Documentation for UPDATE.EXE v1ù00á ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Program and Documentation, Copyright 1995, Andrew Shugg. This program is freeware. It was written in Borland's Turbo Pascal 7ù0, and compressed with Fabrice Bellard's excellent LZEXE. You are not permitted to reverse engineer, decompile, tamper with, or modify this program in any way, or indeed bugger around with it at all. Use of the program assumes agreement with all terms. Disclaimer: This program has been fully tested with Mindscape's edition ~~~~~~~~~~ of 4DStunts. If it doesn't work with Broderbunds' ... tough. I never said it would. If it screws up your game, which it can't, but if it does anyway, then it isn't my problem. You use this program entirely at your own risk. Neither myself, nor the maintainers of RAEZ! Stunts Page, can take any responsibility for anything this program may or may not do. Apology: Sorry to sound to legalistic and law-like ... but I hope ~~~~~~~ you understand that I don't want to get into any trouble over this. My apologies to all the good kind folk who are reading this file and using my program. 0) Introduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hello. My name is Andrew Shugg, I'm a Science Engineering student at the University of Western Australia (UWA), and this is my utility program for 4D Stunts Driving. It is dedicated to the memory of my good friend, the late John Irvine, who really enjoyed this game, as much as he enjoyed driving in the real world ... which took him away from us forever. I am sorry he wasn't here when I figured out how the times in the .HIG files were written ... a small victory for me there. I was still half-asleep, too. I believe that he would have approved of this program, and I entrust it to his memories. 1) What is it? ~~~~~~~~~~~ Well, UPDATE is a utility for the IBM-compatible driving game, 4DStunts. It takes two high-score table files, and compares them; the first file is saved as a backup, and then a file containing the best times from the original two files is created in place of the first. 2) Well, what would I want it for? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My brother and I have, over the last couple of years, created 176 tracks in 4DStunts, to date (this is no idle boast - all of these tracks can be downloaded from RAEZ! Stunts Page ... see below). I have given these to my friends to try out, and naturally there has been some heated competition about who has the best time (the friend or my brother). UPDATE enables you to take two high score files belonging to the same track (and yes, it does check that the tracks are the same ... you need to have both tracks present for it to work, or it'll spit the dummy), and create a new high score file containing the best times from both tables. This means that when you run 4DStunts again, and race on the track that you updated the high score files for, you'll see the new high score list. Isn't this exciting? 3) Okay, then, how do I use it? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's pretty simple. Just type UPDATE at the DOS prompt, followed by the names of the two high-score tables that you want compared. The first is the one that will be backed up and then overwritten - this is the one where you'll notice the change, in other words. Typically, you would specify your file first, and the other file (which may well be in another directory) second, like so: UPDATE MYTRACK{.HIG} A:\MYTRACK{.HIG} This will save MYTRACK.HIG as MYTRACK.OLD, and then create a new MYTRACK.HIG that contains the best times of MYTRACK.HIG and A:\MYRTRACK.HIG together. The extension ".HIG" is not necessary, as UPDATE assumes it. You can use it if you like, of course. 4) I want to run it on 200 files! What do I do? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you have MS-DOS 6ùx, then you can use a neat trick in the command shell. Given that all the files you wish to update are in the current directory, and you want to compare them with the contents of A: drive, you would type the following: for %i in (A:\*.HIG) do UPDATE %1 A:\%1 If you have MS-DOS 5ù0 or below, or some other DOS (such as DR or PC), then I don't know what you're going to do. Write a batch file or something. Won't be too hard. :) 5) I love this! I want to reward your efforts! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Calm down. Send me a postcard, or some email, to the appropriate address: Snail Mail: Andrew Shugg E-Mail: ashugg@tartarus.uwa.edu.au 5 Inca Place cs140651@cs.uwa.edu.au Willetton yautja@it.com.au W.A. 6155 Australia [ Be a good idea to finger these first to make sure I'm still on! ] Alternately, you can leave a message for me through my WWW page ... http://www.uwa.edu.au/student/ashugg or through RAEZ! Stunts Page ... http://www.uwa.edu.au/student/ccheung/Stunts.html I'm not asking for your money. Just let me know that you like it, or at least use it. Or even have looked at it. As long as you've acknowledged its existence, I'm happy. 6) I hate this! I want to kill you! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sod off and die. 7) I want to know how you figured out the coding for the .HIG file! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Come on ... it took me five (5) minutes with a calculator and a hex viewer to figure it out ... if you honestly can't get it yourself, give me a hoy and I'll explain it to you. Promise. 8) I want to report a bug. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PLEASE!!!!! contact me immediately by one of the above methods. I honestly would like to know. I'll rush you a revised edition as soon as I fix the problem. That's my guarentee. Not that I've signed anything, though. :) 9) I have a question that is not answered in this file. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well, contact me and ask it. Goodbye, my Stunt Driving friends. I hope you find this utility helpful. Please get in touch with me some time ... Regards to you, ÉÍÍÄÄ -- ù ù - o - ù ù º Andrew Shugg ashugg@tartarus.uwa.edu.au | ³ ( THä MASTäR'S APPRäïTICä ) cs140651@cs.uwa.edu.au ³ | 28/09/95 yautja@it.com.au º ù ù - o - ù ù -- ÄÄÍÍÍͼ