Greetings, all. Long time no....well, not much of anything. Glad to
see most of the old names are still around, though I'm sure that for
many, hairlines have receded in inverse proportions to our waistlines'
increase...

'Twas a few months back that I introduced my daughter to that grandaddy
of all computer games, Adventure, aka The Colossal Cave. That
experience inspired me to resurrect the Pick version of same that I'd
hacked on some 20-odd years ago while I was at CDI (and which actually
got distributed for a few years as part of their standard Pick port on
the IBM Series/1). This was all just entirely for fun and a stroll back
down memory lane - both of Adventure itself, as well as my earlier days
in Pick. The result of that ressurrection is available for download as
a very small (40k) .zip file at:

http://www.farfalle.com/downloads

I've tried hard to package the programs and data involved in this so
it's easy to install, run, and uninstall, all with minimal fuss. I'm
calling this version 0.90 and labeling it Beta, since I've got a
limited number of platforms available to test it on here. (FWIW, I know
it works on D3 and mvEnterprise, and when compiled on a Pick-flavor
account on U2. I'd appreciate hearing about experience getting it going
on other platforms.) Any feedback on the packaging or setup, or of
course reports of any bugs you find, is welcomed. (For gameplay hints,
though, Google is your friend, not me.)

The Readme.1st text with install instructions is copied below; it's
also in the zip file. Enjoy.

cheers,
David Ruggiero
Seattle, WA

-------------------------------
README file for Pick ADVENTURE
v0.9 4/12/2006


Ultra-simple setup instructions

1) Unzip the programs/data into a Pick program file named ADVENT.BP.
(There should be 14 items in all).

2) Copy the proc ADVENT.SETUP from this file to the account MD and run
it. It creates the ADVENT.MASTER file, compiles and catalogs the game
programs, and unpacks the text data. Look for any on-screen errors,
just in case.

3) You're done. Type ADVENTURE at TCL to get the game menu.


Notes:

1) The game should in theory work on any Pick-style system. It's been
tested under D3 and mvEnterprise, and on Universe as well (though it
almost certainly requires a Pick-flavor account or Pickish compile-time
option there due to the use of COMMON overlays in the code). Anyone
able to try it under other systems is welcome to - I'd ideally like to
have only one universal package that works for all, and I'm happy to
make changes to accommodate all platforms working at once.

2) Less than 350K of disk space should be needed for a complete
install. Only one file (ADVENT.MASTER) is created, and only one MD item
(ADVENTURE)is added besides the catalog program pointers. No other
changes to any existing accounts or file are made. If you later want to
delete everything without a trace, just:

DECATALOG ADVENT.BP *
DELETE-FILE ADVENT.BP
DELETE-FILE ADVENT.MASTER
DELETE MD ADVENTURE ADVENT.SETUP

3) caveat: NO part of the program(s) included here should be taken as
an example of how to properly code Pick BASIC in any way, shape, or
form - in fact, the opposite is more likely true. Remember that this
beastie started as 1970's-era FORTRAN, was translated pretty literally
by person or persons unknown into Pick BASIC, then passed through who
knows how many other hands before it got to me in 1985 at CDI, at which
point I did some "lipstick on a pig" cleanups and streamlining
(including encrypting the text against prying eyes), but left
everything else pretty much as-is. I'm certain it could be cut in half
with some hard staring and targeted changes in data structures, but
everything there now is _way_ too convoluted and fragile for me to even
think about doing that. I'd suggest just treating it as a black box;
you're fine as long as you don't open the hood too far.

Problems? Questions? Fixes? Email: <jdavid /at/ farfalle /dot/ com>

Wow! A trip down memory lane indeed! I got hooked on that game many years
ago (about 1976 or 77) on the Fortran version by Woods and Crowther running
on a PDP-10 or PDP-11. I am, of course, an Adventurer Grand Master having
found and picked up all treasures and deposited them in the Spring House,
avoided all dwarves with sharp weapons, found my way through the two mazes
and having ended the game properly (Total possible score = 350, of which I
got all 350 points).

