Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!apple!shebs
From: shebs@Apple.COM (Stan Shebs)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.games.bugs
Subject: Re: Does Stanley Shebs exist? (was Re: xconq docs)
Message-ID: <9835@goofy.Apple.COM>
Date: 20 Aug 90 17:57:43 GMT
References: <1990Aug14.202517.12939@viewlogic.com> <7575@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> <15341@reed.UUCP>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 27

(Geez, I go on my honeymoon for two weeks and come back to doubts about my
existence!)

Hi everybody, this is the authentic Stan Shebs, who is (mostly) responsible
for xconq versions up to 5.1, which was released July 88.  I don't know very
much about 5.3, not even who did it (somebody at DEC?).  It seems like there
were a number of gratuitous changes (personally, I think changing file formats
without providing a conversion program deserves bamboo slivers under the
fingernails).  5.2 never happened - basically I got my PhD from Utah one week
after 5.1 came out, went to work for Apple, and haven't spent much time on
xconq since.  I was working on a truly distributed xconq, and it sort of
worked, but the bugs were very deep and very serious, and prompted me to work
on an entirely new game architecture that's better suited for distributed
games.  Eventually I should be able to use it to build a new game that plays
like xconq, although probably sharing very little code with the existing
program.  (Sorry, but it's not yet to a point where I can discuss it in any
greater detail.)

So, the situation is that I'm out of the picture, and somebody else needs to
step in, take charge, and release a version of xconq (5.4 presumably) that
fixes all the bugs and incorporates the improvements that have come along
in the past two years.  So far I've had lots of volunteers, but no one has
yet followed through and actually produced a new release of xconq.  :-(

						stan shebs
						Apple ATG System Software
						shebs@apple.com