Design Your Own Railroad READ.ME Version 1.31 June, 1992 VERSION 1.3 ----------- This version introduces several new features: metric measurements, low-resolution color graphics support, zoom by keystroke. It also contains many refinements, particularly in track drawing and editing. Version 1.31 introduces dynamic track length display, as you draw or edit. Additional information about this version is documented in an upgrade booklet which accompanies the disk. If you did not receive a booklet, please contact Abracadata. METRIC ------ Choose metric vs. English measurements on the Track/Scale menu. When METRIC is in effect, all input and output of both layout and scale measurements are in meters; page measurements on the Print Settings menu are in cm. To make the choice permanent, edit the "metric" line in SETTINGS.DEF. (You might want to adjust the "grid_size" value also). NEW VIDEO CHOICES ----------------- The program will now operate in 320 X 200 video modes, including 4-color CGA and 16-color Tandy. CGA users: you can adjust the "cga_colors" setting in SETTINGS.DEF to choose any of 16 background colors, and either of two foreground palettes. Tandy users: the install program will not detect your hardware automatically, you need to choose it from the list. F7 ZOOM/UNZOOM -------------- After you zoom once using the Track/Scale menu, F7 will now toggle between that view and the standard view. You can use arrow keys to move around the zoomed view, and F7 will "remember" where you are. Try it, you'll like it! TRACK EDITING ------------- Version 1.3 features a new, fast routine for drawing curves, a new mechanism for preventing track tangling, and now a way to UNDO a move. Here's how it works. When you are editing curved track, and attempt to move where the track cannot go, a highlight appears at the spot where you moved out of bounds. You are then dragging a dotted line connected to that spot, and the track is frozen until you move back to it. Keeping the mouse button down, position to the highlight; the track will "unfreeze" and resume following the pointer. When you are dragging the dotted line, move the mouse pointer OFF THE SCREEN before releasing the button, and the move will UNDO itself. The track will revert to its original position. SHIPPING LIST ------------- The following files should be on the distribution disk. (All EXE files except INSTALL.EXE are self-extracting compressed files, not executables.) READ.ME This file. INSTALL.EXE Installation program. PRINTERS.DEF List of available printers. SETTINGS.STD Factory settings. SETTINGS.BW Factory settings for monochrome systems. PROGS.EXE Design Your Own Railroad executable (compressed). CPCX.EXE Icons for CGA and Tandy. EPCX.EXE Icons for EGA. VPCX.EXE Icons for VGA. DFILES.EXE Data, help files, pictures, and demo. RFILES.EXE Definition files and fonts. RCONVERT.EXE Conversion pgm for DYOT files (on 720K disk only) SETTINGS.DEF ------------ This file is created during install. It contains information about your hardware choices, plus initial settings for all the option menus. If you have trouble getting the program to run, look at SETTINGS.DEF and verify that the information at the top is correct. You can edit this file to change settings. Documentation is in the file itself for all items except these: RR_directory expected location for .RR files RR_files directory or drive containing all program data files video_board code identifying video adapter: 6 CGA hi-res 640x200 (font 08) 4 CGA 4-color 320x200 (font 01) 569 Tandy 16-color 320x200 (font 03) 561 EGA monochrome 640x350 (font 16) 544 EGA lo-res 320x200 (font 00) 560 EGA 16-color 640x350 (font 16) 563 VGA monochrome 640x480 (font 72) 562 VGA 16-color 640x480 (font 72) 563 MCGA monochrome 640x480 (font 72) 8 Hercules mono 720x348 (font 24) Other codes are available, but have not been tested and are not offered by the install program. If you try one of these codes, be sure to use the correct system font (see below). 66 Wyse 640x480,2 (WY-700, Amdek 1280) 128 AT&T 640x400,2 (AT&T, Compaq plasma) 529 GEN 640x480,16 (Genoa SuperEGA 4880) 528 EGA 640x200,16 (EGA low resolution) 512 EGA 640x350,2 (EGA 4-level mono) 517 PAR 640x480,16 (Paradise Autoswitch) 16384 TOS 640x480,2 (Toshiba 3100) 516 EVA 640x480,16 (Tseng EVA-480) 520 VEGA 640x480,16 (Video 7 VEGA) printer index (starting at 0) in the file PRINTERS.DEF: Standard Epson 0 Apple Imagewriter II 1 C. Itoh (80 dpi) 2 ... Toshiba P300 (180 dpi) 19 system_font system font file: 320 x 200 2 color SYSTEM00.FNT 320 x 200 4 SYSTEM01.FNT 320 x 200 16 SYSTEM03.FNT 640 x 200 2 SYSTEM08.FNT 640 x 200 16 SYSTEM11.FNT(*) 640 x 350 SYSTEM16.FNT 640 x 400 2 SYSTEM32.FNT 640 x 400 16 SYSTEM35.FNT(*) 640 x 480 SYSTEM72.FNT 720 x 348 2 SYSTEM24.FNT (*) Not included on disk; call if you need these. The program looks for SETTINGS.DEF in your current directory, and then in a directory specified in environmental variable "RR". If you want to be able to run the program from anywhere on your hard disk: 1. Move RR.EXE to a directory on your path. 2. Include in your AUTOEXEC.BAT a line of the form SET RR=, where is the directory containing SETTINGS.DEF. INSTALLING WITH A SINGLE DISK DRIVE ----------------------------------- If you have only one disk drive, the installation program does not work well. You can install manually as described below, or you can call Abracadata for a set of pre-installed disks. To install manually: 1. Format three 5.25" 360K disks, one labelled PROGRAM, one DATA, and one for scratch. (If you have a 720K or higher capacity drive, use one disk for both PROGRAM and DATA). 2. Copy RFILES.EXE to the scratch disk, then uncompress it by making the scratch disk the default disk and typing RFILES. 3. Copy these files from the scratch to the PROGRAM disk: DEPOTS.DEF, LOADS.DEF, ROMANSIM.FNT, ROMANTRI.FNT, and the appropriate ONE of: SYSTEM08.FNT (CGA), SYSTEM16.FNT (EGA), SYSTEM72.FNT (VGA, MCGA), SYSTEM24.FNT (Hercules), SYSTEM32.FNT (AT&T). 4. Erase the scratch disk. Insert the distribution disk, type PROGS B: to uncompress directly onto the scratch disk. Be prepared to do a lot of disk swapping! 5. Copy RR.EXE from the scratch to the PROGRAM disk. 6. Copy PRINTERS.DEF from the distribution disk to the PROGRAM disk. 7. Copy DFILES.EXE to the DATA disk, then type DFILES. After the files are uncompressed, erase DFILES.EXE. 8. Copy either CPCX.EXE (CGA, Tandy), EPCX.EXE (EGA, Hercules) or VPCX.EXE (VGA, MCGA) to the DATA disk, then type the appropriate name (CPCX, EPCX or VPCX). After the files are uncompressed, erase the .EXE file. 9. You now need to create the SETTINGS.DEF file on the PROGRAM disk. You can do this by running INSTALL, or using a text editor. To create the file with a text editor, enter the following lines: RR_directory = A: RR_files = A: video_board =