MS-PAC PC v1.

02A Dec 1996

=============================
Contents:
1. System Requirements
2. Running the Game
3. Game Instructions
4. Controls & Keys
5. Soundcard Support <- READ THIS !!!
6. Video Mode Support <- READ THIS !!!
7. New 'Config' Screen Options
8. About the Game & Author
9. Thanks
10. Interesting Web Sites to visit.
11. Release Histoty/What's New

1. System Requirements
----------------------
386-33 with local bus video ( minimum )
It is at its best running on a 486-33, or better, with local bus
video ( VESA or PCI ).
1 Meg of extended Memory ( if you want sound )
Sound Blaster Pro, or compatible, soundcard.
Multi-sync monitor for the full screen mode.
Note: This game won't run on a 286.
Note: You will need 1Meg of extended memory so make sure you have
HIMEM.SYS or someother XMS manager loaded in you config.sys.

2. Running the Game

-------------------
At the DOS prompt type
mspac
then hit enter
or if you want to run the full screen mode and your monitor can
take it ( READ SECTION 5 !!) type
mspac F
then hit enter

3. Game Instructions
--------------------
Eat the dots and avoid the ghosts, eat a flashing power pill then chase and
eat the ghosts. Also eat any bouncing fruit for extra points. That's about
all there is too it really.
Eating a '.' is worth 10 points, power pills 50 points.
Ghosts score 200,400,800,1600 eaten in order.
Extra lives at 10000pts, 30000pts, 50000pts, 80000 pts
then every 30000 after that.
Fruit are worth various points, fruit appears in sequence until all the fruit
has appeared. Then a random fruit may bounce out into the maze.

4. Controls & Keys

------------------
Arrow keys, or
'A' - Up
'Z' - Down
'N' - Left
'M' - Right
'P' - Pause
'Q' - Sound On/Off

On the title screens, press

'A' for info about the game,
'J' to calibrate and use a joystick
'C' to turn sound on/off, set full screen mode and to turn of
the FAST option. There was an upgrade for MsPacMan that made
her move about twice as fast as the ghosts, this gives the
same results. See section 7 for details.
ESC - Quits current game or exits program

5. Soundcard Support
--------------------
This game only supports Soundblaster Pro or better soundcards. It should work
with compatibles but I haven't tested it with many.
To allow sound in the game you need to set the DOS 'blaster' variable.
If you have a soundblaster Pro, or better, this should be done already
in your autoexec.bat.
If you don't set the blaster variable but have a SB-Pro compatible card,
eg. Zeos integrated business audio using the ESS chip ( is that an obscure
soundcard or what?) you need to do the following at the DOS command prompt
set blaster=A220 I5 D1
Where :
A is the port your card uses, usually port 220.
I is the interrupt the card uses, usually 5 but it could be 7.
D is the DMA channel to use, usually 1 could be 3.
There are immediate plans to support any other soundcards or the PC's
internal buzzer. However I like the look of these new Interwave based
cards so I might get one of those and support it in the future.

6. Video Mode Support

---------------------
This is really important !!
MsPacPC supports a full screen mode, this uses a vertical resolution of 288
pixels and horizontal resolution of 224 pixels, just like the old arcade
machine ! This mode only really works on 'newer' multi-sync monitors
( eg. CTX 1765/1545 ).
By default MsPacPC runs in a compatible mode, 320x200 pixels and the screen
scrolls up and down. To run in its full glory run with the command line
option F ie. MSPAC F
If your screen blanks or the picture goes crazy it probably means that your
monitor can't run the full screen mode, so just hit escape and run with the
compatible mode.
Also you can configure the video mode from the 'Config' screen within MsPacPc.
Just hit 'C' on one of the title screens.

