mirror of
https://git.zap.org.au/git/trader.git
synced 2024-09-01 17:14:15 -04:00
272 lines
10 KiB
Groff
272 lines
10 KiB
Groff
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.\" * *
|
|
.\" * Star Traders: A Game of Interstellar Trading *
|
|
.\" * Copyright (C) 1990-2014, John Zaitseff *
|
|
.\" * *
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.\"
|
|
.\" Author: John Zaitseff <J.Zaitseff@zap.org.au>
|
|
.\" $Id$
|
|
.\"
|
|
.\" This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
|
|
.\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
|
|
.\" the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at
|
|
.\" your option) any later version.
|
|
.\"
|
|
.\" This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
|
|
.\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
|
|
.\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
|
|
.\" General Public License for more details.
|
|
.\"
|
|
.\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
|
|
.\" along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
|
|
.\"
|
|
.\"
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.\" Various macros
|
|
.\"
|
|
.\" Allow hyphenation
|
|
.hy 14
|
|
.\"
|
|
.\" Define .URL, .MTO and .FTP, then try to load the www.tmac version
|
|
.de URL
|
|
\\$2 \(la\\$1\(ra\\$3
|
|
..
|
|
.de MTO
|
|
\\$2 \(la\\$1\(ra\\$3
|
|
..
|
|
.de FTP
|
|
\\$2 \(la\\$1\(ra\\$3
|
|
..
|
|
.if \n[.g] .mso www.tmac
|
|
.\"
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.TH TRADER 6 "22nd May, 2014" "Unix-like systems"
|
|
.SH NAME
|
|
trader \- a game of interstellar trading
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.SH SYNOPSIS
|
|
.B trader
|
|
.RB [ \-\-no\-color | \-\-no\-colour ]
|
|
.RB [ \-\-max\-turn=\c
|
|
.IR NUM ]
|
|
.RI [ GAME ]
|
|
.br
|
|
.B trader
|
|
.RB [ \-h | \-\-help ]
|
|
.RB [ \-V | \-\-version ]
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.SH DESCRIPTION
|
|
\fBStar Traders\fR is a simple game of interstellar trading, where the
|
|
objective is to create companies, buy and sell shares, borrow and repay
|
|
money, in order to become the wealthiest player (the winner).
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.SH OPTIONS
|
|
.TP
|
|
.I GAME
|
|
If \fIGAME\fR is specified as a number between \fB1\fR and \fB9\fR
|
|
(inclusive), load and continue playing that game. If \fIGAME\fR is not
|
|
specified, start a new game.
|
|
.TP
|
|
.BR \-\-no\-color ", " \-\-no\-colour
|
|
Don't use colour for displaying the text in the game. Use this option
|
|
for a \*(lqretro-computing\*(rq look (as shown in the
|
|
.B EXAMPLES
|
|
below).
|
|
.TP
|
|
.BI \-\-max\-turn= NUM
|
|
Set the number of turns in the game to \fINUM\fR. In this version of
|
|
Star Traders, \fINUM\fR must be greater or equal to 10. If this option
|
|
is not specified, the default is 50 turns.
|
|
.TP
|
|
.BR \-h ", " \-\-help
|
|
Show a summary of command-line options and exit.
|
|
.TP
|
|
.BR \-V ", " \-\-version
|
|
Display version information about the program, then exit.
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.SH "EXIT STATUS"
|
|
.TP
|
|
.B 0
|
|
Star Traders finished without any errors.
|
|
.TP
|
|
.B 1
|
|
Star Traders encountered an unrecoverable problem or error; a diagnostic
|
|
message will be written to standard error in this case.
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.SH EXAMPLES
|
|
You can start a new game by running Star Traders without any command line
|
|
options:
|
|
.RS
|
|
.sp
|
|
.B trader
|
|
.sp
|
|
.RE
|
|
Once the game starts, you will be asked to enter the number of people
|
|
playing. From one to eight people can play (although, in this version,
|
|
they will all have to share the one keyboard and screen!). After
|
|
entering the names of the players, you will have the opportunity to read
|
|
instructions on how to play the game. Do so\(emand good luck in the
|
|
game!
|
|
.PP
|
|
If you would like to continue a previously-saved game, simply specify
|
|
that game number on the command line. For example, the following starts
|
|
game 4, if it was previously saved:
|
|
.RS
|
|
.sp
|
|
.B trader 4
|
|
.sp
|
|
.RE
|
|
If you are running under the X Window System, you might like to start the
|
|
game in a dedicated
|
|
.BR xterm (1)
|
|
window (typed all on one line):
|
|
.RS
|
|
.sp
|
|
.nh
|
|
.na
|
|
.B "xterm \-g 80x24 \-fa Mono \-fs 18 \-bg black \-fg white \-bc +sb +fbx \-e trader &"
|
|
.ad
|
|
.hy 14
|
|
.sp
|
|
.RE
|
|
If you would like a full \*(lqretro-computing\*(rq green-screen
|
|
experience, try (again, typed all on one line):
|
|
.RS
|
|
.sp
|
|
.nh
|
|
.na
|
|
.B "xterm \-g 80x24 \-fa Mono \-fs 18 \-bg black \-fg '#009911' \-bc +sb +bdc +fbx \-xrm 'XTerm*colorBD: #00FF00' \-e trader \-\-no\-colour &"
|
|
.ad
|
|
.hy 14
|
|
.sp
|
|
.RE
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.SH ENVIRONMENT
|
|
.TP
|
|
.BR LINES ", " COLUMNS
|
|
Star Traders uses the Curses library for displaying text on the screen.
|
|
As such, it will access these two environment variables if the underlying
|
|
Curses library does so (see, for example, the \fBENVIRONMENT\fR section
|
|
in the
|
|
.BR ncurses (3)
|
|
manual page for in-depth details). It requires a text console or window
|
|
of at least 80\(mu24 in size.
|
|
.TP
|
|
.BR LANG ", " LC_ALL ", etc."
|
|
This version of Star Traders has full support for locales and will use
|
|
appropriate settings. In particular, messages will be displayed using
|
|
\fBLC_MESSAGES\fR and \fBLANGUAGE\fR (if Star Traders has been translated
|
|
into that language). In addition, numeric quantities will be displayed
|
|
using \fBLC_NUMERIC\fR and monetary quantities will use
|
|
\fBLC_MONETARY\fR. See the
|
|
.BR locale (7)
|
|
or
|
|
.BR setlocale (3)
|
|
manual pages for more details on locale settings.
