Multi-Disc Supplement Manual for 7.1
Intro
The basic Eamon Dungeon Designer Diskette, version 7.1, builds single-disk adventures. The 7.1 system has the potential to have 200 rooms, 200 artifacts, 200 effects, and 200 monsters, for a total of 800 records. However, a single 5-1/4-inch floppy disk has room for only approx. 300 records. These can be split in any way (eg: 90 rooms, 120 artifacts, 40 monsters, & 50 effects), but cannot add up to much over 300.
This Multi-Disk Supplement (MDS) disk contains programs that enable you to do the following things: 1) convert 1-disk adventures to 2-disk adventures 2) edit 2-disk adventures 3) edit multi (more than 2)-disk adventures
There are two different disk protocols available on this disk:
TWO-DISK ADVENTURES: The two-disk protocol relocates the disk files EAMON.DESC and EAMON.ROOMS to a second, ‘Adventure Disk’. The Eamon file parameters normally stored in record 0 of EAMON.DESC are relocated to a new file, EAMON.FILES. This protocol allows Eamons of up to approximately 500 records in size (eg: 160 rooms, 190 artifacts, 80 effects, & 80 monsters)
MULTI-DISK ADVENTURES: The multi-disk protocol uses disks that have the same file structure as a normal 1-disk Eamon. However, some extra parameters are added to those stored in record 0 of EAMON.DESC. These are for ‘global effects, monsters and artifacts. ‘Global’ effects, monsters and artifacts will always be the lowest numbered on the disk, and will BE THE SAME ON ALL DATA DISKS. Thus, as the player progresses thru the rooms on successive disks of the adventure, the rooms, local (non-global) effects, local artifacts, and local monsters will be different on every disk. Only those artifacts and monsters in the ‘global’ portion of the files will be able to accompany the player-character from disk to disk. Needless to say, designing and writing such a multi-disk adventure will require a great deal of extra care and thought, with ALL artifacts and monsters laid out beforehand, and those which are to be transportable from disk-to-disk identified and located in the low-numbered ‘global’ portion of the files. The advantage to this system is that an Eamon using it can be of unlimited size: the only limitation being that of memory space. However, since the rooms, local artifacts, and local monsters are replaced with every disk swap, the multi-disk protocol can theoretically have more free memory space available for the MAIN PGM than the 2-disk protocol can. But this is more than offset by the much greater difficulty in designing and writing a multi-disk Eamon.
GENERATING A 2-DISK ADVENTURE
1) To generate a 2-disk adventure, first generate a regular 1-disk adventure, using the Eamon 7.1 DDD DUNGEON INIT program. 2) Load the program DISK 2 HELLO from the MDS Disk 3) Initialize a blank disk. Use the command INIT EAMON ADVENTURE #nnnB (where nnn = the adventure number) 4) Run the program CONVERT FILES 2-DISK. Follow the instructions. Note that your original adventure disk is the ‘Boot’ disk, and the new second disk is the ‘Adventure disk. This utility will work on new adventures or on existing single-disk adventures that you are working on but ran out of space. 5) Insert the MDS disk. Type LOAD MAIN PGM 2-DISK. Insert the Boot disk. Type SAVE MAIN PGM. 6) The program RESIZE FILES 2-DISK is the same as the RESIZE FILES program on the 7.1 ODD, but is modified for 2-disk protocol.
EDITING A 2-DISK ADVENTURE
2 DISK DRIVE SYSTEM: If you have two disk drives, use the program DUNGEON EDIT 2-DISK. It is much like the normal DUNGEON EDIT program that you are familiar with.
1 DISK DRIVE SYSTEM: If you only have a single disk drive, it is much more difficult to perform data entry, because the disk files are split between two disks. It is strongly recommended that you be SURE that you need two disks, and can’t condense it to fit on a single disk, because you will have to go thru a lot of extra effort to get the job done.
