---------- Beat the Bomb ---------- Shareware Version 1.20 Program and documentation copyright John M. Gallant, 1993 WELCOME TO BEAT THE BOMB ... Here are a few additional topics to supplement the instructions contained in the program. DISCLAIMER - AGREEMENT Users of Beat the Bomb must accept this disclaimer of warranty: Beat the Bomb is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of Beat the Bomb. Liability is limited to refund or replacement. BACKUP YOUR DISK! Make a backup copy of Beat the Bomb before starting. If you have a two floppy drive system, place the disk with Beat the Bomb and all its files on it into drive a. Place a new formatted disk into drive b and type copy a:*.* b: All commands are ended by pressing the key. If drive a and b are not the same on your system and the Beat the Bomb disk only fits in the b drive then just reverse the above instructions. Put the original disk in a safe place and use the copy to run Beat the Bomb. To copy Beat the Bomb to a hard drive make a directory on the hard drive. Go to the hard drive and type md btb or any other directory name. Change to that directory with cd btb and copy all of the files on the original disk to the hard disk with the command copy a:*.* (or "copy b:*.*" if the disk containing Beat the Bomb is in drive b). RUNNING Beat the Bomb To start Beat the Bomb go to the drive and directory containing the program and type "btbs ". You may optionally start the program in the silent mode with "btbs -s". Once inside the program at the main menu, press h or F1 for more instructions. Each menu has its own help message. Be sure to read them all. USING THE MOUSE You will need a mouse to run Beat the Bomb. If you have used a mouse before then you will have no trouble with Beat the Bomb. If you have never used a mouse before then you are in for some fun. Move the mouse around and watch the little arrow go the same way you push the mouse. Move the arrow over one of the things that looks like a button or keyboard key. Press the left mouse button when the arrow is on a button on the screen. This is called "clicking on an option". Only the left mouse button is used. The things that look like buttons are buttons, click on them to select options or to answer questions. In general, each screen or popup message has a button in the upper left corner to exit the screen or remove the popup. Many popups can be cleared by pressing any key on the keyboard or clicking the mouse anywhere. Some popups present you with options and you will need to press one of a few specific keys on that popup to continue. Many of the options can be selected by typing the first letter of the name on the key. Unfortunately, sometimes two names will start with the same letter so it is usually easier to use the mouse. You MUST use the mouse to answer the problems. MAIN MENU The first screen (after the credits and copyright notice) is the main menu. It has a blue pad in the upper left corner with keys for several options. The one marked "help" is important. Push it and read what it says. Most screens have a "help" button. Each message is different and applies to the current screen. You cannot answer the problems on the main menu screen. They are just there for amusement. If you push a number key to try to answer the problems you will get a help message explaining how to start the game. From the main menu you can go to the game screen or the setup menu. You can also view the best times scored so far by pressing the "best" button. Note that there are three score tables, one each for 5, 10, and 20 problems per test. The one displayed depends on the currently selected number of problems per test. This can be changed in the setup menu. We will talk more about the setup screen later. THE GAME Type a "1" or click on the "1" button in the main menu to go to the addition screen. You should see a blue panel similar to the one in the main menu but with a digital clock. To the right of the screen is a large keypad with individual keys for numbers from 0 through 99. On the blue control pad there is a "help" button. If you push the help button it will give you brief instructions for this screen. Try it. Also on the blue control pad is a button labeled "correct". For now just ignore it. We don't need it yet. In the upper left corner is a red "quit" key. This will take you back to the main menu. Let's stay here for a while, though. Finally, there is a key called "start". Push the "start" button now. You should now see an addition problem with a blue box where the answer should go. A set of numbers from 1 to 10 (or 5 or 20) appeared somewhere on the left of the screen. These keep track of questions answered so far. You should also see some sort of graphic (unless it has been disabled in the setup menu). It might be a bomb with a burning fuse or two snails. If it is a light blue (cyan) rectangle then we will be building a castle. Since you have not answered any questions yet the rectangle is empty. Look at the problem and figure out the answer. Now find the key on the right of the screen that matches the answer and click on it. If you answered correctly you should hear a short beep and see a new problem. The gray "1" should now have been replaced with a gold star. (Nice work!) If you made a mistake you should have heard a short buzz and the gray "1" should have been replaced with a red "x". (Too bad.) You will only get one chance at each question. At the end of the test you will be able to see all of the questions again. The tests are usually timed so you will need to go as fast as you can. For now though, we are just looking around. Continue with