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.SH FILES
|
|
.TP
|
|
.IB \(ti/.trader/game N
|
|
Star Traders stores saved game files in the \fI.trader\fR subdirectory in
|
|
your home directory. \fIN\fR is a number between \fB1\fR and \fB9\fR
|
|
inclusive. The game file is scrambled to prevent you or others from
|
|
casually cheating!
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.SH BUGS
|
|
None yet known...
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.SH FEEDBACK
|
|
Your comments, suggestions, corrections and enhancements are always
|
|
warmly welcomed! Please send these to:
|
|
.IP Postal: 10n
|
|
\fBJohn Zaitseff\fR,
|
|
.br
|
|
The ZAP Group,
|
|
.br
|
|
Unit 6, 116 Woodburn Road,
|
|
.br
|
|
Berala, NSW, 2141,
|
|
.br
|
|
Australia
|
|
.IP E-mail: 10n
|
|
.MTO J.Zaitseff@zap.org.au
|
|
.PD 0
|
|
.IP Web: 10n
|
|
.URL http://www.zap.org.au/software/trader/
|
|
.IP FTP: 10n
|
|
.FTP ftp://ftp.zap.org.au/pub/trader/
|
|
.PD
|
|
.PP
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.SH COPYRIGHT
|
|
Copyright \(co 1990\-2014, John Zaitseff.
|
|
.PP
|
|
\fBStar Traders\fR is free software that is distributed under the terms
|
|
of the GNU General Public License. You can redistribute it and/or modify
|
|
it under the terms of that License as published by the Free Software
|
|
Foundation, either version 3 or (at your option) any later version.
|
|
.PP
|
|
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
|
|
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
|
|
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General
|
|
Public License for more details.
|
|
.PP
|
|
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
|
|
with this program. If not, see the
|
|
.URL http://www.gnu.org/licenses/ "GNU licenses web page" .
|
|
.PP
|
|
Even though the GNU General Public License does \fInot\fR require you to
|
|
send your modifications back to the author, it is considered \*(lqgood
|
|
form\*(rq to do so, as this allows your modifications to be incorporated
|
|
into future versions of the program, allowing others to benefit from
|
|
them.
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.SH HISTORY
|
|
The original (and very primitive) Star Traders game was written by
|
|
S.\~J\. Singer in 1984 using Altair Basic. This was modified for
|
|
Microsoft Basic (MBASIC) running under the CP/M-80 operating system by
|
|
John Zaitseff and released on 7th March, 1988.
|
|
.PP
|
|
Star Traders was then completely rewritten in 1990 for the
|
|
Australian-designed 8-bit MicroBee computer running CP/M-80 on a Zilog
|
|
Z80 processor, using Turbo Pascal 3.01a. Essentially, only the name of
|
|
the game and some of the ideas were retained in this version. Version
|
|
4.1 of Star Traders was released on 1st August, 1991.
|
|
.PP
|
|
In 1992, it was recompiled for the NEC Advanced Personal Computer (with
|
|
8-inch floppy drives!) running CP/M-86 on an 8086 processor, using Turbo
|
|
Pascal 2.0. This version had colour added to it in the form of ANSI
|
|
escape sequences; version 4.4 was released on 2nd August, 1993.
|
|
.PP
|
|
The next version came in 1993, when the program was recompiled to run on
|
|
IBM-compatible machines running MS-DOS and ANSI.SYS. Turbo Pascal 6.0
|
|
was used for this. The ANSI escape sequences were slightly different
|
|
under MS-DOS than under the NEC, in that the NEC supported a number of
|
|
extra character attributes. In other words, the MS-DOS version looked
|
|
worse than the one running under CP/M-86!
|
|
.PP
|
|
Star Traders was recompiled again in 1994 for IBM-compatible machines
|
|
with VGA/EGA/CGA video graphics adapters. The output routines were
|
|
recoded to use a \*(lqwindowed\*(rq look. Borland Pascal 7.0 was used
|
|
for this purpose, along with a number of text window manipulation
|
|
modules. Version 5.4 was released on 1st June, 1994.
|
|
.PP
|
|
In 1995, Star Traders was completely rewritten for the 16-bit Microsoft
|
|
Windows 3.1 graphical environment. Microsoft Visual Basic 3.0 was used
|
|
for this purpose. Although completely rewritten, the original algorithms
|
|
were reused from previous versions. Version 6.0 of the game was released
|
|
on 15th September, 1995.
|
|
.PP
|
|
Star Traders was then to languish until almost 16 years later... when the
|
|
game was rewritten once again, this time in the C programming language.
|
|
Version 7.0 was released on 25th July, 2011 for Unix-like operating
|
|
systems such as Linux, with subsequent releases to add features and
|
|
correct bugs. Now you, too, can run this small piece of computing
|
|
history!
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.SH "SEE ALSO"
|
|
.URL http://www.zap.org.au/software/trader/ "Star Traders home page"
|
|
.\" *********************************************************************
|
|
.\" End of file
|