Source:Eamon Utilities Doc

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This page is a verbatim reproduction of original source material and should not be edited except for maintenance.
Description

Eamon Utilities Doc, a document describing the Eamon utility programs contained in the Eamon Utilities series published by the National Eamon User's Club. The document is a text file present on each of the disks in the series.

Source

Eamon Utilities

Date

c. 1984

Author

John Nelson

License

It is believed that the use of this copyrighted item in Eamon Wiki qualifies as fair use under the copyright law of the United States.

Eamon Utilities

The Eamon Utilities were developed by John Nelson and combined with programs from the original Master diskette to create a set of tools to perform certain utility functions for the Eamon user.

The latest version of the Eamon Utilities have been tested and enhanced to make them more user friendly and more reliable. Since this software is non-proprietary, it contains no warranty and the user must assume the risk for its use, but the programs on these diskettes have been tested and should cause no problems. If you have a problem with the utility programs please notify:

John Nelson
1226 E. University Ave
Des Moines, Iowa 50316

The utilities have been split up into different categories according to their general purpose. The general purposes of the utilities are given below:

The general documentation for all utilities is provided on all Utilities diskettes. More detailed information on each of the programs is then given on the diskette that contains that program. Some programs do not require much documentation, since they are easy to run and self-documenting.

Eamon Utilities I

Eamon Utilities I contains the following programs:

These programs are of general use to everyone. The programs are briefly described below:

Condense Characters — This program condenses the Characters file on the Master diskette. That is, it will remove all the dead characters and slide the records back together. This removes any vacant spaces in the file and will help free up space on the diskette. To do this, it reads all the characters from the Master diskette and loads them into a table. It then deletes the Characters file and reloads it from the table.

Character Maintenance — This program is the best cheater program available for Eamon. You can modify your character to have the attributes you want. You can also create new characters and take them directly on an adventure with this program. All fields in the record can be modified.

Snappy Maintenance — This program maintains the Snappy file on the Master Diskette. It allows you to add new phrases or change existing phrases. One of the new enhancements to this program is an editing routine like the one in the Dungeon Edit program that allows you to delete and insert characters into the phrase.

Resurrect — Allows you to revive a character that has been killed. Will not work if the character's record has been over-written by another character record.

Quicky Room Print — This program is used for mapping. It prints the directions of movement allowed and the room in that direction. It was written to allow you to quickly print a list to use for drawing a map of an adventure.

Adventure Log — Displays or Prints listing of Eamon adventures and allows adding, changing and deleting adventures to/from the list. The program will also print the "official" format labels for the adventures in either grouped sets or series. Custom labels may also be printed. The characters sent to the printer are for the Epson MX-80 and will have to be modified to accomodate other printers. New enhancements in this program include the ability to create a file from scratch, and to insert and delete while sliding the adventures above up or down.

Main Hall — This program should not be be run by the user. Its only purpose is to allow a connecting point from an adventure back to the Character Maintenance program after completing an adventure. It is used by inserting the Utilities diskette instead of the Master diskette when returning from an adventure. This should only be done when you have gone directly on an adventure from the Character Maintenance program.

Clone — requests the name of a character and copies the character to another Characters file. This characters file may be on a different diskette or the same diskette. If the character is already on the diskette, the character may be renamed.

Manual Labels — This program is a simple label printing program that can be used to print labels for the Eamon adventures. It is better to use the Adventure Log prgram for this purpose, but this program allows you to control the labels to print the way you want them.

Check Files — This program checks the files on an Eamon adventure to be sure they are valid and have not been damaged. The display changes continuously to keep you informed on where it is while reading.

Character Builder — This program allows you to build a character from scratch and prompts you through the process. The character maintenance program is a little better if you are familiar with the data contained in the record, but this program is easier to run if you are not.

List Eamon R.A.M. — Contrary to popular belief, this program does NOT list the RAM memory used in an Eamon adventure! It lists all of the room names, artifact names and monster names for a particular adventure. It is most useful for keeping an abbreviated documentation listing for all of the Eamon adventures.

Adventure — This program allows you to adventure immediately without going through the Main Hall. It will pull a character from a Characters file and transfer them directly to an adventure, then run the adventure. It is a great way if you are in a hurry to get into the adventure.

Display Characters — Displays all the characters on a characters file. The display will look just about like the one in the Main Hall of the Master diskette.

Initialize Characters — deletes the Characters file and re-initializes it. This will result in all characters being lost from the file. This should be done when some serious data errors exist on the Characters file.

Edit Characters — Allows you to remove undesired characters from the Characters file. You will be prompted for a decision on each character.

