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PC-SIG Diskette Library (Disk #1563)
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Information about “GUESS IT II”
Game players beware, it's addictive. If you like word or spelling
games GUESS-IT may get you hooked. Like hangman, you get several
guesses to figure out all the letters in the mystery word. In itself
that might not sound too rough, but the 30,000 word list that comes
with GUESS-IT will challenge even the most developed vocabularies.
As you make your guesses, the Guess-IT display keeps track of your
progress. The scoreboard displays how many guesses you are allowed and
how many you have used. The scoreboard also displays how many words or
phrases you have tried and how many you have solved. There's a
"peanut gallery" that makes comments, and also asks you if you want to
try another word. You'll be kept abreast of the letters you have used
and your progress with the current problem. If you run out of guesses,
the secret word will be displayed for you.
GUESS-IT can be customized to use your own word or phrase lists. By
making your own lists, GUESS-IT becomes a great tutorial for any topic.
Build a list of your favorite spelling words, great historical figures,
important geographical points, or famous quotes.
FILE1563.TXT
Disk No: 1563
Disk Title: Guess IT II/Tower of Hanoi
PC-SIG Version: S1
Program Title: Guess IT II
Author Version: 2
Author Registration: $10.00
Special Requirements: None.
Game players beware, it's addictive. If you like word or spelling
games GUESS-IT may get you hooked. Like Hangman, you get several
guesses to figure out all the letters in the mystery word. In itself
that might not sound too rough, but the 30,000 word list that comes
with GUESS-IT will challenge even the most developed vocabularies.
As you make your guesses, the Guess-IT display keeps track of your
progress. The Scoreboard displays how many guesses you are allowed and
how many you have used. The Scoreboard also displays how many words or
phrases you have tried and how many you have solved. There's a
``Peanut Gallery'' that makes comments, and also asks you if you want
to try another word. You'll be kept abreast of the letters you have
used and your progress with the current problem. If you run out of
guesses, the secret word will be displayed for you.
GUESS-IT can be customized to use your own word or phrase lists. By
making your own lists, GUESS-IT becomes a great tutorial for any topic.
Build a list of your favorite spelling words, great historical figures,
important geographical points, or famous quotes.
File Descriptions:
GI BAT Batch file to show how to configure and start GUESS-IT.
GUESSIT DOC Instruction manual.
GUESSIT EXE Main Program.
LOOK EXE Utility to search text files, such as the word lists.
README Brief information file about the GUESS-IT files.
WORDS LST Sorted word list for GUESS-IT.
Program Title: Tower of Hanoi
Author Version: S1
Author Registration: None.
Special Requirements: None.
If you know the TOWER OF HANOI problem it may still be plaguing you--how
to get those discs restacked from one tower to another without stacking
a big disc on top of a little one and only moving one disk at a time.
If you don't know the problem yet, get this disk just to stress-out your
friends with one of the great all time brain teasers. While the TOWER
OF HANOI brain teaser can be depicted on paper or just described, this
program uses the computer to animate the solution to the TOWER OF HANOI
problem. Options let you control the size of the problem, monitor the
moves, and control the speed. Good Luck and drive your friends crazy.
File Descriptions:
HANOI EXE Main program complete with opening explanation screen.
PC-SIG
1030D East Duane Avenue
Sunnyvale Ca. 94086
(408) 730-9291
(c) Copyright 1988 PC-SIG, Inc.
GO.TXT
╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ <<<< Disk #1563 GuessIT II and TOWER OF HANOI >>>> ║
╠═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ To start GuessIT II, type: GUESSIT (press enter) ║
║ To start TOWER OF HANOI, type: HANOI (press enter) ║
║ ║
║ To print documentation for GuessIT II, type: ║
║ COPY GUESSIT.DOC PRN (press enter) ║
╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
GUESSIT.DOC
***********************************************************************
* *
* GuessIT: A PC-Based Game to Guess Words or Phrases (Version II) *
* *
***********************************************************************
* tests your knowledge of words and facts
* can be adapted for different levels of difficulty
* can run flashcard quizzes on many subjects
* can use your personal word and fact lists
* comes with several challenging lists
* distributed as shareware (suggested contribution: $10)
Copyright Gary Perlman 1989
Box 791, Worthington, Ohio 43085 USA
_______________________ QUICK START INSTRUCTIONS _______________________
Put the floppy disk in drive A: and type the commands:
A:GUESSIT
Then, type letters to guess the letters in the words.
