Apple // Game: Bolo
Gerald Wayne Daniels II
on the Mac. I don't know when the release date is. I'll try to get some more
information.
GWD2
Elizabeth G. Levy
Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Pleeeeeeease post the info. Is it shareware?
Clint Fleckenstein
Right on! This game rules. I'll be one of the first to order, just
as soon as I tire of OIDS, Spectre, and Hellcats...
>
>GWD2
Clint Flecken-stimpy
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Dave Caplinger
not related to the Apple ][ version from way-back-when. (Though it does deal
with tanks and scrolls similarly..) We've played the beta quite a bit lately
and love it... it runs across a network (up to 16 players) and even though
things "snag" every once in a while it's still a blast. I'm pretty sure
there's an FTP site for the Beta; I'll post again when I find out where it is.
(I downloaded it from OneNet@LosAltos)
- Dave Caplinger
de...@unocss.unomaha.edu
de...@loria.omahug.org
Richard Charles Graves
Bolo was originally written for the BBC Micro, a Brit machine similar to the
Apple II, by Stuart Cheshire, one of our consultants. In between stints of
real work, he's been porting it to the Mac. It's now in its 6th non-public beta
version. It runs on Mac+ and up (though you can't currently tell what the
pieces are with less than 16 colors) and works across AppleTalk zones with no
theoretical limit to # of players (though our net dies with more than 10
players in 5 zones across FastPath routers). Features color, messaging, cool
digitized sound, System-7 savviness, and won't be finished or available in
non-finished form for months so don't even think about asking. Stuart plans to
release it as freeware currently.
--
rich graves, stanfd res affairs mac tech, and sometime junior, poli sci
ja...@deathstar.stanford.edu 553 Mayfield #207 (415) 497-2472
Chuck Shotton
>
> There is a game called "Bolo" that's in beta for the Mac right now, but it is
> not related to the Apple ][ version from way-back-when. (Though it does deal
> with tanks and scrolls similarly..) We've played the beta quite a bit lately
> and love it... it runs across a network (up to 16 players) and even though
> things "snag" every once in a while it's still a blast. I'm pretty sure
> there's an FTP site for the Beta; I'll post again when I find out where it is.
>
> (I downloaded it from OneNet@LosAltos)
>
The docs say that Bolo can be ftp'ed from bolo.stanford.edu.
Robert J. Skrobola
Waaahhh...he whined...The mac named bolo.stanford.edu doesn't allow anonymous
login. Anywhere else this might be available, he asked greedily.
Please forgive me. I'm a bolo fiend from way back.
Rob
--
-----------------------------------------------------
Rob Skrobola Institutional File Server Project
Normal Disclaimer: I speak only for myself
-----------------------------------------------------
Wile E. Coyote
>In article <67...@lib.tmc.edu>, csho...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Chuck Shotton) writes:
>|> The docs say that Bolo can be ftp'ed from bolo.stanford.edu.
>
>Waaahhh...he whined...The mac named bolo.stanford.edu doesn't allow anonymous
>login. Anywhere else this might be available, he asked greedily.
The docs also say to log in as user "bolo" with password "bolo". Of course,
I didn't have the docs this morning, and I though I was utterly brillaint
at having guessed the password on my first try. Then I download the docs and
find out your supposed to know.....
Charles Gousha
>Bolo was originally written for the BBC Micro...
>It runs on Mac+ and up (though you can't currently tell what the
>pieces are with less than 16 colors) and works across AppleTalk zones with no
>theoretical limit to # of players (though our net dies with more than 10
>players in 5 zones across FastPath routers). Features color, messaging, cool
>digitized sound, System-7 savviness, and won't be finished or available in
>non-finished form for months so don't even think about asking. Stuart plans to
>release it as freeware currently.
>ja...@deathstar.stanford.edu 553 Mayfield #207 (415) 497-2472
For those not familiar with the original game, I thought I'd mention that
the game is meant as a multiplayer game from the start. There are neutral
computer "pillboxes" that will shoot at you, but once you destroy them
they don't come back. Everything hinges on having one or more enemy players
to shoot at, build defenses against, and attack.
Since I'm not on a network, I can't learn the true joys of playing this game.
I'm getting LOTS of practice, though...
In a way, it's like the difference between the computer and a human player
on Spectre. But only in a way.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Gousha | CJS systems | "Yes, Star Trek IS a way of life"
gou...@cory.berkeley.edu |Macintosh man| (my own philosophy)
All normal disclaimers apply, as well as some abnormal ones.
Stuart David Cheshire
Bolo was a game I wrote for the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)
Microcomputer in 1987. I have never seen, or even heard of, this Apple //
game that people are talking about. Bolo is a networked multi-player tank
battle game. It is fundamentally concerned with the communication between
the computers runing the game, and with the communication between the players
as they form shifting, uncertain alliances with other players whom they may
or may not completely trust. "Bolo" is the Hindi word for communication.
