PCDAAD General notes -------------------- PCDAAD is a DOS interpreter for DAAD games which uses the VGA 320x200, 256 colours mode, unlike the original one, that was using VGA 320x200, 16 colours mode. It's also capable of usin VESA BIOS Extension(VBE) to run in 640x400 mode (SVGA) although that would increase CPU requirements from 8086 to 80386. Get PCDAAD at https://www.ngpaws.com/pcdaad. PCDAAD does not pretend to support everything that was supported in the original interpreters. Even the original interpreters didn't support the same features. Some of the features not supported so far may become supported in future releases, or not. Please closely read this notes to understand the differences between this DAAD interpreter and other DAAD interpreters : - PCDAAD does not support CALL, GFX, SFX and MOUSE condacts. - PCDAAD supports EXTERN calls made by MALUVA condacts XPART, XMES and XMESSAGE, but in order to make them work you will need to use DRC compiler v0.23 or above and use "vga256" subtarget instead of "vga". Otherwise you would have a message saying this target does not support that feature. PCDAAD does also support normal EXTERN calls. - PCDAAD requires DAAD.FNT file to be in the same folder. It is a FNT file made with GCS, which can be found in DAAD Ready Package, and was once part of SINTAC adventure engine. From that FONT, only the 8 pixels high font is used, the 16 pixels high font is ignored. Since version 1.6, PCDAAD also can load a file named DAAD.CHR, in the usual CHR format. If DAAD.FNT is not found, DAAD.CHR will be loaded (if present). DAAD.FNT, as all SINTAC fonts, is proportional. DAAD.CHR is not, and PCDAAD defaults to understand it as a 6x8 charset, so you should use a font like those used in DAAD for targets other than C64 and CPC. You can find a valid DAAD.CHR in DAAD-Ready, at the ASSETS/CHARSET folder. The one named AD8x6.CHR would be the one. You can also find a sample of a valid DAAD.FNT file in that same folder, under the name MSDOS.FNT. - PCDAAD will run DAAD.DDB file found in same folder, created with DRC compiler. You can thouhg specify a different DDB file to be loaded by placing it as parameter: PCDAAD MYGAME.DDB - PCDAAD properly supports English and Spanish languages, but there are not separated interpreters, the interpreter will detect the language in the DDB header. - If a file named DAAD.PCX or DAAD.VGA is found in the same folder, it will be loaded as loading screen, then wait for a key to be pressed and screen cleared. When cleared, color 0 of the PCX palette will be used to clear, so make sure it is black or the color you want for background. It should be a 320x200 PCX file with a 256 color indexed palette. - This interpreter uses a mode with same resolution as the CPC and C64 interpreters, so the structure of columns and rows is the same (40 columns, 25 rows) unlike the classic PC interpreter that has 53 columns and 25 rows. On the other hand, the columns structure is not that important in PCDAAD, as it uses a proportional font so in fact in those 40 columns, and with the default font, you can easily fit more than 53 characters per line. Thus, the column definition it's just important to define the text and graphic windows size, but nothing else. When using DRC 0.23 or above the COLS symbol will properly store the value 40. - "PICTURE n" condact will look for a file named n.PCX or n.VGA in the same folder, padded with zeroes in the left in the Maluva style (i.e. PICTURE 7 will look for 007.VGA or 007.PCX). Images should be 256 colours indexed PCX files, width a maximum size of 320x200 pixels, although making them be exactly the same size the pictures window it's a good idea (otherwise they will use more disk space, take longer to load, and be cut anyway). - The VGA 256 mode is a 320x200 x 256 colours mode, that uses palette. That means the 256 colours available don't need to be the same for all pictures, which is great, but also can make the pictures look weird when you load the new picture palette and the previous picture is still there. Maybe that takes only milliseconds, but sometimes you can see it. To avoid it, use the same palette in all location pictures, or just clear the images window before loading a new picture. - Also, please notice the text area is also affected by the palette. PCDAAD defaults to use colour 0 for background and colour 15 for INK. If those colours happen to be black and white in the picture you loaded, everything will be OK, but if them both are green, then you will see green on green in the text area. PCDAAD includes PCXfixer utility, which unlike PCDAAD is a modern tool made for macOS, Windows and linux. PCXfixer takes a PCX file and generates another one where color 0 is black and color 15 is white. If the origin file is too complicated or uses too many colors pcxfixer may give up and be unable to create a "fixed" PCX file. PCXfixer also allows you to choose other colors if you don't want white on black but other combination. Run PCXfixer without parameters from the command line for more information. - You can force PCDAAD to create a log of everything that happens behind the scenes. The log will contain all player orders, responses, and even condacts being executed. It is meant for debug purposes and it will be dumped in the file PCDAAD.LOG, which will be overwritten in each PCDAAD execution. To enable verbose log add "-vlog" parameter to PCDAAD call: PCDAAD -vlog