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=                             METAL Hangman v1.0                             =
=                                     by                                     =
=                               Terry R. Olsen                               =
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A few people, including myself, have spent a lot of time converting several ACOS games to Metal. Usually, these conversions leave a lot to be desired and don't function very well under the Metal environment.  The reason for this is because they don't take full advantage of all of Metals extended commands and externals.

Well, I decided instead of converting ACOS Hangman to Metal, that I would write a version completely from scratch and specifically for the Metal/Future Vision combination.  It seems that Future Vision is going to be the standard for Metal.

You've probably already installed Metal Hangman and ran it by now, but for those of you who DO read the dox first, I'll tell you a little bit about its options and commands.

Metal Hangman fully supports both ProTERM Special Emulation and Standard TTY emulations.  PSE mode is determined by the 'Term=2' equation set by FV.  Under PSE mode, the playing screen is made up of 4 windows; Gallows, unused letters, wrong guesses, and the word window.  All of the information such as user name, score, word number, and catagory are contained in the window title bars.  You can switch emulation within the hangman main menu.  If you enter the game with ProTERM Special Emulation, you will be allowed to turn it on or off.  If you enter Hangman without PSE, you will not be allowed to turn it on.  When you exit Hangman, your terminal emulation will be reset to whatever emulation you were using when you entered, regardless of how you had it set for the game.

Metal Hangman has a "Test Mode" that allows Administrators to play the game without saving the results.  You must enter a password to play in test mode.  This is to force people with elite access to play honestly instead of playing in Test Mode to see the words, then playing again recording a perfect score.  The password is set to "CREATE 123" but should be changed by each Sysop as he installs Metal Hangman into his system.  The password can be found in the program code under the lable "getpass."

Metal Hangman can be left completely alone and it will continue to be updated by the users.  It is set up so that after 10 users have played hangman, the user with the highest score is allowed to update the hangman game with a new set of words.  That user then has to sit out the next round until the next winner updates.  After 10 players have played and a winner has been determined, Metal Hangman "Auto E-mails" the winner that he needs to update hangman and stores his user name in the "Hangman.data" file so that he will be allowed access to the "[C]reate new words" screen.  After he has updated, access will be taken away so that he may not change the words again.  Also, upon updating, Metal Hangman "Auto Posts" on the Sub-board specified by the configuration setting that a new hangman game is in progress (depending on whether the auto-posting is on or off).

Anyone with Sysop access may also change the hangman words at any time (if they know the password).  The password is so that the Administrator alone may access the [C]reate new words screen and force the elite users to play honestly.  The default password is set to "CREATE 123", but should be changed by the Sysop when he installs Metal Hangman into his system.  The password may be found under the "getpass" lable in the program code.

You can also edit the outgoing "Auto E-Mail" and the "Auto-Post" message that Hangman sends out at the appropriate times.  Simply enter the Sysop Utilities and select either the [E]dit letter or the [M]essage editor menu items.  You can use the full screen editor if you have pse on.

To install Metal Hangman, simply put the following files into the same folder:

Hangman.s
Winner.letter
Pse.gallows
Hangman.Message
Drop.Letter

load the "Hangman.s" file into your editor and under the "getpass" lable change the "CREATE 123" password to something original that you think of yourself.  Now Save the edited "Hangman.s" file.  Whenever you are in the game and it asks for a password, enter the password you saved in the program code.

When you first run Metal Hangman, it will look to see if you have Hangman set up.  Then it will take you to the "new words" screen and allow you to enter the catagory and 10 words for use in the hangman game.  When you finish entering the words, it will save the data, then ask if you want to post a "new hangman game" message.  That portion of the data has not been set up yet, so the default Sub-board for posting will be #1.  If you want to post on Sub #1, then answer "Yes".  If you want to post on a different Sub, then read further to learn how to change the "Posting" configuration.

After you have finished with the hangman words, you will be at the "Metal Hangman" prompt.  From here there are several functions you can access.

[P]lay Hangman
[V]iew high scores
[Q]uit to main
[T]erminate
[E]mulation switch (pse/ascii)
[?] Menu

[C]reate new words
[S]ysop utilities

The following is a summary of all the commands:

[P]lay Hangman:  This is pretty self explanatory.  If you are in PSE mode, you will play the PSE version of hangman.  If not, you will play the ASCII mode.
NOTE: If you are the one who entered the words, or you have already played the current words, you will not be allowed to play.  Also, if 10 people have already played the current words, you will not be allowed to play until the winner updates hangman.

[V]iew high scores:  Again, self explanatory.  Shows you a list of the players and their scores.

[Q]uit to main:  What more do you need to know?

[T]erminate:  Standard command for all modules, terminates the call.

[E]mulation switch:  Switches between pse/ascii emulation

[?] Menu:  If you have to ask, press "Q".

[C]reate new words:  You have already done this when you first ran Metal Hangman.  This is the routine that all the hangman winners will go through to update hangman with new words.  Once they have done this, they will sit out this round of hangman until the next winner updates.

[S]ysop utilities:  Takes you to an area where you will set the number of the Sub-board to receive hangman auto-posts.  Also, you can turn hangman auto-posts on and off.  NOTE:  if you do not configure auto-posts, they will be in an inactive state until you do so.  From here, you can also edit the out-going letter to the winners and the message that hangman auto-posts on the bulletin board.

I hope that this game will become widely used by all Metal/FV bbs's.  It is my hope to have this game distributed with the Metal/FV package.  Right now, it is compatible with Metal 1.03.00/Future Vision 4.0.  Hopefully it will remain compatible with future versions of these programs.

Comments, questions, suggestions, donations may be sent to the following:

                        Terry R. Olsen
                        2333 3/4 Taper Ave.
                        San Pedro, CA  90732

I can also be reached at the following BBS's:

Appleholics Anonymous:  (310) 632-1458    User #78
The Captain's Quarters: (614) 294-0556    User #51

Eventually, I will have my BBS, The BoycoT BBS, up and running again in the future.  Look on The Captain's Quarters for information about when it will be going back up.

Look for this other fine Shareware Programs by Terry R. Olsen

        Jukebox.NDA v1.1

An NDA that plays SoundSmith music in the background of any desktop program that allows the use of Desk Accessories.  Allows you to load a batch of up to 50 songs that will play continuously.  Features include, Show batch, pause/un-pause, stop, load batch, play, and the infamous "about" button.


        Metal.Icons

A set of icons for the Metal BBS language.  For use by people who use the finder as their program launcher.