7. New 'Config' Screen Options

------------------------------
From the main title pressing 'C' takes you to the 'Config' screen
here you can make MsPac move double her speed, turn audio on/off and
Change the video mode.
Two new features have been added also
Number of Lives:
'N' will change number of lives you can play with from 1 to 5.
Begin Level:
'B' changes the beginning level from 1 to 30. The game plays
pretty much the same after level 21 with mazes 3 & 4 repeating
with different colours. So you don't need to go higher than 29.
Carry on pressing 'B' as after level 30 is goes back to 1.
Joystick Sensitivity:
'T' changes how sensitive the program is to joystick movements. Values range
from 3 to 14. Default is 5.
What this controls is how much you need to move the joystick in a particular
direction for the movement to be registers. Setting this value to the
maximum, 14, would mean to move up you would need to push the joystick all
the way to the top. Lower values would mean you didn't have to push so far
up for the movement to be detected.
8. About the Game & Author
--------------------------
Welcome to release 1.02 of MsPacPc, this is a more minor update to MsPacPc
which fixes a few bugs and improves joystick support. It would have been
released a few weeks ago but a trip to England and the flu kinda got in
the way. Oh, can't forget finishing the update for PacPc now v2.00 and
a lot better.
This game has been in development since June 1995, which was when I completed
PacPc. It's been and on/off process as pressures of work, visiting England
and going on holiday have almost all taken priority, the first release came
out in Dec 1995 and the first update in Feb 1996.
I've tried to keep the 'feel' of the game as close to the original as
possible, playing the arcade machine next to PacPc the differences aren't to
hard to stomache, and if they are buy an arcade machine. I've tried to keep
the ghosts movements close to the original and you'll find their characters
are much the same, Sue will sort of 'gravitate' to the area of the maze you
are in, Blinky will just come straight at you, Pinky can take a 'round about'
way to find you and Inky is pretty much like Blinky.
This time I put in all the fruit, and all the little intro sequences, I got a
lot of feedback from PacPc with folk saying. "Wasn't there more fruit ?"
or "Where's the second intro screen".
The game was written in 'C', with assembly routines for sound, sprite
graphics, joystick, drawing characters on the screen that sort of thing, and
was coded on, in turn, a Zeos pentium 90, a Zeos pentium 100 ( in fact a 90
clocked at 100 ) a DEC 486-dx2-66 with a little work on a Zeos P120 running
winslows 95. Please don't mail me asking for the source code, I won't
be releasing it.
The custom video mode uses a 'tweaked' mode 13h to give a resolution of 288
by 224, all sprites are on a 16x16 matrix. Sound was improved and now uses
16kHz 8 bit samples, all 'borrowed' from the original machine. I also wrote
a interrupt driven keyboard driver, that should ( hopefully ) stop any
keyboard problems that some have experienced with PacPc.
One thing is that you'll need a card with a decent video bandwidth, just
about anything VLB/PCI will do, a regular old ISA card probably won't
hack it.
I might do some updates, if it really needs it. But I'm not going to be
adding support for any other soundcards, sorry folks.
This game is freeware, you don't have to register/pay/contribute or whatever,
it's free !! Now who said "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch...".
This game is 'as is' and comes with no warranty either specific or implied,
you are quite free to distribute it, copy it or eat it, whatever you want to
do. You should not, however, charge for it. Selling this game for profit,
rather than a duplication fee, will result in really bad Karma, and depending
on your religious persuasion may result in eternal damnation, or at least
a couple of centuries in purgatory.
If you have any comments you can reach me via internet e-mail at
jrokweb@san.rr.com
9. Thanks
---------
Thanks must go to all those who've I've discussed the game with and
have done any sort of testing with it. These include, Kim Voegele,
Lee Tonks, Marshall Stowe Sloane, Si Owen, Nadeem Ahktar, Kev
Cheung plus anyone else I've forgotten (sorry!).
Special thanks go to Dave Hallock for Beta testing v1.01 above
and beyond the call of duty.

10.Interesting Web Sites to visit.

----------------------------------
Yahoo's list of classic arcade game stuff
http://www.yahoo.com/Recreation/Games/Video_Games/Classic_Arcade_Games/
The Pac Page.
http://www4.ncsu.edu/eos/users/m/msstowe/WWW/Pac-Man/pac-man.html
Matt Cooley's Game World
http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/m/mvcooley/index.html

The Home of PacPC games & PC*Bert

http://www.jrok.com

11. What's New/Release History

------------------------------
See file MSP-v102.txt
V1.02A Jan 1st 1996 - Fix to audio detect and ghost reverse bug fix.
V1.02 Dec 24th 1996 - Minor bug fixes & new joystick routines
V1.01 Feb 16th 1996 - Several improvements & minor bug fixes
V1.0 Dec 22nd 1995 - The original release version

See MSP-V102.TXT for details of bugfixes and additions.