aircraft. It is the 'call sign'
which you have to enter on each command.
747 is the aircraft type. In this game, there are 2 types of
aircraft by default: Boeing 747 and Cessna 182. 747 is the fast
jet which climbs and fly faster and 182 is the slower single
propeller plane. You can change the name and performance of these
aircraft and optionally add up to 2 aircraft of your own
specifications using the Aircraft Specification Editor, see
ASE.DOC
XKL is the name of the destination for departing aircraft. For
arriving aircraft, this field is blank. There are 5
destinations:
Name Radials (bearing from airport center)
---- -------
ELT 93
ECO 125
DVR 162
EDS 232
XKL 322
This field will show a light-red 'may' indicating May Day -
the callsign for emergency if the aircraft is in distress.
580 is the fuel indicator for the aircraft. 747 by default starts
off with 600 units of fuel and 182 with 400. They burn fuel while
waiting for departures as well as flying. They use more fuel
climbing and less descending. You should keep an eye on it. When
an aircraft runs out of fuel, the game is over!
09 is the runway indicator:
- when an aircraft is waiting for departure, either 09,16,27
or 34 will be seen showing it is waiting for take off at
that runway.
- when you clear an aircraft for take off, the indicator
becomes 09T etc. to show that the aircraft is rolling down
that runway.
- after take off, and for arriving aircraft in flight, this
field is blank.
- when you clear an arriving aircraft for approach, the
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indicator shows 09A etc.
- when an aircraft is cleared to land, the indicator becomes
09C etc.
120 is the heading that the aircraft is currently flying.
140 is the desired heading that you direct the plane to turn
towards. When the plane is not turning, this field is blank.
16 is the altitude in Flight Levels (hundreds of ft) that the
aircraft is currently flying (1,600 ft).
60 is the desired altitude you specified. When the plane is
flying level, this field is blank.
135 is the bearing of the plane from the airport center. This
plane is to the south-east of the airport. When the plane is
waiting on the ground, this field is blank.
100 is the distance of the plane from the airport. It is
approximately 95 units for the edges and 150 units for the
corners of the radar display.
Departure Example
-----------------
A beep is heard and you see on the departure section a FPS with
this entry: 24X 747 XKL 598 09
There are no aircraft around so you clear it for departure by
this command:
ATC : 24XT<CR>
Plane : "Two Four rolling"
The pilot replies in synthesized voice!
When the plane gets off the ground, you hear a beep and it
will be displayed on the radar by a circle and a line, indicating
its heading. In 3-dimensional display mode, a smaller brown
circle is seen below the aircraft. This is the shadow of the
aircraft on the ground. A data-tag will also be near it showing
its call sign, altitude and speed. The bearing of XKL from the
airport is 322. To fly to the exit XKL at 6,000 ft or above, you
issue the command:
ATC : 24X60L300
Plane : "Two Four climb to six zero left three zero zero"
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When you see that the bearing of the plane approaches 322,
you tell it to turn right heading 322. It will then fly directly
to XKL. If the wind effect is on, you have to adjust the heading
accordingly, otherwise the wind will 'drift' the aircraft away
from the destination.
ATC : 24XH322<CR>
Plane : "Two Four right three two two"
Note: There are 3 turning commands: L,R & H. L and R
explicitly tell an aircraft to turn left or right. The H command
tells an aircraft to make the smaller turn (less than 180
degrees) to take up the desired heading.
Arrival Example
---------------
You hear a beep and you see on the arrival section a FPS:
14C 182 396
65 90 245 158
A Cessna 182 at 9,000 ft is flying in from south-west. While
it is outside the radar display, you cannot 'control' it. When it
enters, you hear a beep and you enter this command to prepare it
to land using runway 09:
ATC : 14C40L40<CR>
Plane : "One Four descend to four zero left four zero"
The aim is to direct the plane to enter the approach
rectangle at 4,000 ft or below. You can only clear an aircraft
for approach while it is inside the rectangle. In 3-dimensional
display mode, while the brown circle is inside the rectangle. If
the wind effect is on and the altitude of the aircraft is within
the effect of the wind, you have to adjust the heading
accordingly. Otherwise, the wind will blow the aircraft away from
the approach rectangle.
ATC : 14CA<CR>
Plane : "One Four approach zero nine"
After you have cleared an aircraft for approach, it will
automatically turn left or right to align with the runway and
gently descend towards the ground using the Instrumental Landing
System (ILS) on board! Before it touches the ground, you have to
give landing clearance. Otherwise scores will be deducted.
10
ATC : 14CC<CR>
Plane : "One Four cleared to land"
Emergency Situations
--------------------
Occasionally, an emergency situation will arise. There are 4
types of situations will increasing severity:
Type 1: Electrical problem.
Effect : aircraft will dump fuel.
