Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!super!udel!rochester!rutgers!mailrus!uflorida!haven!cvl!eneevax!smaug From: smaug@eneevax.UUCP (Kurt Lidl) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Games That Multitask Summary: Pseudo-Multitasking... Keywords: Ram:, ram:, RAM:, multi-tasking, Battle Chess Message-ID: <1926@eneevax.UUCP> Date: 13 Dec 88 18:25:45 GMT References: <1044@hub.ucsb.edu> <2746@ukecc.engr.uky.edu> Reply-To: smaug@eneevax.umd.edu.UUCP (Kurt Lidl) Organization: University of Merryland, EE Computer Staff Lines: 69 In <2746@ukecc.engr.uky.edu> agollum@engr.uky.edu (Kenneth Herron) says: >In episode <1044@hub.ucsb.edu>, we >heard hbo@sbphy.ucsb.edu (Howard B. Owen) say: >> Let me add Empire to the above list. A very Amiga-friendly effort that. >>It multitasks just fine, and you can install it on your hard disk. >> So, what other games besides the ones we've mentioned are good Amiga >>citizens? >_Mean 18_, the Golf game, multitasks just fine. Its course builder >does too, though they won't work together for some reason... >Minor problem: Neither program provides screen front/back gadgets so >you need something like Dmouse to flip screens. >_Pioneer Plague_ will run off a RAMdisk or coexist with something like >Facc, though I haven't been able to get back to the Workbench screen >after starting it up (and it really doesn't like the Dmouse left button- >right button combo). With the advent of the greatest little utility program in existance (Dmouse!), things are now possible that were not possible before. For example, you can get pseudo-multitasking under Battle Chess...it's just a left-mouse,right-mouse click away... This is a pretty nifty game - it shows off the capabilities of the Amiga for animation pretty well. The sound effects are pretty good also, but some of the characters are really wanting in terms of sound effects. At any rate, the game has an icon for Installtodh0 - a program that copies the program to a dh0:'s root directory. So you say "But I don't have disk named dh0:" - it's all just an assign away. Using: assign dh0: ram: installtodh0 Will give you a playable version of the game from your ram-disk. Please note that this pretty much cripples your machine. WHen I invoke the game, I had ~429K of chip ram available - after running, it varies from 9 to 15K free! Unfortunately, it also puts a lock on the workbench screen - you cannot drag or resize windows and have the action "take". However - your CLI and shells are still active. IN addition, you can pop up a new window/shell with dmouse and it comes up OK. So you could maybe do the old dial-a-BBS in the background when the 1Meg chips come around. I don't think there is enough free Chip Ram to even run vt100 concurrently :-( For those of you who are contemplating buying the game - it has a (single time on startup!) a type in the word type CP scheme. Nothing funny with the floppy - it diskcopy's just fine (well, there is one funny thing - Info reports no USED blocks on the disk - ie an empty disk...). Finally, the game play. Well - you will certainly enjoy (at least *I* did) the individual combat sequences... Granted the program is pretty slow in thinking its moves and it plays a pretty crappy game of chess, but the combat sequence are pretty funny. Some are direct take-offs on Monty Python skits and others on Western movies... (Try knight takes knight and king takes queen) Don't but it for a great game of chess, but rather for the enjoyment of the combat sequences. Kurt Lidl -- ================================================================== == Kurt J. Lidl (smaug@eneevax.umd.edu) (301)454-3184 == == UUCP: [seismo,allegra]!umcp-cs!eneevax!smaug == ========"It's after 3am, no point in going to sleep now..."=======