The BBC micro is now obsolete, and was never networked as widely as the
Macintosh, so I wanted to keep the game alive by porting it to a newer machine.
The Macintosh was the obvious choice. It has networking built in, and a
uniform graphics interface which means that it was easy to write Bolo so
that it will work on every Mac from Mac Plus to Quadra 950, from 1-bit
monochrome to 32-bit direct colour, from a single 512x384 screen to systems
with any number of monitors of any size, and from System 6 to A/UX 3.0.
I was not about to waste my life writing multiple different pieces of code
for CGA, EGA, Hercules, VGA, PGA, XGA, Super VGA etc. and after all that just
end up with a game running on a crappy computer which doesn't even networking
or digitised sound facilities built in as standard on all models.
Bolo is not finished yet. It is currently in beta test, and I still have a
lot of work planned on the user interface. The game does work, and I'm
interested in hearing about crashes and genuine incompatibility problems so
that I can fix them, but please remember that everyone and his dog has
ideas about improvinging the user interface, so lets hold off criticisms on
that until I've done a little more work, OK?
Bolo is a multi-player game, and it has no one player mode, except in so
far as you can play it without any other players to fight. There are no
computer controlled tanks yet. It also takes some time to learn all the
subtleties. Unless you have at least four people, and are prepared to read
the manual first (Microsoft Word 4 format) then I suggest that you don't
waste your time downloading it. Bolo is not an instant-appeal 'shoot-em-up'
game. It has depth which will take you some time to discover, but the people
at Stanford who have got to like it, REALLY like it, and can be found playing
it almost every night all across the 100 zone Stanford AppleTalk network.
I am not posting Bolo to comp.binaries.mac or sumex-aim.stanford.edu
until it is finished. If you want to see a preview, then you can obtain
it by ftp from bolo.stanford.edu (36.103.0.16). Log in as "bolo", password
"bolo". This machine is my Macintosh IIci, so don't be surprised that it
is not switched on 24 hours a day, and you may find ftp a little slow.
It will generally be on 10am to 11pm PST (GMT-8).
I am a PhD student, and I have a lot of work to catch up after wasting
so much time on Bolo, so don't expect too much help. Until I decide to
officially release it, ftping it successfully and making it work is your
problem. I suggest that you use a program like Fetch or Xferit, and use
MacBinary mode to make it easiest.
Stuart Cheshire <ches...@cs.stanford.edu>
* Liliore Green Rains Houses Resident Computer Coordinator
* Stanford Distributed Systems Group Research Assistant
* Macintosh Programmer
Christopher Davis
but not enough color machines nearby to play. But if we could join in
on the Stanford games... ;-)
--
Christopher Davis * c...@eff.org * System Administrator, EFF * +1 617 864 0665
Samizdata isn't that different from Samizdat. -- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Parag Patel
Laumer's SF tales of the Dinochrome Brigade, would it? :-)
For those who have never read these, look for the collections of older
BOLO stories in SF bookshops. BOLO is the brand name of an advanced
tank of the future, among other things with a sentient computer
controlling it, and firepower measured in megatons/second. They're
actually quite fun to read, but I don't much care for his newer work.
-- Parag Patel <pa...@Netcom.COM>
Stuart Cheshire
I'm sorry to those people who had trouble, or were completely unable to
ftp it.
I am using Peter Lewis's shareware Macintosh FTP server which is
currently under development, and is nearly as beta as Bolo is.
I have switched to a different version of FTPd, and increased its memory
partition to 512K, so hopefully noone should have any problems now. If
you do find that the FTP server dies, please send me e-mail so I can do
something about it.
John Dawson
II version predates it. It looks like the talk of one game being a "port"
of the other has been killed both ways: the author of BBC Bolo himself
has stated that his game was original, and the Apple II version was around
before he wrote his Bolo! The Apple II Bolo was around since at least
1986. It looks like a total coincidence that the games are vaguely
similar and are both called "Bolo".
--
jda...@cs.utexas.edu (John Dawson)
Clint Fleckenstein
>Gee, so the name "BOLO" wouldn't have anything at all to do with Keith
>Laumer's SF tales of the Dinochrome Brigade, would it? :-)
Holy cow! This is eerie...the BOLO game I have on my Apple //c will
give you the message
"...the Dinochrome Brigade Salutes You"
or something like that upon clearing a level!!! I had no idea there
was a tie-in with...
>For those who have never read these, look for the collections of older
>BOLO stories in SF bookshops. BOLO is the brand name of an advanced
>tank of the future, among other things with a sentient computer
>controlling it, and firepower measured in megatons/second. They're
>actually quite fun to read, but I don't much care for his newer work.
Thanks for the reference, I'll be looking for these.
Clint Fleckenstein
For the record, I got my copy of BOLO around 1985 or so, two years
before I graduated from high school. I got it around the same time
as Mario Bros.
>jda...@cs.utexas.edu (John Dawson)