
                                 adv550.zip
                      Game version September 18, 1984
                      Built using A-code engine 12.87
                          Build date 11 March 2022

 This package contains an MSDOS build of Dave Platt's 550 point expansion of
 Adventure. The game (generally known as Adv550) 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 Dave
 Platt's 550 point expansion of Adventure.

 Please note: this is an MSDOS build, not a Windows one. It is known to work
 in a DOS prompt or CMD window on Win98, WinXP, Vista and various DOS
 emulators (e.g. DOSBOX). It is known *not* to work on Windows7 and later --
 please use a Windows build instead. In any case, the Windows build will
 also work on Win98, WinXP and Vista and is much preferable even if run in
 the console mode because, unlike the DOS build, it permits command recall
 and editing.

 Contents:

 
    adv550          Container folder
       README.txt     This file
       LICENCE.txt    Licence file
       adv550.exe      Game executable
       adv550.dat      Game text data file; should live in the
                      same place as the executable
       cswdpmi.exe    DOS memory extender, which you may
                      or may not need -- see below.
 
 You will only need the DOS memory extender if you intend to run the game on
 a pure DOS machine, real or virtual (e.g. runnig DOSBOX on a tablet). The
 simple presence of CWSDPMI.EXE alongside the game's executable may be
 sufficient in such circumstances, but if not, try running CWSDPMI as
 "CWSDPMI -p -s-" before running the game itself. The extender is not
 required for running in a DOS/CMD window on a Windows machine.

 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.

 * The game has its home in the ACODE\ADV550 folder automatically created in
   your home folder. On pure DOS machines (real or virtual) it'll be in your
   current folder. That is where it is going to write save files and also
   where it is going to look for old saves. If you have any games saved by
   an older version, you may need to move them over to this new game folder.

 * The .acode folder in your home folder now also contains the DOS-mode
   A-code configuration file acode.cfg which contains default settings for
   some aspects of the game. Please feel free to modify it as you wish. To
   restore defaults simply delet the file and it will be re-created
   automatically. For more A-code information, please visit my web-site:

                            https://mipmip.org/

 Hope you enjoy the game!

                                                               Mike Arnautov
                                                              mla@mipmip.org
                                                               11 March 2022

____________________________________________________________________________

 All relevant Adv550 and A-code sources can be found at https://mipmip.org.

 The CWSDPMI memory extender was created by CW Sandmann and its source can
 be obtained from http://homer.rice.edu/~sandmann/cwsdpmi/index.html.

____________________________________________________________________________

                    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.

 /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.

 /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
                                                               11 March 2022

____________________________________________________________________________