For an idea of the quiz capabilities of GuessIT:
A:GUESSIT -L STATES.LST
When GuessIT asks you to Choose a Secret, type 3 (for Capital).
When GuessIT asks you to Choose a Hint, type 1 (for State name).
Then, type letters to guess the capital cities of states.
____________________________ DISK CONTENTS _____________________________
GUESSIT .EXE The word/phrase guessing program
GUESSIT .DOC This file describing GuessIT
ANIMALS .LST Names of animals, groups, male, female, and young
AUTHORS .LST Books and their authors
ELEMENTS.LST Chemical elements and facts about them
LANGUAGE.LST Months, weekdays, and numbers in several languages
PROVINCE.LST Names, capitals, and confederation dates in Canada
NATIONS .LST Nations and facts about them
SPORTS .LST Sports teams and where they play
STATES .LST U.S. states and facts about them
WORDS .LST A list of about 30,000 difficult words
__________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS ___________________________
[1] WELCOME TO GuessIT
[1.1] The Purpose of GuessIT
[1.2] System Requirements
[1.3] A Short History of GuessIT
[1.4] The Shareware Concept
[2] GETTING STARTED WITH GuessIT
[2.1] Installation Instructions
[2.2] Running GuessIT
[3] CUSTOMIZING GuessIT WITH OPTIONS
[3.1] The Secret List (-L)
[3.2] Managing a Directory of Secret Lists (-D)
[3.3] Controlling the Degree of Difficulty (-G, -C)
[3.4] Hints in Secret Lists (-H, -T)
[3.5] Creating a Custom BATCH File to Run GuessIT
[4] MORE ABOUT WORD, PHRASE, AND FACT LISTS
[4.1] Lists Supplied with GuessIT
[4.2] Advanced Information About GuessIT Lists
[1] WELCOME TO GuessIT
GuessIT is a word game that comes with lots of challenging lists
and tables of words and facts. You can play it for a minute or an
hour, and you can make your own lists.
[1.1] The Purpose of GuessIT
GuessIT is based on a popular word-guessing game. In GuessIT, a
template for a secret word or phrase is displayed on the screen, and
your goal is to guess all its letters. With some lists of secrets,
you can get hints. For example, to guess the French word "janvier"
your hint might be "January" or even "enero" (Spanish for January).
Part of the playing "Arena" might look like this:
Spanish: enero
French: _______
You only get a limited number of guesses, so you can't simply type
the whole alphabet. As you make your guesses, the GuessIT display
keeps track of your progress. The Scoreboard displays how many
guesses you are allowed and how many you have used. The Scoreboard
also displays how many words or phrases you have tried and how many
you have guessed. The Peanut Gallery makes superfluous but benign
comments, and also asks you if you want to try another secret. The
Arena contains a record of the letters you have used and your
progress with the current secret. If you run out of guesses, the
secret will be displayed in the Arena.
[1.2] System Requirements
[1.2.1] CPU Requirements: Any PC Compatible computer.
[1.2.2] Software Requirements: No other software needed.
[1.2.3] Disk Requirements: Minimal. GuessIT can run directly from
a 360 Kbyte floppy disk. You can install Guess-IT on your hard disk,
but that is not necessary for good performance.
[1.2.4] Display Requirements: Monochrome or color text displays.
If you are running GuessIT on an LCD or shaded "color" display, you
might find that the display is more readable if you run the program
in black and white (BW) mode; before running GuessIT, you may want
to run one of the following DOS commands.
MODE BW80
MODE BW40
GuessIT runs in 40 or 80 column modes, and uses the mode that it
detects when it starts. If you prefer the 40 column mode, which is
nice for younger players, you might set up a BATCH file to set the
display mode to 40 column, run GuessIT, and reset back to 80 column:
MODE BW40
GUESSIT
MODE CO80
GuessIT displays directly to screen memory for high speed. If this
causes "snow" then you should run GuessIT with the -V option to
turn off direct video display.
[1.3] A Short History of GuessIT
GuessIT grew out of a computer version of the game "hangman" in
which you guess the letters of words. I did not like the violent
nature of hangman, which constructed gallows as you missed letters,
and I wanted to have a game that had a fun display. The first
version of GuessIT accomplished this but I was not satisfied with
the ability to play GuessIT with children. In GuessIT II, I added
hints so that children could guess an answer without using detailed
knowledge about the structure of words. The ability to interchange
secrets and hints made GuessIT a good program for quizzes.