Action : descend to approach altitude and vector to nearest
approach rectangle.
Type 2: Hydraulic problem.
Effect : aircraft will dump fuel and reduce to Approach
Speed.
Action : descend to approach altitude and vector to nearest
approach rectangle.
Type 3: Rapid decompression.
Effect : aircraft will dump fuel, reduce speed and descend
to 1,000 ft.
Action : vector to nearest approach rectangle.
Type 4: Engine failure.
Effect : aircraft will dump fuel, reduce speed, descend to
1,000 ft. and will be unable to maintain heading.
Action : vector to nearest approach rectangle.
Other commands
--------------
There are commands for help, to quit the game, to change how
fast the game is played, to change sound level, to shell out to
DOS (so that your boss will not know!), to toggle between 2-
dimensional and 3-dimensional display, to save the game so that
it can be played again from exactly the same situation and to
toggle the wind effect. Press <ESC> at any time for the menu,
press <Q> to quit the game, <H> for help, <O> to jump to DOS, <D>
to change speed, <S> to change sound level, <3> to toggle 2-D/3-D
display, <V> to save the game and <W> to toggle wind effect
on/off.
The <ESC> is also used to pause the game. Just press a key
not assigned to any functions to resume playing.
11
Why paid & register?
--------------------
Many months of hard work have been spent on writing this
program. If you like this game, if you appreciate my work, please
send me a contribution. The copy of this program you received is
in a demonstration state limited to 5 aircraft for all skill
levels. It lets you evaluate if it is worth $20 or not. After
registration, you will be able to play as many as 22 aircraft in
level 5 and 6. See topic "Skill Level" below.
Registration is simple. Print & fill in REG.DOC and post it
together with a US$20 personal check, bank draft,money order or
cash payable to "Francis Yan Keung Leung" by air mail to
Francis Yan Keung Leung
38A Hillwood Road,
3/F Kowloon,
Hong Kong.
If you live outside USA or Canada please send me a bank
draft or money order of either US$20 payable in USA or HK$160
payable in Hong Kong. Alternatively, you can send me cash in US
dollars or Hong Kong dollars. The bank surcharges for a US dollar
check drawn outside US/Canada will kill my living! Cash should be
sent by registered mail as I shall not be held responsible for
any losses.
It normally takes 8 days for US Mail to arrive from the West
Coast and 12 days from the East Coast. Postage rate is 45 cents
as in April 1990. After I have received your form, I shall mail
you the password to be used with REG.EXE to register your own
copy of ATC.EXE and I don't have to send you another disk! If you
are a CompuServe user and you have supplied your User ID, I shall
send the password to you via E-mail. Otherwise I shall mail the
password to you. After registration, all the features of the game
will be available and the program will display your name and
address when you start the game. Each user will have his own
unique password.
Skill levels
------------
Level 1 : Trainee
- play 'at your own pace' from as slow as 9 seconds per tick
- no fuel restriction
- no exit restriction. Fly departing aircraft anywhere you
like to 'get the hang of ATCing'
- handle 6 aircraft generated at slower successions.
Level 2 : Cadet
12
- still no fuel restrictions
- now learn to fly aircraft to their destinations
- handle 10 aircraft.
Level 3 : Officer
- with full fuel & destination restrictions
- handle 14 aircraft generated at faster successions.
- wind effect is on by default.
Level 4 : Supervisor
- arriving aircraft may 'miss approach' due to poor weather
condition or poor technique of pilots. They are low on
fuel so you have to 'vector' them for another approach
as soon as possible.
- you may encounter emergency situations
- handle 18 aircraft
Level 5 : Chief
- handle 22 aircraft
- you cannot play slower than 5 seconds per tick
- exit name will not be shown on the display
- there will be more miss approaches and emergency
situations
Level 6 : Wiz
- meet the greatest challenge and handle 22 aircraft at a
busy airport.
- you can only play at either 1 or 2 seconds per tick
- new aircraft will be created every 28 ticks
- more miss approaches and emergency situations
Notes on Shelling to DOS
------------------------
At the start of the game, the program will check if you have
enough expanded memory available (about 189K) to swap the program
out when you shell to DOS, leaving only 4K of conventional memory
used up. If you don't have enough memory, the program will open a
hidden file SWAP.$$$ on your default disk and subdirectory. It
will be 189K big. If you don't have enough disk space, the
program will warn you and the program will jump to DOS without
swapping, using up 192K of conventional memory.
My advice to hackers
--------------------
There are no unbreakable protection scheme but please don't
waste your talent cracking my code. If you like this game, please
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support and pay. It is only $20!
Distribution Policy
-------------------
This software is distributed as Trialware = try before you
buy. You are given 30 times to try out this product. If you are
satisfied at the end of 30 times, please register. If you are not
satisfied, you should cease using it. You are free and encouraged
to distribute this program as widely as possible in its
unmodified form. You should not charge a fee more than the cost
of a floppy disk + postage and in case of Bulletin Boards, the
normal connected charges if present. Please help trialware by
uploading it to anywhere you think people are interested in.