PCDAAD MYGAME.DDB -vlog If you just want playe input and game output, use -log instead of -vlog Please notice dumping every condact to the log file with the -vlog option is slow, and normal games initialization can take several seconds to happen. That is absolutely normal. Use -vlog only if you really need it. - You can have diagnostics in-game, just like with Professional Adventure Writer. To enable them add "-d" parameter PCDAAD -d Type "+" [intro] at the game prompt to know how to use them. - Parameter -nomaluva disables Maluva emulation in EXTERN calls. May be of use in the future if EXTERN becomes supported and you want to disable Maluva emulation in order to have your own routines. - Automatic input: you can have PCDAAD go get order from a text file, instead of player. This is very useful for testing purposes, like checking if game still can be finished after making changes. If the file becomes exhausted when reading from it, PCDAAD will them ask the player again. You can use -i parameter for that: PCDAAD -iSOLUTION.TXT Please notice there is no space between -i and the file name. - PCDAAD can support nested DOALLs if they are nested in different processes, but to make it support that feature you have to call interpreter with the -ndoall parameter. If that parameter is absent, any DOALL call found during a DOALL loop will generate a runtime error #4. That runtime error will also happen if, despite having used the -ndoall parameter, a scond DOALL call is found in the same process where the first DOALL call is. - SVGA: If PCDAAD is run with -s parameter, it will try to run in SVGA mode. The computer would need to support VESA mode 100 (640x400) and have a 386sx CPU or better, although a 486DX is recommended for performance reasons. Please notice the font size will still look like in VGA, it's only the graphics that double resolution. Launching PCDAAD with -s parameter will force SVGA mode. Unlike in SVGA mode, running in pure VGA 320x200 mode resolution will requiere less CPU power, so a 8086 should be enough, at least while it has a VGA card installed. If you find any issues you can: 1) If you think it's a bug you can add an issue at Github: https://github.com/Utodev/PCDAAD/issues 2) If you need help you can ask in the Retroaventuras group in Telegram (for Spanish users) or the 8 bit text adventures group (for English speakers). https://t.me/RetroAventuras https://t.me/Advent8bit You can also find me on Twitter, but I tend to enter twitter only now and then: @uto_dev How to use EXTERN ----------------- When "EXTERN value1 value2" is called, PCDAAD will first look wether Maluva emulation is enabled or not. If it is (what happens unless you call PCDAAD with the -nomaluva parameter), then it will try first to understand that call as a Maluva Condact. That means that in case value2 is 3 (XMES) or 4 (XPART), PCDAAD will emulate XMES or XPART Maluva condacts, and exit. Please notice from here a basic knowledge of x86 assembly code is expected. If Maluva emulation is disabled, or value2 is neither 2 nor 3, then the real EXTERN will be executed. When real EXTERN is run, it will look for a file named DAAD.EXT in the hard disk, and if found, it will load it to RAM. DAAD.EXT should be a pure machine code binary, that is, it should be something like a .COM file, not like a .EXE file which has a header. When called, PCDAAD will first put the following information in registers, then call your external code: AL = EXTERN first parameter AH = EXTERN second parameter DS:BX = pointer to the flags table (256 values) DS:CX = pointer to the object locations table (256 values too, some may be unused) Make sure your code preserves DS, CS and SS values. This would be a minimal EXTERN code, that just sets flag 100 to "value1" (EXTERN first parameter): PUSH BP MOV BP,SP ; header MOV [BX+100], AL MOV SP,BP ; exit POP BP RETF Please notice the DAAD.EXT file will only be loaded once, on first EXTERN execution, which means EXTERN calls will be fast if your code is fast, except the first one. It also means that in case you have variables in your code, they will keep values between code execution. If you want some value to be saved with the savegames, you can use the are not used by your specific game in the objects locations table (DS:CX), as the whole table, 256 bytes, is saved with the savegames, no matter if there game has 1 object or 200. If you are making a EXTERN to be used by others, and you don't know how many objects the games will have, the best way to do it is writing your data at the end of object locations table (where object 255, 254, 253, etc.) Executables as EXTERNS ---------------------- If you run PCDAAD with -exec parameter, PCDAAD wil try to run executable files to perform extern code. Basically, first parameter of EXTERN will be used as filename, and if a matching EXE, COM or BAT file is found (in that specific order) then it's run. Second parameter of EXTERN will be passed as first parameter to that executable, and two parameters more will follow with the address of the flags in RAM, and the address of the object locations. Have in mind the executable will be loaded into lower RAM, so it cannot be too big in order for PCDAAD and the exec fit simultaneously. Example: "EXTERN 12 89" will try to find 12.EXE, then 12.COM then 12.BAT and if for instance it founds 12.COM, it will run the command: 12.COM 89 <flags address> <object locations address>