XYZZY

-Bruce H

Hi David
Memories indeed. Unfortunately www.farfelle.com does not exist according to
IE. Is it spelt correctly. We look forward to seeing it especially as I
never got the 350.
Regards
Peter McMurray
"David Ruggiero" <thatseattleguy (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote

David Ruggiero wrote:
<snip>

David,

Wow. Thanks for posting this. You know, OSS still ships this (without
source or attribution) in a GAMES account on their UltPlus SYSGEN tapes.

I was able to get this working on UltPlus without drama. Here's what I did:

1. The CREATE-FILE syntax in the setup MD needed to be changed to
specify MOD and SEP (CREATE-FILE ADVENT.MASTER 1,1 5,1) then
(CREATE-FILE DATA ADVENT.MASTER,SAVED.ADVENTURES 5,1)

2. Had to change ADVENT.BP ADVENT.INIT line 75. FROM is a reserved
word. Changed it to FROMLOC. The only references to this variable I
found and changed were in ADVENT.BP ADVENTURES.

3. ADVENT.BP ADVFATAL uses ERRTEXT as an array name. Changed this to
ERRORTEXT as ERRTEXT is reserved.

4. Changed in MD (and ADVENT.BP) ADVENTURE, (-13) to (-19) for reverse
video and (-14) to (-20) for normal.

That's it. Interestingly, in either this version or the one shipped
with UltPlus, if you TAKE more items than are available you get an array
subscript out of range error. I remember it doing this on Ultimate
rev182 circa 1988 too.

Steve Lancour

Hi again
Please ignore message . FIREWALLS sometimes feed bad info.
Regards
Peter McMurray
"Excalibur" <excalibur21 (AT) bigpond (DOT) com> wrote

Here's where I found the download at:

http://www.farfalle.com/download/

Almost right.

Larry Hazel

Steve Lancour wrote:
Steve:

Thanks for being the first to check it out. I'd no idea other platforms
had so many reserved words ("FROM" I understand, but "ERRTEXT"?) I'll
probably make changes 1-3 in the source, though, just to increase
portability.

Example?

-david-

Sorry to all who tried to download earlier today (and failed) for my
httpd.conf fat-fingering mistake. For the record, either of:

http://www.farfalle.com/downloads.html
or
http://www.farfalle.com/downloads (the original URL)

should now work. Thanks.

-David-

David Ruggiero wrote:
David,

Hi. Here's one example where I try TAKE as my first response, before
there's anything at all to take:

Welcome to Adventure. Would you like instructions?
N

You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building.
Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and
down a gully.

TAKE

[B17] Line 406 Array subscript out of range: 0

A ADVENT.BP ADVENTURES, Line # 406
*L
406 8010:IF NOT(ATLOC(LOC))&LINK(ATLOC(LOC)) THEN GOTO 8000
*/LOC->1=
*/ATLOC(1)->0=

.... and another one where there are four items and I try to TAKE five.

Welcome to Adventure. Would you like instructions?
N

You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building.
Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and
down a gully.

BUILDING

You are inside a building, a well house for a large spring.
There are some keys on the ground here.
There is a shiny brass lamp nearby.
There is food here.
There is a bottle of water here.

TAKE

Ok.

TAKE

Ok.

TAKE

Ok.

TAKE

Ok.

TAKE

[B17] Line 406 Array subscript out of range: 0
A ADVENT.BP ADVENTURES, Line # 406
*L
406 8010:IF NOT(ATLOC(LOC))&LINK(ATLOC(LOC)) THEN GOTO 8000
*/LOC->3=
*/ATLOC(3)->0=

This is a lot more fun than the stuff I'm supposed to be working on.

Steve Lancour

Steve Lancour wrote:
TAKE should (and in the original FORTRAN, does) require an object - you
have to specify the object of the TAKE every time. Otherwise it's
ambiguous what you're getting.

Simply changing the first label on line 266 of ADVENTURES from 8010 to
8000 will fix this problem and prevent the blowup.

thanks, David