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ASCII text
— 6K bytes
— 1991-06-08
D R I V E I F F
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lattice C V5.0 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DriveIFF is basically another driving simulator, yes, I know
how common these are, so deduct 10 points now if you wish!
But where driveIFF falls down as an over exploited idea it
makes up with its ability to incorporate IFF picture files
as the courses you race over. The advantage is that you
bypass all of those classic restrictions such as compromised
speed for detail and track editors that limit you to using
bits of geometrical road and genetically identical trees.
Loading Instructions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Due to heavy memory requirements driveIFF cannot be loaded
from the Workbench unless you have at least 1 megabyte of
RAM. For those with a memory expansion, simply double-click
on the driveIFF icon. However, those with a 512K machine
should follow the below steps which make the program
executable upon boot-up.
------------------------------------------------------------
1) Load Workbench and format a fresh disk (called "Empty").
2) Double-click on "Empty" to open its window.
3) Insert the coverdisk and double-click on its icon.
4) Drag the driveIFF drawer from the coverdisk window to the
"Empty" window and obey requests as the files are copied.
5) Insert the Workbench disk and open its window, then
double-click on the "Shell" icon and type...
makedir Empty:s
copy * Empty:s/startup-sequence
driveIFF/driveIFF
[ctrl] \
All that is left to do is reset the computer and insert
"Empty" (which you may wish to relabel) into DF0:
------------------------------------------------------------
CLI users must make sure that the driveIFF drawer is in the
current directory when invoking the program so that the
support files "driveIFF.dash" and "audio.dat" can be found.
Eg: If the coverdisk is in the external drive DF1: type...
cd df1:driveIFF
driveIFF
Also, an IFF filename can be supplied as an argument...
driveIFF AnyOldPic
Playing Instructions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DriveIFF uses icons for input. Left to right they are...
1) Loading icon.
Lets you load an IFF picture file as a track.
Initially, click on the "Show Devices" heading. Then
click on the appropriate device (DF0: RAM: etc). The
program will search the path (displayed at the top)
looking for directories and IFF picture files. If none
are found the display will go blank. To load an IFF file
or search further subdirectories, click on the
appropriate item.
2) Track Editor icon.
Presents 2 bar graphs, each allowing for its bars to be
re-sized via the mouse while the left button is down.
Each of the 8 bars relate to a colour on the track. Low
bar values represent low ground level and slight
inertia, while high values represent high ground level
and strong inertia.
4) Drive icon.
Returns you back to driving mode. Control of the car is
by joystick. Left and right will turn the vehicle while
forward/back will accelerate/brake - reverse.
5) Timer icon.
Activates the stopwatch. Your current position will be
marked by a grid which will also be the finishing point
to end the race. Accelerate to start the clock. If the
time taken to complete the race was faster than the
record (shown on the right hand side) it will be
acknowledged and the record updated. Failure is not
rewarded! If at any time you wish to stop the clock,
just click on this icon again.
6) Home icon.
Returns your vehicle to the centre of the track.
7) Exit icon.
Leaves the program.
THE MAP: On the left of the screen is a VDU showing a
condensed version of the IFF picture. On it will be
a small flashing "blip" indicating your position.
DIRECTION: Near the centre is a square with 4 arrows in the
corners along with 4 lights which flash in
relation to your bearing. Eg: the left light
will be on if you are facing east.
Tips
~~~~
You'll soon find out that you can explore outside the
boundaries of the track into some wierd land where roads
lead to nowhere and the ground changes. Don't fret, all
you're looking at is the Amiga's memory contents. Yes, a
monitor program you can drive through too! Be warned though,
driving here can crash the machine.
DriveIFF can only display 8 colour files, so those using
more might look strange when loaded. If so, you can reduce
the palette by replacing similar colours with a compromised
colour (red, orange, yellow, compromise = orange) thus
allowing, say a 16 colour file to be reduced to 8. Deluxe
Paint owners can use the stencil function to perform this...
1) Access the Effects menu, select Stencil->Make then decide
which colours can be replaced by one. Lock (select) all
OTHER colours then click on "make" to return.
2) Access the palette, decide which of these similar colours
makes the best compromise then turn the others black.
3) Select the compromised colour and paste a filled box over
the whole screen.
4) Repeat from 1 until the picture uses only 8 colours.
These further steps must be taken on remaining colours that
do not lie in the first 8 palette boxes (first left column).
5) Copy the colour into one of the first 8 palette boxes.
6) Access Stencil->Make and lock all except these two
identical colours then click on "make".
7) Select the copy then paste a filled box over the screen.
8) Access the palette and turn the original colour black.
9) Repeat from 5 until all 8 colours fill the first column.
10) Convert the screen format to 8 colours and re-save your
picture as something new.
Distribution
~~~~~~~~~~~~
DriveIFF is _____ware (affix letters where necessary).
Needless to say, you can act on this as you wish. All I ask
is that the files remain intact and that no charges are made
for its distribution.
Correspondence of any nature warmly welcomed.
Jonathan Harris
2 Leigh Road
Walsall
West Mids
WS4 2DS
England 21 March 1991