Trialware can only survive and continue to produce quality
program at such a low price if the author does not have to spend
a lot of money on advertisement and there are many users who do
paid. Thank you in advance for your support!
License Agreement
-----------------
This program is supplied 'as is' without guarantee of any
kind. The author will not be liable for any losses or damages
consequential or coincidental to the use of this software.
This software is copyrighted under International Laws
applicable. You can only distribute the original trialware
version of the program in its original package (the ATCSIM.EXE)
freely. You cannot disassemble or reverse engineer the program or
modify it so as to enable the functions and features for
registered users. The only legal way to modify the program
ATC.EXE is by using REG.EXE to enter the password supplied from
registration and the ASE.EXE to modify the aircraft specification
data. ATC.EXE after registration will become your personal copy
and cease to be trialware. Distribution of registered personal
copy is a violation of applicable Copyright Laws. Registration
implies that you accept this license agreement.
Acknowledgement
---------------
The speech synthesizer module is by David Neal Dubois and
Michael Day and is available in CompuServe's Borland Programming
Forum A Library 2 as TALK.ZIP
14
The execswap module to swap most of the program to EMS or
hard disk during shell to DOS is by Kim Kokonen and is available
in Borland Programming Forum A Library 2 as EXECSW.ARC
This game has gone through 4 revisions in over half a year.
All enhancements were based upon invaluable suggestions from John
Galipault and Bob Kaputa of the Aviation Forum in CompuServe and
registered users Eric Branton and Tim Treaster. There will be no
major revision in a while as I shall not have time to change it
in the next 3 months SO PLEASE DISTRIBUTE.
I wish to thank those of you who have uploaded this game to
other information service and your local BBS, especially GEnie,
San Luis Obispo BBS, California, USA and Freeware BBS, Western
Australia where people have registered. I also wish to thank all
the software distributors who distribute my program, especially
Adams Software of Springdale Arizona and Houston Public
(Software) Library.
Revision History
----------------
Version 1.4B - April 21,1990
- there is a technical restriction in 386 and 486 which
causes the program to hang in these machines. Bugs fixed.
Version 1.4 - March 8,1990
- improved generation of emergency event for level 4 & 5.
- add support for CGA 320 x 200 x 4 colors mode.
- add level 6.
- aircraft speed up on descend and slow down on climbing.
- change altitude command & approach command simplified.
- add H command to take up heading.
- add optional second command line parameter to specify
graphics mode.
- allow you to break out of (to abort) an approach.
- in type 4 emergency (engine failure), the aircraft may
spin round and round, bug fixed.
- changed the demonstration state limitation to allow all 6
levels, shell to DOS, save game and use of the Aircraft
Specification Editor for a better evaluation. The only
limitation is program restricted to 5 aircraft for all
skill levels.
- unfortunately, the herc.bgi driver that supports Hercules
Incolor card was so 'buggy' that I've to removed it. If
you have an Incolor card, the program still runs but
there is no color, sorry.
Version 1.3 - November 24,1989
- add variable wind effects.
- add 4 types of emergency situations.
15
- allow the user to change speed in demo state for a better
evaluation.
- improved help screens divided into pages, added help on
Flight Progress Strips.
- add optional command line parameter to specify graphics
card because the autodetect function doesn't work on
some graphics card.
- remove all the .bgi graphics drivers from the .exe file to
save memory since only one driver is needed during
execution. More graphics card are now supported.
- circumvented a bug in the Hercules driver which causes
flickers during screen updates.
Version 1.2 - September 16, 1989
- add option to save/resume game.
- add 3-dimensional display.
- add Aircraft Specification Editor to change aircraft
performance data and optionally add 1 or 2 more
aircraft types.
- randomly use 1-4 runways.
Version 1.1 - August 1, 1989
- when the last active aircraft has landed/reached
destination, the program will go haywire and may hang
the system requiring reboot, bug fixed.
- an aircraft may repeatedly miss approach. The algorithm
has been rewritten so that it reflects the real
situation better.
Version 1.0 - July 21, 1989
- initial release.
16
Index
-----
Topic headings are found on the Table of Contents on page 2 and
are not included here.
3-dimensional display 9, 10
Aircraft types 8
Approach rectangle 6, 10
Command line parameter 5
Commands
turning 10
Data-tag 9
Distress indicator 8
Exit name and radials 8
Expanded memory 13
Graphics card 5
default mode 5
Miss approach 13
Near miss 7
Password 6, 12
Radar display 6
Restrictions
altitude 7
horizontal 7
Runways 6
Wind effect 9, 10
wind direction indicator 6
17