the test. Try to get some answers correct and intentionally miss a few. At the end of the test you should see a message that tells you how well you did. If you are only working 5 problems per test you will not see a numerical score. If you did well you should see one or more sparklers, otherwise a popup to the right of the screen will show your score. In either case you can press any key on the keyboard or click the mouse anywhere to clear the message. The screen should now show all the problems in the test with correct answers in blue and wrong answers in red. This is why I suggested you give the wrong answer to some questions. Click on the light blue "correct" button. The red answers should now be corrected and shown in light blue. If you do well on a test you will get a prize. The prizes are as follows: 100% Gold trophy 95% Silver trophy 90% Gold medal 85% Silver medal 80% Bronze medal Trophies earned are displayed at the bottom of the screen. Trophies are not saved when you exit the program. If you had a perfect score and one of the best times you will get to enter your name in the "best times" table. Just type in your name and press "ok". If you do not want to record your time, press the "cancel" key. The computer remembers the last name entered. If that is your name, just click on the "ok" button. You may also want to read the section "ENTERING NAMES" below for more instructions. SETUP The setup screen can be reached from the main menu by clicking on the "setup" key. The setup menu is used to change how the program operates. The first time you enter the setup menu after starting the program it will take you through a brief description of most of the keys. That should be enough to answer most of your questions but we will cover a little more here. Please notice which way the keys go to enable a feature. The help messages give you examples of how the keys look for various setups. In general, the keys are "in" and the numbers are light green if the function is enabled. Confusion can arise because the default setting for the numbers is "all enabled". When you press one of the number keys it will then stand out from the rest, making it look special. It is special, it is the only one that is off. There is a row of numbers from 0 through 9. These allow you to select the number facts you want to study. For example, it is possible to study just the "7 tables" by pressing all of the keys in the row until "7" is the only one in and light green. Let's take another example. Select the numbers 1 through 5. Now, one of the numbers in the addition drill will always be a number from 1 through 5. The other number can be any number from 0 through 9. You may select 5, 10, or 20 problems per test. Each test lasts two minutes so you can view these as "easy", "medium", and "hard" if you wish. The "sound" and "timer" on/off keys, as you would expect, turn the sound and timer on or off. You can also turn off the sound with "F2" from nearly any screen or by starting the program with the name of the program followed by "-s". (btbe -s). The problems can be presented vertically or horizontally. Normally both horizontal and vertical problems are presented and the program alternates between the two. The "animation" keys allow you to select which animations are enabled. These are the graphic images that are active during the test. An animation is selected randomly from the set of enabled animations. If you only want the castle animation, click on the other animations until they are off (a black and white icon on the keys). TIMED vs UNTIMED It is possible to run the program in either a timed or an untimed mode. If the problems are being timed, the student has two minutes to answer all of the questions. If the timer key is set to "off" the clock will not run but the problems may still be timed. Two of the animations still force the problems to be timed. These are the bomb and the snails. To allow an unlimited time to answer the problems, turn off the timer and select the castle. You can also disable all of the animations. This is an important feature because some students are bothered by timed tests. This program could help these students adjust to timed tests. They could become comfortable with the program with the timer off and then start gradually to increase the number of problems per test with the timer on. Start with a less threatening animation such as the snails or frogs, not the bomb. ANIMATIONS There are three animations to choose from. The bomb and snails are always timed. The castles are timed only if the timer is enabled. The bomb has a long fuse that takes two minutes to burn. If the problems are not answered in two minutes the bomb will go off, ending the test. The snails race against each other. You are the red snail. Each time you answer a question (right or wrong) the snail advances. The computer is the blue snail. The blue snail takes two minutes to finish the race. The castles are built a piece at a time as you get correct answers. No piece is given if the answer is wrong. The castle comes to life if all questions are answered correctly. There are at least three different castles for each level. SAVING AND RECALLING SETUPS It is possible to save up to 32 different setup configura- tions. Each of these can be assigned a name to make it easier to remember which setup is which. On the blue keypad in the setup menu are "save" and "load" keys. Make some changes in the current setup that you will remember. Now press the "save" key. You should see a new menu with four rows of eight keys in the center. In the upper left corner is a blue keypad with a gray window with