oNE sHRrT Of a lLaMa 같같같같같같같같같같같같같같같같같같같같 같같같같같같같같같같같같같같� 굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇� 굇굇 굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇 같같같같같같같같같같같� 같같같같같같같� 같같같같같같같같같같같 같같같같같같같같같� 같같같같같같같� 같 같같같같같같같같같같� 같같같같같같같같같 같� 같� 같께께� 껐같� � � 같같같같같같같같같같같같� 굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇� 굇굇 굇께께께께 께께� 굇굇굇 굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇� 같같같같같같같같같같같같같� 께께� 께께� 같같같같같같같같같같같같같같같같 굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굉 께께 께� 께께� 껑굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇 굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굉 굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇� 같같같같같같같같같같같같 같같같같같같같같같같같같같� 굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇� 굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇� like the logo?, I spent a whole 5 minutes on it! O.S.O.A.L Presents: M O N O - F I T E R ( behind the starfield scenes ) InTRoDuCTiOn: Assuming that you have played ( and sensibly rejected, or insensibly loved ) MonoFiter v1.093, I will skip the grisly details and hyperspeed straight on to behind the scenes of MonoFiter v1.093, the lost shoot'em'up. "I have regretably played 'it'" - goto bEhINd tHe sCEnES "I haven't played it, please enlighten me." - goto wHAt ThE hELl? wHAt ThE hELl?: ...is MonoFiter. Well, MonoFiter is the first SEMI-OFFICIAL game from 'The Programmers from OSOAL' ( a three part mini-series staring JAMES BOND and ELVIS ), OSOAL, the Force-on-your-friends-ware station we love! MonoFiter is a semi-serious, cinical, sadistic, sarcastic, parody of all sensible elaborate spacie-invaders-style shoot'em'ups. ( quick background story... ) You are, the lone Graphics fighter, a freedom fighter ( in the likeness of Clint Eastwood and Harrison Ford ) who fights for better graphics and smooth rendering for all. After helping the Hardy-Artist's & Masonry-Painter's Space/Time EmpiRe ( HAMPSTER ) as a Mercenary to drive off the monopirates, you thought you might have a holiday in Sweden, but something hideously plot-thickening happened. A full scale invasion from a galaxy even further away than the far far far far far far far one where the story is set! The invasion ( unknown by all of HAMPSTER ) originated from the frustrated planet of FOODPROCESSIA, in the Ketichen System. A a a a ahhhh!, I think me wont tell you anymore lest you not play the game! Anyway, when you do play it, at least you wont be too critical about it. You'll ( brutally ) note the references to STAR WARS (tm), STARTREK (tm), RAPTOR (tm), TYRIAN (tm), maybe even ALIENS (tm) and BUCK ROGERS (tm). bEhINd tHe sCEnES: We had a LOT of Fun making the First point zero ninety-three version of MonoFiter. And we learnt ALOT of important leasons and philisophical insights into coding something people might actually get to look at, and most importantly the meaning of loaf. First of all, if your monitor tube starts darkening, you've had it for too long. Of course, I don't listen to my own advise. I have a 4 year old monitor, and I'm too stubborn ( or cheap ) to buy another, so i sit here, playing games with brightness WAY-UP, GAMMA correction on HIGH, squinting at my enemies, bumping into walls and getting shot. Also, it seems the Monitor is fond of the colour red. ( what? ). Yes, a monitor with severe colour preference. Reds on my monitor appear as bright oranges ( not the fruit ) on descent ( not the game ) monitors. This is pure heel for art drawing. First, my ships appear blindingly bright and non-red. At least it is not fond of CYAN a colour that does NOT appear naturally anywhere in this Universe ( and so consequently, there is a sister universe to that of our own, the CYANiverse ). Shoot'em'up aliens have multiple personailties ( scientific evidence seems to suggest that this is a fundamental side effect of their cloaking device ). It's true. See, the problem was when I was testing the Alien code, I had one alien fly in a nice curve across the screen, and then suddenly fire 32 plasma bullets in random directions. Now it seemed I had this problem before. It was with the Movement routines. The monofiter would fly around as I controlled it, and then when I pressed fire, 1 sole bullet would fly up the screen! After half a week of code scanning and testing, I tried firing the bullet in a random direction ( instead of the default up ). The result was 128 bullets, flying ( prettily ) in random directions. That was it, Instead of firing 1 bullet ( finding an empty bullet structure and filling it in with flight data ), it kept on making them ( up to the maximum 128 ). I forgot to tell it to stop. So, problem fixed, i contacted my partner in crime ( The Plastic Bison, leader of the Olaf collective ) and then tried it on the Alien Code. And, still, over 30 random bullets fired out of it's now annoying little 10x10 picture. I spent over a week on this, considered the consequenses of ignoring this - feeling sympathetic for the future player of monofiter, over-fixing the multiple bullet problem in about 5 different ways, and then frustratedly deleted the rabid code and began to start again. Then a stunningly simple explanation came to mind ( and to my astonishment, before 9pm ). The answer was a thoroughly annoying one. There wasn't an alien, flying down the screen, firing 32 bullets, but 32 aliens each firing 1 bullet, ( or, rather, 1 alien with 32 personalities ). Oh well, das ist lieben Dont be fooled into thinking that Shoot'em'up aliens are dumb. They are very very intelligent. Just try and get one to appear on the screen. They KNOW if they do they'll get shot!, so, do you know what they do? They set a little flag that says that they don't really exist and hide behind it. This little flag is checked, and if positive, the alien data accompanying it is assumed (in a rather deadly way) to be credible and is processed. Now just imagine if this flag was played