NOTES on ALTAIR game

1. It has a faster load pcx file than Space Jam because
	it reads 2000 bytes of the file at a time.
2. It has its own random function, by reading the clock
	ticks directly. (Claims the one from Hull is too slow)
3. It has its own sound routine, unlike the book's beep that
	relies on the tick function, which is slow because
	it checks every clock tick (18.2 times/sec).
	Instead they set up the hardware clock countdown
	to interrupt when the sound should be turned off.
4. They do a fade in of graphics -- where the palette
	gets more and more bits of the color (actually,
	the counter counts up to 256, and each time,
	the color bit is incremented if it has not reached the max
5. Email from Saad: "The program runs perfectly in my
	computer and several others.  However, upon execution of the program in
	several of the labs, we received varied results based upon the speed of the
	game.  Four variables
		(Astequ, enemyeqy, laserequ, and youequ)
	may need to be
	modified to be able to play the game at it's best performance.  We would
	appreciate it if we may be able to run the game on your computer and adjust
	the variables for you, but if this is not possible, we're sure that you can
	figure it out. (The variables are properly commented.)  The reason for this is
	that we would like you to see the program run at it's maximum performance.  We
	are sure that you will be pleased with the game and that it will out-perform
	any other final project."
6. I could not run ALTAIR on my WinNT machine.  On my notebook, it worked ok.


Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 18:45:07 -0500 (EST)
From: Daniel Kifer <dk204@is5.nyu.edu>
To: Chee Yap <yap@jinai.cs.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: altair

I told Saad about the problems with running altair on your computer, and
he tested the program out on windows NT. Under NT, the wait_for proc
didn't work, the F1 instruction screen displayed the same behavior as it
did on your computer, and the sound didn't work. All the computers i had
tried it on used windows95, so that could be the problem.
-dan

**************
Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 19:48:37 -0500
To: yap@jinai.cs.nyu.edu (Chee Yap)
From: sma202 <sma202@is5.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: altair

Prof, I've done some testing on my NT system and it turns out that NT is
the cause.  I encounter the same problem, the screen freezes, no sound, and
a green blinking cursor when I press F1.  When I remove the Wait_for, you
can play the game but no sound or instructions.  I guess NT is incompatible
and you must use Win95 or DOS.  This is because NT has more strict
restrictions on how programs access hardware.  NT requires the program to
go through the operating system API to access hardware rather than
directly, so as not compromise stability.

At 06:38 PM 12/12/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Saad,
>
>I have a 11am appointment with Dan on Fri 19.
>Feel free to join us.
>
>Chee
>
>