Transfer Character — Transfers a character from a Fresh Meat file back to the Characters file on the Master Diskette.

Special Log — This is a special version of the adventure log program that supports an alternate file that can be used to maintain a list of misc. Eamon diskettes. It is not as current as Adventure Log, but does have the added adveantage of handling this second file.

BugLog — Permits a centralized location and a means of keeping track of bugs you might find in Eamon. Please report any bugs you might find to:

Bug Report
c/o John Nelson
1226 E. University
Des Moines, IA 50316

Eamon Utilities II

Eamon Utilities II contains the following programs which are chiefly of use to the designer.

Some of the programs on the Utilities II diskette are also on the Eamon Utilities I diskette. This is because they can be of interest to both the Eamon Player and the designer. A description of the purpose of the programs follows.

Room Analysis — The purose of this program is to show what rooms in an adventure contain any monsters and artifacts. This is most significant when you are approaching the end of your design and want to see which room are still boring and where you need some more artifacts and monsters. It could also be used for listing a production adventure to see how densely populated it is.

Dungeonaid — The purpose of this program is to list data of specific interest for a designer. It is most useful if you have been away from an adventure that you are designing and you want to review something specific (such as what weapon numbers are the monsters using, or what rooms are there monsters in, or where are the treasures, etc.) The program will allow you to select which fields you wish to view in each of the different types of items in an adventure.

Resurrect — allows you to revive a character that has been killed. This may be useful to a designer so that he will not have to lose a character that he wants to test with.

Remove Dummy Artifacts — This program will remove artifacts from the middle of an Eamon adventure. It is most useful for deleting the dummy artifacts that some adventures contain. Dummy artifacts are often added to an adventure to allow easier adding of treasures in the future, should it be determined there is not enough in the adventure. When the adventure is finished, you may decide that you over-did it and need to delete some.

Quicky Room Print — This program is used for mapping. It prints the directions of movement allowed and the room in that direction. It was written to allow you to quickly print a list to use for drawing a map of an adventure.

Adventure Log — Displays or Prints listing of Eamon adventures and allows adding, changing and deleting adventures to/from the list. The program will also print the "official" format labels for the adventures in either grouped sets or series. Custom labels may also be printed. The characters sent to the printer are for the Epson MX-80 and will have to be modified to accomodate other printers. New enhancements in this program include the ability to create a file from scratch, and to insert and delete while sliding the adventures above up or down.

Artifact Maintenance — Allows you to insert artifacts into an adventure or delete artifacts from an adventure. This is normally impossible using the standard edit program. When artifacts are inserted or deleted you can always cancel the changes if you change your mind, but the descriptions are updated immediately. This means you could mess up your Description file if you change your mind.

Flex Dungeon List — Provides a more flexible way to list the items in an adventure. You may select only Rooms, artifacts, effects or monsters and may then limit the listing to any range of numbers desired. Output may be to either a printer or the screen.

Manual Labels — This program is a simple label printing program that can be used to print labels for the Eamon adventures. It is better to use the Adventure Log prgram for this purpose, but this program allows you to control the labels to print the way you want them.

Check Files — This program checks the files on an Eamon adventure to be sure they are valid and have not been damaged. The display changes continuously to keep you informed on where it is while reading.

List Minotaur's Lair — This program is a special version of the Dungeon List program from the Dungeon Designer Diskette that was modified to list the Minotaur's Lair. This adventure used an older version of the base program and would not list using the standard program.

List Cave of the Mind — This is another special version of the Dungeon List program that was created to list the Cave of the Mind. This adventure also used an older version of the base program.

List Treasure Island — This is another special version of the Dungeon List program that was designed to list the Caves of Treasure Island. This adventure used both an older version of the base program and was modified to have non-standard length records.

Erase Art Eff Mon — There is a little story behind this program. Originally, a program was written to copy the maze (or room layout) of an adventure to another diskette in order to allow faster generating of an adventure. This was scraped in favor of using a standard copy program to copy the diskette, then this program was written to remove the Artifacts, Effects and Monsters from the new diskette to allow you to then use the diskette for another adventure. The dungeon edit program may then be used to modify the room connections just enough to be different from the original. The Revenge of the Mole Man was created from The Assault on the Mole Man by using this technique.

Character Builder — This program allows you to build a character from scratch and prompts you through the process. The character maintenance program is a little better if you are familiar with the data contained in the record, but this program is easier to run if you are not.

List Eamon R.A.M. — Contrary to popular belief, this program does NOT list the RAM memory used in an Eamon adventure! It lists all of the room names, artifact names and monster names for a particular adventure. It is most useful for keeping an abbreviated documentation listing for all of the Eamon adventures.