A single drive requires a lot of disk swapping. The program DUNGEON EDIT 2-DISK will require two disk swaps for every edit, and should be used only for performing late-stage, or final editing to an adventure database that has already been entered.
Initial data entry should be done using the program INPUT DATA 2-DISK (1-DRIVE). This will allow you to generate your data files on 2 separate disks: 1) ADVENTURE disk, which will contain data and descriptions for Rooms and Effects, and 2) ART/MON disk, which will contain the data and descriptions for artifacts and monsters. Note that this ART/MON DATA disk is a third disk in addition to the Boot and Adventure disks.
To generate this third disk, run the program GENERATE ART/MON DISK. Note that the ART/MON disk must be generated before data entry is commenced using INPUT DATA 2-DISK (1-DRIVE). Once you have completed the data entry, the data on the ADVENTURE and ART/MON disks must be rearranged. To do this, run the program ART/MON TO BOOT CONVERT. This will transfer the artifact and monster data and descriptions from the ART/MON disk to the ‘Boot’ and ‘Adventure’ disks.
If you later discover that your adventure requires major modifications that would make using DUNGEON EDIT 2-DISK inconvenient, you can use the program GENERATE ART/MON DISK to move your data onto an ART/MON disk, so that you can use the program INPUT DATA 2-DISK (1-DRIVE) for major editing.
CONVERSIONS
If you are writing a normal 1-disk adventure and discover that you have run out of disk space, you can convert it to 2-disk format at any time. If you only have one disk drive, you can then generate an ART/MON disk, if you still have extensive data entry to perform.
GENERATING A MULTI-DISK ADVENTURE
Multi-disk adventures are generated 1 disk at a time, as if they were each individual 1-disk adventures. However, there are some additional steps that must be taken before data entry commences on each disk: 1) Enter ALL of the global artifacts and monsters for the ENTIRE adventure on disk 1. 2) Use the program FILE PARM EDIT to enter the global parameters. 3) Using the program DISK 2 HELLO, initialize all of your adventure disks. Name each disk using this format: INIT EAMON ADVENTURE #nnnx, where nnn = the adventure number, and x = a letter signifying the disk number (eg: disk 3 of adventure #175 would be EAMON ADVENTURE #175C) 4) Use the program GLOBAL TRANSFER to transfer the global variables from the boot disk to ALL of rest of the disks for this adventure. 5) Using the regular DUNGEON EDIT 7.1 program from the DDD, enter the rooms, local effects, local artifacts, and local monsters for each disk. 6) Use the program MAIN PGM MULTI-DISK as your MAIN PGM on disk 1. Note that only disk 1 will be a ‘Boot’ disk that requires an Intro program and MAIN PGM. The other disks of the adventure, not requiring these programs, will have room for at least 100 additional records. 7) Determine which disk has the largest number of artifacts, and which has the largest number of monsters. Use this artifact # and monster # to DIM your arrays at line 31011. These arrays must be sized to your largest artifact and monster arrays so that there will be room for them when those disks are read.
MULTI-DISK NOTES:
1) The room numbers will reflect which disk a given room is on. The ‘Boot’ disk rooms will be numbered from 1-200. It is not necessary to use all 200 rooms. The room numbers of each succeeding disk will be in multiples of 1000. For example, the rooms of the second disk will be numbered 1001-1 200; the third 2001-2200, and so on. 2) Artifacts, monsters, and effects will be numbered normally on each disk, from 1-200, with the globals that are the same on all disks in the lowest numbers. 3) If you are not very comfortable with fairly complex Applesoft programs, you probably should not attempt a multi-disk Eamon. Remember that the global data structure will make it very difficult to perform large-scale modifications once the data has been entered. 4) The program MAIN PGM MULTI-DISK has not been extensively tested. Be forewarned that you will likely encounter numerous bugs. This came about because there has never been a need for the multi-disk system, and may never be one. Only one Eamon has ever been large enough to need it, and it probably would have been split into more than one Eamon anyway, because of limited memory space for special programming.
Good Luck!