[1.4] The Shareware Concept
GuessIT is distributed as shareware. It is copyrighted, so you
should not modify it or sell it, but you can copy and distribute it
free of charge, provided that you distribute the program and this
document file intact. If you use and enjoy GuessIT, then please
send $10 to me for my efforts. I'll send you an upgrade of GuessIT
when it becomes available.
Gary Perlman, Box 791, Worthington, Ohio 43085 USA
[2] GETTING STARTED WITH GuessIT
[2.1] Installation Instructions
You do not need to do any installation of GuessIT because you can
run GuessIT from a floppy disk. You can also install GuessIT in any
directory on your hard disk. If you install GuessIT in a directory
on your hard disk, you may want to edit a BATCH file to point to
the directory.
To install GuessIT in a directory, say C:\GUESSIT, all you need to
do is create the directory and copy all the files on the floppy,
which, in the following example, is assumed to be in drive A:
MKDIR C:\GUESSIT
COPY A:*.* C:\GUESSIT
GuessIT can read huge lists of words or phrases, but it only needs
one word or phrase at a time. Disk access time is not a problem for
GuessIT so you can keep GuessIT on a floppy disk and save the
space used by the program and word lists. Being able to run from a
floppy makes GuessIT an ideal game for people on the road with a
portable computer. GuessIT is a good game to play on a laptop for
a few minutes while you wait for a plane.
[2.2] Running GuessIT
[2.2.1] Starting GuessIT: If you are running GuessIT from a floppy or
you are in the directory where it is installed, you only need to type:
GUESSIT
See the section on options to customize the way GuessIT works.
[2.2.2] The GuessIT Display: The top line shows the name of the game
and an instruction or two. The top two windows are The Scoreboard and
the Peanut Gallery. The bottom window is The Arena, where the guessing
takes place. The bottom line shows the copyright and a 24-hour clock.
[2.2.3] Guessing Letters: Depending on the secret list, you may have
hints available to help you guess the secret word. For secret lists of
facts about things like nations or states, you will be shown a menu of
what you would like to guess (the secret) and what hint you would like
to be shown. This setup, if applicable, is done in the Peanut Gallery.
Select from menus with digits. After setup, you begin guessing letters.
[2.2.4] Stopping GuessIT: You can quit GuessIT at any time by typing the
Escape (ESC) key. At the end of a round of trying to guess a secret,
GuessIT asks in the Peanut Gallery if you want to try another. Typing
the letter N here will also get you out.
[3] CUSTOMIZING GuessIT WITH OPTIONS
The following table is printed when you use the -O option when
starting GuessIT or when an option error is detected. Explanations
of the options follow the table.
GuessIT: Guess the Word or Phrase [Version 2.0 (July 1989)]
-C chars minimum characters in secrets 7
-D directory directory holding lists . . . A:\
-G guesses maximum guesses per word . . 7
-H hintchar char between secret and hints :
-L listfile file of list of secrets . . . words.lst
-O print this option summary . . NO
-T print table of listfile . . . NO
-V turn off direct video output
[3.1] The Secret List (-L)
GuessIT comes with a list of over 30,000 words that will provide
many hours of challenge. GuessIT can be adapted to any list of
words or phrases, provided that they are on one line that fits on
the display (for long phrases, 80 column display mode is best). To
choose a new list of words or phrases for GuessIT, use the -L
option. For example, you might have a list of quotes called
QUOTES.LST. You could run GuessIT on this list with the command:
GUESSIT -L QUOTES.LST
[3.2] Managing a Directory of Secret Lists (-D)
GuessIT comes with many secret lists (described later). Instead of
requiring that you type in the whole pathname of a secret list (for
example, C:\GUESSIT\ANIMALS.LST), GuessIT lets you select the
directory where it will look for lists. First, GuessIT looks in the
current directory for a list. If it does not find it there, it looks
in the directory where the GuessIT program (GUESSIT.EXE) resides.
You can force GuessIT to look in a specific directory with the -D
option. If GUESSIT.EXE is in one directory and your secret lists are
in C:\GUESSIT, you could access the list about nations with:
GUESSIT -L NATIONS.LST -D C:\GUESSIT
I save this information in a BATCH file, GI.BAT, to avoid retyping.
In the future, a menu of lists may be available from inside GuessIT.
