bratman (07/10/82)
Here's a new bug I found in 5.2. It is possible to use a scroll a great number of times without it disappearing. Here's the procedure: 1) Read the scroll. 2) When the message says the scroll vanishes -- more -- stop the process. (We use ctrl Z, you may use something else.) 3) Do a kill -HUP on the process. This creates a save file. 4) When you re-rogue the save file, a number of different things may happen, depending on the scroll. The gist is that the scroll may activate, and may not, but it is NEVER lost! I was going to list all the different effects of this procedure on different scrolls, but I'll leave that up to you to play with. Suffice to say that I easily got an AC of -6 and was able to get down to level 26 before I got killed.(Yes, even an Armor Class of -6 doesn't save you from Dragons and Purple Worms, though it does do a great job on just about any other creature.) BE WARNED!!!!! This procedure sometimes creates unpredictable results. 1) Your process might not get killed after the kill command. If that happens, immediately do a kill -9 PID or you could hang the process AND your terminal. 2) You might not get a save file after the kill. 3) You might get a "sorry, saved game out of date" message when you re-rogue.(I think Mr. Arnold might have a little watchdog in there somewhere.) 4) Your terminal might not echo after the first kill. This is normal, and does not effect operation, though it is inconvenient, and the terminal will operate properly after re-roguing and doing any kind of "normal" terminal command. However, if you're not wasteful, you can probably perform the procedure from 5-15 times before bombing out. Sorry, Mike, but here's another for you to work on. What was that old saying? Where there's a will........... Steve Bratman