
MAGNETIC v1.0
Unix port v0.08 ;)

contact: Jeff Mitchell is skeezix@acm.org

NEWS for this version
---------------------
0.06		Initial X11 release
0.07		Bugfix in fill_region(), in x11lib.c; caused good
		  Xservers to screw up on the repaint.
		Spelt my own name wrong in the README, since I made
		  it when I was burnt ;)
		Hacked in some options to allow stdio usage of the
		  interp, and to turn off X11 usage.
		Added MORE prompt to statusbar.
0.08		Cleaned up a couple of minor bugs in the intros.
		Added BUSTEDXSERVER #define handler...

Future:		REDO the whole damned mess. I'd like to recode parts of
		the original sources so they'll work a little better for
		porting. Then unix.c and x11lib.c need to be made sane,
		since they're pure garbage. Writing code on a train is
		not good. emu.c and main.c should know nothing about the
		hardware, and should talk to unix.c, which in tern should
		talk to my more recent x11lib.c files...

General
-------

This is a port of Niclas Karlsson's magnificent _Magnetic Scrolls_
emulator, originally for BeOS; Ports are available now for BeOS, the
Amiga, DOS, and now Unix with X11.

Since this is a alpha alpha alpha release, there are no real documents
to accompany this README. Eventually I will document the command line
arguments and their meaning, and what meta commands I've added to the
interpreter.

Eventually I will complete the scripting and transcripting abilities,
add command history, many stage undo's, etc etc.

FEATURES
--------
*	Caching of images to make room traversal faster
*	User can make status/text use any X font and colour
*	Command history (up and down arrow keys) for repeating commands
*	Read/write any script file any time
*	Start/stop transcripting anytime
*	(eventually) Emacs-keys for editting of current line

COMPILING
---------
One ought to be able to simply:
gmake -f Makefile.unx

This should produce "magnetic", the interpreter. You will need the graphic
files and the game storyfiles in order to play the games. Since they are
still copywritten, they are not (and will never be) supplied with the
interpreter. They are readily available on the web anyway.

NOTE: Yes, "gmake" is required. It is the GNU make program, available
from half a million locations on the net; try ftp.gnu.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu,
or prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu. I use it for conveniance in the Makefile,
though it is trivial to convert the Makefile to a normal make
utilities preferance... I leave this as an exercise for the student ;)

RUNNING
-------
When Magnetic runs, it opens a window of a size which will hold a full
80 characters across. Based on this width, it chooses an appropriate scale
factor for the graphics... and this then chooses the appropriate height
of the window. Therefore, it really all depends on the size and style
of the font and the number of rows desired. In case your curious, I
measure width of a variable sized font by the letter 'M'.

./magnetic GAME.FILE GRAPHIC.FILE [options]

ex:	./magnetic pawn.mag pawn.gfx -nointro
ex:	./magnetic -font 8x13 pawn.mag pawn.gfx -rows 24

	(I rather like the 8x13 and 10x20 fonts, with extra rows for
	 a nice lengthy display. You can also try any other font that
	 xlsfonts lists... the variable length fonts produce weird
	 sized windows, but work quite alright.)