[3.3] Controlling the Degree of Difficulty (-G, -C)
You can make it easier to guess a word or phrase by allowing more missed
letters to guess a secret. The -G option will allow you to specify the
minimum number of guesses allowed. You can also make it easier to
guess secrets by using longer secrets. The -C option sets the minimum
number of characters in secrets, blank spaces included. The more
letters in a secret, the easier it is to guess because it is more likely
that a guessed letter appears in the secret. The following command will
allow 11 guesses for secrets with at least 9 characters:
GUESSIT -G11 -C9
GuessIT may not be able to find secrets if you ask for ones that are too
long. The number of characters (-C) option is ignored in short lists.
[3.4] Hints in Secret Lists (-H, -T)
With some secret lists, GuessIT lets you see a hint about the
secret. For example, you might make a list of famous events in
which the hint is the date on which the event took place. The hint
for a secret follows the hint character (by default, the colon) as
shown below.
Battle of Hastings : 1066
Signing of the Magna Carta : 1215
Columbus Discovers America : 1492
If you make your own lists, you should use the colon (:) to separate
secrets from hints. But if you have a list in about the right form,
you can use the -H option to tell GuessIT to use a different
character. The next command says to use a comma.
GUESSIT -L EVENTS.LST -H ,
Many lists contain useful information that can be printed in a table
with the -T option. All columns are aligned in the output, which
can be saved in a file with a command like the following:
GUESSIT -T -L LANGUAGE.LST > LANGUAGE.TAB
Tables can be very wide, so for printing, use small text!
[3.5] Creating a Custom BATCH File to Run GuessIT
Instead of typing long commands, you can save them in a BATCH file.
You have to know how to edit files to be able to create and modify
a BATCH file. Any editor like LINEDIT is adequate for this.
Before running GuessIT, you might want to put the screen in
40-column mode to get big letters on the display:
MODE CO40
For MONO screens, only 80-column mode is available. For black and
white displays emulating color with shades, use MODE BW40. After
running GuessIT, you would reset the screen with a command like:
MODE CO80
Now, assume that the GuessIT program, GUESSIT.EXE, is in C:\GAMES and
the lists (like WORDS.LST) are in D:\GUESSIT. You can substitute your
own directories. The following will point GuessIT to the right directory:
C:\GAMES\GUESSIT -D D:\GUESSIT -G7 -C8
To be able to set or reset options from the BATCH file, BATCH file
variables: %1, %2, .... can be added to the commands in GI.BAT:
MODE CO40
C:\GAMES\GUESSIT -D D:\GUESSIT -G7 -C8 %1 %2 %3 %4 %5
MODE CO80
Place GI.BAT into a directory on your PATH command in AUTOEXEC.BAT.
Then, to run GuessIT on the list of facts on nations of the world,
allowing for 2 missed guesses, you would run:
GI -L NATIONS.LST -G 2
To avoid typing the -L and the .LST part, you could use:
C:\GAMES\GUESSIT -D D:\GUESSIT -G7 -C8 -L %1.LST %2 %3 %4 %5
and type:
GI NATIONS
[4] MORE ABOUT WORD, PHRASE, AND FACT LISTS
Besides ordinary words, which are fun to guess, you can get a lot of
enjoyment and even some education from lists with hints in them.
For example, a list of states or countries and their capitals can
help you learn about geography. A list of chemical elements and
their symbols can help you learn some science. A list of books and
their authors can help you learn about books you never read! Famous
quotes, biblical names, famous physicists, historical events, ....
The possibilities are unlimited. Send your ideas for lists to me,
or better yet, send me your lists on a floppy!
[4.1] Lists Supplied with GuessIT
Here are the example lists that come with GuessIT. They provide a
rich set of challenges for all types of people, both young and old.
Although I have worked hard at getting the information in the lists
right, please don't stake anything of value on them. By looking at
the contents of the files, it is easy to figure out how to modify
them or make your own new lists, but a detailed explanation follows.
When you run GuessIT with a list with hints, you will be asked (in
the Peanut Gallery) to choose from a menu the secret you want to
guess and the hint you want to receive. By selecting the same hint
as the secret, you tell GuessIT to provide no hint. With hints, it
is much easier to guess secrets, so I suggest you use less guesses.
Try running the following command to see how hints work.
GUESSIT -L NATIONS.LST -G 2
WORDS.LST: A sorted list of about 30,000 words. This is the default
list, with no hints. Each word in the list has at least five
letters, has only lower case letters, and any letter appears only
once in a word. This list is a subset of a much larger list (almost
250,000 words) so many of the words are obscure. You need to use
abstract knowledge of word structure to do well with this list.
