
                                 adv580.tgz
                          Game version C01.1 1987
                      Built using A-code engine 12.86
                         Build date 4 January 2022

 This package contains a Linux build of Mike Goetz's 580 point expansion of
 Adventure. The game (generally known as Adv580) is made available under
 GPL3 (or later) (see the supplied LICENCE file) and may be freely
 distributed and archived. This package contains a Linux build of Mike
 Goetz's 580 point expansion of Adventure.

 This being an A-code 12 build, it automatically has some features not
 provided by the game itself:

 * The game has a persistent state, which means that if the game process
   gets killed for whatever reason, once restarted, the game will be
   automatically resumed from where it was interrupted, unless a new game is
   requested by using the /n command line switch.

 * By default, the game will invoke a browser for its display and command
   interaction. Arrow keys can be used to recall and edit previous commands.
   However, you can still play in a console mode, if you prefer, by invoking
   the game with the -C switch. The console mode has a built in command
   editing functionality too -- the presence of the readline and ncurses
   libraries is no longer required.

 * The game has its home in the .acode/adv580 directory automatically
   created in your home directory. That is where it keeps save files.

 * The .acode directory within your home directory also contains the general
   A-code configuration file acode.conf which holds default settings for
   some aspects of the game. Please feel free to modify it as you wish. E.g.
   you may wish to remove the "Submit" botton as unnecessary, since commands
   can be submitted simply by pressing the ENTER key. To restore defaults,
   just delete the config file -- it will be regenerated automatically.

 The game is supplied as a simple executable, with no separate data file.
 This ought to work just fine, but if you discover that your machine is
 unable to cope with the executable in which the data file is already
 preloaded, drop me a line -- there are ways around that.

 If you wish to install a desktop icon for Adv580, I *think* the following
 is pretty universal on Linux these days: copy the supplied icon image
 adv580.png into your ~/.local/share/icons/, and then copy Adv580.desktop
 into your ~/Desktop directory. The desktop file expects the adv580
 executable to be in ~/.acode/adv580, so either make sure it is there, or
 edit the desktop file as required.

 If you prefer to play in the console mode, you can install an icon for that
 by using Adv580_Console.desktop and adv580_console.png (also supplied)
 instead of Adv580.desktop and adv580.png. As supplied, the desktop file
 uses KDE's konsole as the terminal emulator to be used. If another emulator
 is to be used, the .desktop file must be modified appropriately.

 If you do find any bugs, however small, please consult the Adv580 bug list
 https://www.mipmip.org/adv580/bugs.html and if appropriate, report the bug
 to me at mla@mipmip.org. For more A-code information, please visit my
 web-site:

                            https://mipmip.org/

 Hope you enjoy the game!

                                                               Mike Arnautov
                                                              mla@mipmip.org
                                                              4 January 2022

 __________________________________________________________________________

 Package contents:

 
  adv580                      Container directory
    adv580                    Game executable (Linux ia32)
    README.txt                This file
    Adv580.desktop            A desktop file to go into ~/Desktop/
    adv580.png                Adv580 icon to go into ~/.local/share/icons/
    Adv580_Console.desktop    A desktop file to go into ~/Desktop/
    adv580_console.png        Adv580 icon to go into ~/.local/share/icons/
 
 __________________________________________________________________________

 All relevant Adv580 and A-code sources can be found at https://mipmip.org.

 Console mode command line editing uses the GNU readline5 library. A source
 tarball of this can be also found at mipmip.org.

 __________________________________________________________________________

                    Game executable command line options
                                 A-code 12

 This document describes command line options available when running any
 A-code game built using A-code 12 engine. The behaviour of the game is
 generally regulated by the self-documented file acode.conf, which can be
 found in the acode directory, automatically created in player's home
 directory. Where command line options refer to particular aspects covered
 by the configuration file, they override the configuration file settings.

 Conventions:

 * Angle brackets <string> denote a symbolic string to be replaced by
   something appropriate. E.g. <filename> is to be replaced by a file
   name (with no surrounding angle brackets).

 * Square brackets [ ] denote something optional. So e.g.
   -l[<log_file>] means that the name of the log file may be omitted.

 * Braces { } denote a list of permissible values, separated by vertical
   bars |. E.g. -b[{0|1|2}] means the -b may be optionally (square
   brackets!) followed by one of the three digits zero,one or two.

 * Where a value can be specified with a command line option, the syntax
   shown is that of the value abutting directly to the option specification
   letter. However, an equality sign = can be placed between the two, so
   that -b0 is equivalent to -b=0.

 * Some options can have either word or numerical values; the two styles are
   shown on two separate lines and are exactly equivalent.