with by some unsuspecting function ( such as the one that clears alien-bullet structures ). Aliens and bullets will pop in and out of existance, in illegal places and wearing illegal pictures ( of illegal dimensions ). So, if you are playing monofiter, and an alien disappears for no reason, be scared. For it may be hiding in your High memory ( slowly beating DOS to death with its twin plasma ion blasters, and GOOD ON IT! ). QEMM AND MONOFITER are two entities that repeatedly declare war on eachother. if you are running QEMM, its all your fault, you shouldn't be anyway. QEMM is very pickey about monofiter. A little 10x10 picture out of its place here, a 100 bytes overwritten there, little things!, always seem to get on QEMM's nerves. QEMM is the bane of all programmers who really like good crashes ( like me! ). Like the delayed-slop-on-the-screen-crash, A popular one with Monofiter that crashes the computer with some orange ascii garbage on the screen. I thought it was quite hip at the time and keep on listening to CDPLAY, and couldn't be bothered to reboot as it would wreck my track program. So, i just kept listening to R.E.M, went out for coffee, came back, and saw more garbage on the screen. This is a crash that requires shear SKILL to create. Its no ordinary screen-goes-blank crash or QEMM EXCEPTION ERROR ( boo hiss ), no, this periodically outputs ascii garbage ( about 5 characters ) every 15 minutes, excellent! Please contact me if you have created this crash, let me know iam not alone ( am I ? ). Second of all, is the sacred green crash, a popular one a-mung the OSOALators. The green crash ( preserved on a disk buried in the heart of a small pacific island ) occurs when the monitor goes blank, and then a flourescent, blinding, nauseating green. Also, there was the UNDEFINED ERRORS, that kept popping up at completely unexpected times. I think i know why, because i would just recompile and it'd go away. Here is a nice slot. I think we'll start at a different tab stop for this part of the story, the chapter of OSOAL Llama-zip. You may have encountered it before. Monofiter is 'zipped' with it. 'Its a killer - Archiver, zipped up - my whole hard-drive, dynamite - with a command line beep, Guaranteed - to blow its data, every tii - iime, ooooh recommend at any ftp site, insatiable in appetite, wanna trrrriiiiiiiiyyyy' brian may on guitar ( daaa daaa, daaa daaa ) ahem, sorry about that, just got trapped by a queen song, Back to my zipper, ah, i mean my archiver. The OSOAL official archiver, Llama-zip. If you are foolish enough to try using Llama-zip, never, and i mean NEVER, try zip files from other directories. It hurts! Also, don't expect any notice-able compression, infact, do expect the zip file to be larger than the individual files. It is a very cheap storer with a nice interface. It is ( as far as I know ) though, the ONLY archiver in the WORLD that can name all 50 states and capitals of the USA! Huh!, that must be some archiver!, and it does more. It beeps! It can also beep to test if the PC speaker is working, and then beep anyway! By now you must be thinking, 'this is an awesome archiver!'. Even though it doesn't pack the data, think of the implementations!, you can make MonoFiter appear larger than it really is!, you can zip a game with it, give it to them, and watch them try and unzip it! Incredible. And at only US $59.95 That's amazing! ( editors note, cut this part ) One thing I've had a lot of fun and mischief with is interrupts. Monofiter replaces the keyboard and clock timer interrupts with it's own rabid ones. Weeks of bug testing and planning concocted these horrors. At first, for some reason, when the Keyboard interrupt kicked in, I kept losing the address of the old one. So I ignored it, got used to the inevitable crash at the end of all my demos, until I when back to my mouldy old interrupt code. It seems, that, while using a C library function to get the old keyboard interrupt vector, i tactlessly managed to forget to include the .h file for that function. So, what was being returned was in fact what ever was on the stack at the time. Clever huh! Oh yeah, I'm also not entirely convinced that Monofiter completely cleans up after itself. Don't worry, I haven't had any problems ( although I have an occupation that requires regular rebootings ) So, in fixing the interrupt replacement problems, I wrote the code for the MonoTimer ( dramatic and evil orchestra music ). Yes, the MonoTimer is a slightly evil piece of equipment. I suspect the function is infact only 1 statement - void _far _interrupt NewClockInt( void ) { Cycle = TRUE; } For you bright little biscuits that understand what the clock timer does, note to your horror that it doesn't call the old one. Yay!, this was a bug designed especially by me, and I liked it sssooo much I kept it. I even wrote some meaningless comments in the module about it. Time stands still when you play monofiter. For those of you who think I'm lame, you probably am I think we're right, and should be. For those of you who think OSOAL is dangerous, we are. But dont tell anyone that we told you. So, thus, is an end to the annals of Monofiter. Hope you get swallowed whole by a travelling delicatessan. Yeah, Bye. tErRaCoTTa loGIc signing off... oFf no!, got to keep this away from the editor,..a.s릁&fjiu릈0i쁴�=n io輦� . The Hidden OSOAL text graphix tutorial: ( note, add your own if you really want too ) |O-* One piece designer egg beater & worm in a knot 金 \/ guy wif 1 eyebrow ( boomerang $ snake wif 2 legz ! small guy holding a bat � small guy standing on a bat } and { vertical seagull ( 2 frames of animation ) &){ worm in a knot throwing a boomerang at a seagull �$ ...?.. half of a two legged worm being chased buy a whole lota small guys and a small guy cheiftan ( the one with the hook ) For animation, place your cursor at the begining of the line and press delete a few times ( try it ).