ANIMALS.LST: A list of names of animals, groups, male, female, and
young. Before you play this with your kids, you might want to think
about what a female dog (or wolf) is called.
AUTHORS.LST: A list of works containing the name of the author, the
title, and the date of authorship or publication.
ELEMENTS.LST: A list of chemical elements including the element
name, its symbol, its number, and its group in the periodic table.
LANGUAGE.LST: A list of months, weekdays, and numbers in several
languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Swedish.
NATIONS.LST: A list of nations containing the name of the country,
the capital city, the location (for example, the continent), the
official or predominant languages, the money or currency used, and
the year it was admitted to the United Nations.
PROVINCE.LST: A list of Canadian provinces and territories, their
capitals, and the dates they joined Canada.
SPORTS.LST: A list of professional sports teams with their team
names, division, and where they play.
STATES.LST: A list of U.S. states containing the name of the state,
the capital city, the two-letter postal abbreviation, the state
flower, the state bird, the state tree, the state nickname, and the
state motto (translated into English).
[4.2] Advanced Information About GuessIT Lists
There are two types of GuessIT lists: long lists with no hints and
short lists with hints. Short lists with no hints are either too
hard or too boring. Long lists with hints are a lot of work to
create. A short list is one with less than 16000 characters. Short
lists are loaded in their entirety into GuessIT when it starts, and
the order of the secrets is randomized. Each secret in a short list
is presented only once (during a run of GuessIT). In long lists,
the file of secrets is opened and a secret is randomly selected;
repeated presentations of the same secret is unlikely.
To simplify the explanation of lists, we'll work through an example
of a list that you could make for a child. FAMILY.LST is a fun game
to play with your kid. Make a list of family member names, with
hints that describe the member. Here is a list that might be made
for Elroy Jetson:
:NAME : HINT
:Elroy : Your Name
:George : Your Dad
:Jane : Your Mom
:Judy : Your Sister
:Astro : Your Dog
:Mr. Spacely : Dad's Boss
The first line of the file describes the secret and hint. You can
tell it is a description line because it begins with a punctuation
character (others might be a bar or comma). Whatever is the
punctuation character, it will be used as the separator between
secrets and hints (over-riding the -H option). These descriptions
(NAME, HINT) will be used in the GuessIT display, so they should be
eight characters or less. If the description line is not present,
then the part before the hint character is used as the secret and
the part after is used as the hint. When a description line is
used, secrets and hints are interchangeable; that is, you can be
shown "Astro" and have to guess "Your Dog". When a description line
is present, GuessIT displays a menu of all the possible hints and
secrets in the Peanut Gallery and asks you to choose the secret and
the hint. Menu selection is done with single number digits.
Secret lists can have more than just one secret and one hint. For
example, in the STATES.LST file, there is the state name, its postal
abbreviation, its capital city, its state flower, and so on. From a
state name (the hint) you might want to try to guess the state bird.
Going the other way is also possible, but there are some birds that
are the state bird of more than one state; the cardinal has been
chosen by seven states. When there is more information about a
secret than just the hint you selected, you can see it by typing ?
and looking in the Peanut Gallery. For example, if you were guessing
the state whose bird is the roadrunner, The Arena would contain:
Bird: Roadrunner
State: ___ ______
and an extra hint (typing ?) would fill the Peanut Gallery with:
Capital : Santa Fe
Abbrev : NM
Nickname: Land of Enchantment
Motto : (It Grows as it Goes)
Flower : Yucca
Tree : Pinon
Directory of PC-SIG Library Disk #1563
Volume in drive A has no label
Directory of A:\
ANIMALS LST 779 8-02-89
AUTHORS LST 7860 8-02-89
ELEMENTS LST 2252 8-02-89
FILE1563 TXT 4589 10-20-89 5:14p
GI BAT 1521 4-12-89 12:00p
GO BAT 38 1-01-80 1:56a
GO TXT 694 1-01-80 12:44a
GUESSIT DOC 21844 8-02-89
GUESSIT EXE 38676 8-02-89
HANOI EXE 13588 4-12-89 12:00p
LANGUAGE LST 1972 8-02-89
NATIONS LST 8696 8-02-89
PROVINCE LST 381 8-02-89
README 1058 1-01-80 12:23a
SPORTS LST 7050 8-02-89
STATES LST 5242 8-02-89
16 file(s) 116240 bytes
40448 bytes free