 * Options *cannot* be concatenated. E.g. you cannot abbreviate -C -n as
   -Cn.

 The following command line options are valid for both the browser and the
 console display modes:

 -n
   Force a new game. By default, if a previous game session got somehow
   forcibly interrupted (e.g. by the game process being killed for whatever
   reason), the interrupted session is automatically resumed when the game
   is restarted. The -n option overrides this behaviour and forces the
   interrupted session to be forgotten.

 -b[{no|yes|all}]
 -b[{0|1|2}]
   Set or invert the blank line setting. If set to zero blank lines are
   inserted before and after each prompt. If the value is 1, blank lines
   around '?' prompts are suppressed, resulting in a more compact display.
   If the value is 2, then ALL blank lines are suppressed, for
   super-compact, but less readable output. If no value is specified, the
   new setting is 0 or 1, inverting the A-code default for this game. In
   old-style A-code (Adv550), which does not distinguish between replies to
   queries and general commands, this only affects presence/absence of a
   blank line after the prompt line, and never before it.

 [-r]<dumpfile>
   Restore game from dump. Ignored if the game does not support game dump
   files being specified on the command line. The -r optional in that any
   command line argument which does not begin with a dash will be
   interpreted as the name of the dumpfile to restore on invocation.

 -l[<logfile>]
   Log the game. Specifies the file into which a session log is to be
   written. The log is human-readable, but has some additional features
   allowing it to be used subsequently for replaying the session. If the
   nominated logfile already exists, it gets appended to. If no logfile is
   specified the name of the game is used, suffixed with .log.

 -u{off|on|none}
 -u{0|1|none}
   Set the initial state of undo-history collection. Ignored if the game
   does not support undo. If the value is zero, the default undo status is
   OFF. If the value is one, the default undo status is ON. The "none" state
   implies OFF and disallows undo functionality being subsequently switched
   on from within the game. The default state is ON for games which define
   the verb UNDO, and "none" otherwise.

 -B[<browser>]
   Force browser-based display, optionally nominating a particular browser.
   Browsers can be specified by their pathname, or by their name.

 -C
   Force console display, i.e. do not use the browser interface.

 -v
   Show the game, kernel and acdc version numbers and exit.

 -h
   Print command line usage summary.

 The following options are only meaningful in the console display mode, and
 therefore force the console mode even if the -B option is used.

 -o<baudrate>
   Set the output speed as specified by the argument. This option forces
   "dumb" mode console display (i.e. with no command editing) even if the
   browser display is explicitly requested via the -B option. Baud rate is
   specified in bits per second, and taking into the account control and
   parity bits, the output speed in characters per second is simply the baud
   rate divided by 10. The game coerces the specified baud rate to the
   nearest lower standard value (one of 110, 300, 600, 1200, 2400, 4800 and
   9600), except that anything below 110 (the speed of a teletype) is also
   treated as 110. The default value is 300 -- the speed of a DECwriter.
   Note, however, that under DOS and Windows any baud rate above 600 results
   in no slowdown at all.

 -j[{off|on}]
 -j[{0|1}]
   Set text mode to wrap (0) or justify (1). If no value is specified,
   invert the default A-code setting for this game. In wrap mode, text is
   simply broken into lines according to the screen width (see the -s option
   below). With justification turned on, each line is right-justified. All
   of this presupposes a fixed font being in use. For variable font devices,
   which tend to do their own wrapping, the default screen width should be
   set to zero, meaning "infinite", and the margin should be specified as
   zero too. If no value is supplied, the effect is to invert the game's
   default setting. This option is ignored by games written in the "old
   style" A-code (i.e. by adv550).

 -s<W>.<H>[.<M>]
   Set screen size (width in fixed font characters, height in lines, and
   margin in fixed font blanks). The default screen dimension is 80x24-1,
   the margin being set to 1 character. The -s option allows a different
   screen size (and optionally margin) to be specified. Screen width of zero
   means "infinite" width. Note that the line length cannot be set to less
   than 16 characters and the minimal number of lines per screen is 5.

 -p[{off|on}]
 -p[{0|1}]
   Pause on exit. Requests that after printing the final exit message the
   game should prompt the player for a <CR>, before exiting. This feature is
   intended for players who wish to play console version of the game, in a
   window which closes as soon as the game exits.

 The functionality of the -s, -u and -j options is also provided via kernel
 hooks (see procedure special() in the kernel source file adv00.c), so that
 the game may -- at author's discretion -- offer the player commands for
 toggling the justification switch, switching on and off the change history,
 and altering screen size and margin.

 Any unknown or suppressed keywords are quietly ignored.

                                                               Mike Arnautov
                                                              mla@mipmip.org
                                                              4 January 2022

 __________________________________________________________________________