Adventure — This program allows you to adventure immediately without going through the Main Hall. It will pull a character from a Characters file and transfer them directly to an adventure, then run the adventure. It is a great way if you are in a hurry to get into the adventure.

Reverse Monster Names — This is a small program that was written to change the first word of a monsters name around with the second word. It was written for an adventure that came in with monster names such as "1 Guard" "2 Guard" instead of "Guard 1" "Guard 2".

Room Setup — Sets up the rooms file for The Beginners Cave. It was also used for The Lair of the Minotaur and The Cave of the Mind. These programs used the rooms files and artifacts files as sequential files rather than random access.

Room Names Setup — Sets up the Eamon.Room Names file for the early programs using sequential files.

Desc Edit/Create — The original program for defining the descriptions of the items in the early sequential adventures.

Monster/Artifact Setup — This program set up the old sequential monster and artifact files for the adventures such as The Beginners Cave and Lair of the Minotaur.

Room View — This was the original list rooms program for the sequential files used in the early adventures.

Display Characters — Displays all the characters on a characters file. The display will look just about like the one in the Main Hall of the Master diskette.

Transfer Character — Transfers a character from a Fresh Meat file back to the Characters file on the Master Diskette.

BugLog — Permits a centralized location and a means of keeping track of bugs you might find in Eamon. Please report any bugs you might find to:

Bug Report
c/o John Nelson
1226 E. University
Des Moines, IA 50316

Eamon Utilities III

The Eamon Utilities III was created as a by-product of a project intended to create computer designed adventures. A Master file of monsters was created that would allow a designer to simply key in a number of monsters and the program would randomly pull monsters from the monster master and seed the dungeon with them. After creating the Master File, the idea occurred to me that it would be fun to watch some totally unrelated monsters battle each other. So, a monster battle program was written and they were off.

These utilities are not really utilities that might be used for Eamon directly, but it is fun to watch the monsters battle it out with each other.

The programs contained on this diskette are:

The rest of the diskette is best left blank to allow creating a large Monster Master. The diskette will not hold all of the Eamon monsters.

Monster Battle — This program allows you to stage battle between many different Eamon monsters from totally different scenarios. (I wouldn't bet against Vaprak if I were you.) Monsters may be selected by name or number. If you select by name, you will be shown the original description of the monster and asked if this is the one you want. This is done because there may be several monsters from one adventure to another with the same name.

Monster Consolidate — This program reads monsters from the various Eamon adventures and writes them to the Monster Master.

List Monster.Master — This program will read the Monster Master and list each of their attributes.

Eamon Utilities IV

Eamon Utilities IV was created to keep the truly dangerous programs out of the hands of minors. Actually it contains the programs designed for people who want to get even more intimate with the Eamon system. This category has the text file creating programs that are used to modify the Eamon programs. I would suggest that you make a back-up of any diskette you plan to modify and then keep it forever. The diskette also contains some commonly used programs from some of the other utility diskettes.

The Eamon Utilities IV diskette contains the following programs:

Condense Characters — previously described

Room Analysis — previously described

DungeonAid — previously described

Remove Dummy Artifacts — previously described

Quicky Room Print — previously described

Artifact Maintenance — previously described

Flex Dungeon List — previously described

Create Text to Save Game — This program when run will create a text file that can be executed using the EXEC command to append a save routine to existing Eamon adventures. The process is not really difficult if you are familiar with Eamon adventures and programming, but might be more than some people would care to get into.

Create Text to Fix Boot — This program creates a text file that can be executed to append the necessary code to the boot program to install the save routine.

Create Text Save Orig — This program creates the text file required to append the save routine onto the original versions of the base program such as the Lair of the Minotaur.

Create Text Save Base — This program creates the text file needed to append the save program onto the base program on the Dungeon Designer Diskette.

BaseFix — This program creates a text file that can be executed to modify the base program of an adventure to make it run a little faster and change its output format. I do not recommend using this, since it makes your adventures incompatible with other enhancements planned. If you do use it, I would suggest a backup be made and kept for future references.

Gauntlet Edit — This is a modified version of the Dungeon Edit program from the Dungeon Designer Diskette. It was created to allow special fields to be entered for the adventure The Gauntlet.

List Eamon R.A.M. — previously described

Reverse Monster Names — previously described

Test Bench — Allows you to create a test character for trying out an adventure, without going through the master diskette. Can create one using default values or can key in some of the values.

Character Editor — A character create and modifier program, but not compiled like the previous version.


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