tsf@druxn.UUCP (FisherTS) (06/25/85)
Version 1.0 Old Empire source (!!) is ready for distribution. Old Empire is a version of Peter Langston's empire game as it looked around 1980. The source for this version was obtained by decompiling the optimized PDP-11/70 object code. All of this started as an experiment to see how far one could go with the decompiling process, and since I am an incurable empire addict, I used the empire binaries as test input. The empire source is about 11K lines of C. The output from the decompiler is ugly and shouldn't be discussed in front of young kids. There are zillion goto statements where you would normally find 'for' and 'while' loops (I straightened a few things out when doing the final editing of the decompiler output, but there are still a lot of goto's). There might be a few "original" bugs left, but I suspect there are an equal number introduced by the decompilation and triple porting operations. This version has the orthogonal grid, unimplemented agribusiness, no nukes, and only the original 7 ship types (batt, carr, dest, sub, tend, pt, and freight). No new bells or whistles have been added. In fact, every effort was made to restore the game to its original condition, but with bugs exterminated. The distribution comes with Buglist and README files. I can post the Buglist to the net if people want to see it. It runs on a 5.0 VAX, 5.2 Amdahl UTS, and 5.2.2 3b. The makefiles aren't the greatest, but I find them useful. I checked with Peter to get his OK before offering this distribution. Please direct all Old Empire flames and bug reports to me. I'll respond to bug reports as I find time. If there are enough reported, there might be a Version 1.1 by this fall. I don't know of any "spoiler" bugs in this version. (My next article will be addressing something that some folks might call a bug, some call it a feature of Old Empire). If you want this fine antique, send a S.A.S.T to Tom Fisher AT&T-ISL Room 31G32 11900 N. Pecos St. Denver, CO 80234 - and please be patient. If you are on a AT&T-BTL or ISL usend node, I would rather use the network - I can only do a couple tapes a week. I will post the names of those that I send a copy to so you can try to get a copy quicker from a closer source. The package is about 400Kbytes long. I would be grateful to anyone offering suggestion on how to do this efficiently. [4:253] Command : bye Tom Fisher ihnp4!druxn!tsf (303)-538-4642
bob@plus5.UUCP (Bob Simpson) (06/25/85)
My heart leaps at the thought of having even a very old version on the
net. There doesn't seem to be any effort to port empire to Sys5.2, but
I may be grossly misinformed. Receiving your posting would brighten my
day considerably. Might I suggest that you shar it up and post it to
net.sources.games?
--
Bob Simpson UUCP ..!{ihnp4,cbosgd,seismo}!plus5!bobsean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey) (11/13/85)
It was inevitable, wasn't it? These two bugs are NOT covered in the
buglist and are not errors in play, but fatal errors that prevent
use of the program.
1) Makefile bugs (all systems)
(This bug prevents compilation of the program.)
There are several references in some of the makes files to something
like:
_unix.O/empxxx.o
...that should be changed to:
$(LIBDIR)/empxxx.o
2) execl() bug (Manifests on 3b2 sysV but NOT on Vax 4.2BSD)
(Prevents excecution of commands not in current BIN/emp[1-7] module)
An execl() from any of the BIN/emp[1-7] modules *always* fails,
returning a "Bad Address" error. After badgering with printfs
for a while to check the arguments, I stuck in...
execl("/bin/who",0);
...before the faulty execl(). It failed! I've looked to see if
somehow execl() was getting superceded but I can't find a drop of
code anywhere that might do so. This is extremely frustrating to
me because it is so mysterious. If and when I find out why and how
to fix it I'll post a report. Arrgh!
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sean Casey UUCP: sean@ukma.UUCP or
915 Patterson Office Tower {cbosgd,anlams,hasmed}!ukma!sean
University of Kentucky ARPA: ukma!sean@ANL-MCS.ARPA
Lexington, Ky. 40506-0027 BITNET: sean@UKMA.BITNET