a name in it. This name matches the name on the key that is pressed. Type in a new name and then press one of the keys with no name on it. If all of the keys have names you may select one that you no longer want. The computer will ask you before overwriting the old setup. If you do not want to save the setup you may press the "cancel" key. Press one or the other now. If all went well you should have been returned to the setup menu. If not, a message should have appeared explaining the problem. Load a different setup by pressing "load" on the blue setup- menu keypad. The filename menu should now be visible again. Either type in the name of the setup that you want to recall or press the button with the appropriate name. Again, if all went well you should be back at the setup menu. The setup keys should now have changed to the setup you selected. Now try to recall the setup that you just saved. ENTERING NAMES Occasionally the program will ask you for a name. It may be a name for a setup or your name if you scored well in a game. In both cases you can simply type in the name with the keyboard. The letters will appear in the gray window as you type. You may get a warning buzz if you type in too many letters. It will probably look like there is plenty of room to keep typing but the computer limits the number of characters you may enter. Since the characters are different widths you will not always fill all the space. Try typing "WWWWiiii". We left space for lots of Ws. If you want to change a letter in the center of a word already in the gray window, click the mouse to where you want to make the change. This should move the typing cursor. The delete, back-arrow, home, end, and right and left cursors also work. IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THE PROGRAM I hope you never have any problems but if you do, the program will try to print a message to the screen. Here are some examples. "Could not find an EGA or VGA card" This message will be displayed when you try to run the program on a computer without the proper display driver card. Earlier CGA monitors do not have sufficient resolution for the text that accompanies the instructions and are not supported. Monochrome systems are also not supported. The program will work fine on true EGA and VGA systems. "Not enough memory" Although the program will work with systems with less than 512K of memory, most of that memory must be available to the program. Some computers have memory set aside for RAM Disks or TSR programs. TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) programs include such popup or background programs as Borland's Sidekick. These subtract from the memory available to the program. You may have to remove one or more of these to run Beat the Bomb. You will find them in a file called AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS. If you are not familiar with these, seek out a friend who is or read the manuals that came with your computer. Another good place to get information on AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS is in a book on DOS. There are usually several in the library. "Could not find file" This would most likely be caused by trying to run the program from a directory that does not include the "extra" files used by Beat the Bomb. These files typically contain graphic images that are loaded as needed. It is easiest to go to the drive and directory containing a copy of the complete set of programs that came on the distribution disk (the one you bought) and run from there. "Could not read file" This is more serious than not finding the file. It says the file was found but the computer was not able to read all of the information in the file. It is possible that the file has become corrupted. In that case just replace the corrupted file with the one from your backup disk. (It is just as easy to start over and replace all of the files). It is also possible that the disk drive is having trouble reading the disk. Remove the disk from the drive and tap the disk on the table. Then reinsert the disk into the drive and try again. This does not work all the time but it is so simple that it is worth a try. The program runs but there is a bunch of junk flickering on the screen. If this happens, press the F1 key. If the flickering stops then you probably have an old EGA driver with less than a full compliment of memory. True EGA has memory for two complete screens (called "pages"). Beat the Bomb needs both. Although many EGA programs will run on these cards, others will not. You might check with your hardware dealer about an upgrade. Program does not run at all. Hmm? Never heard of that happening. Try the disk on another IBM compatible. You should at least get a message in text identifying the program (before the First Magnitude screen). If you do not, then the disk or program has been corrupted or your disk drive may have an alignment problem. None of the above. Even though I tried very hard to make a foolproof program, there is still a chance that something could go wrong. When that happens I would like to know about it. Be sure to get as much information ready before calling as possible. I need such information as type of computer, type of display, DOS version, TSR's that might be running, a detailed explanation of the symptoms. The more complete the information the easier it will be to solve the problem. TELEPHONE SUPPORT If you have read and tried all of the above and still need help, you can call the following number (513) 436-0232. It will help if you have all of the information ready and you are sitting in front of your computer when you call.