Old Empire news
FisherTS
caused the 3b2 folks. Someone actually reported this, and I dropped
the ball. That -1 in signal(-1, 1); makes no sense at all (sigsave.c).
It should have been fixed in 1.1. As for why symbols aren't used..
that's merely because the decompiler wasn't aware of symbolic
values, and the ones that are there were put there by hand.
If 4.2 and SysV have the same header and symbols for signals, then
it's a good idea to fix up sigsave that way. I'll fix it in 1.2.
For you 3b2'ers out there, be sure to change that -1.
In general, sigsave and sigrest have been ignored, and maybe 1.2
will address signal handling a bit better.
As for the floating point quirk of the 3b2s.. I'm not sure how to
handle this one. Maybe I could add something to the README file?
Is the final load supposed to be:
$(CC) -o target -f objects... libs...
If this is accurate, I could put it in the README.
The job of combining the 6 modules (emp[123457]) into one was done by
eagle!mjs. He modified empdis.c in a way that assigned all the commands
to emp1. Neat solution. He did it conditionally so that the folks
with 16-bit machines wouldn't be out in the cold cruel world. I'll
include that in 1.2.
The directory structure may look a bit bizarre, but there is actually
a rationale behind it. It is a structure that is very useful in large
software projects (especially with multiple machine targets), and
it's perhaps a bit of overkill for empire. I'm fond of it ('cause
I work with it every day in the *real* world), and I'll claim artistic
license and keep it the way it is for this hobby of mine (the *non-real*
world). I'm worried that the distribution might not have created the
empty directories though. I should check to see if tar creates those
directories. I thought it would create the whole directory structure.
In any case, having the makefiles compensate for the missing directories
would be a neat solution. Consider it done in Version 1.2.
I'm hoping that Version 1.2 won't be a big deal, and I'll be able to
shar it up and post here.
Someone reported that the manual page shell command (MAN.CCL ?) doesn't
work with the Korn shell. I'll believe anything people say about the
stuff in INFO; I didn't even look at most of the stuff in there.
Someone reported that they could get all the resources they wanted by
using exchange sectors. Now this one I'm really interested in. Anyone
out there know how to do this?? So far the report is lacking details,
but I'm eagerly awaiting those details so we can get it fixed.
A friend who did the original decompilation of empire.c back in 1980,
fixed a bug that allowed a person to log into a country with the same
uid twice using two different terminals. I'm pretty sure I broke that
fix when I hardcoded the ttyn function to always return 1. I compromised
that code when trying to port it to several machines and UNIX variants.
It seems to be percolating up to the top of the priority list, so that
might be fixed in 1.2.
One last thing.. I tried to check out the Old Empire Visual Empire
tool on 4.2 bsd last night. The system I was on didn't have getopt(3),
termio.h, strspn(3), and it didn't appear to have yacc or lex libraries
(liby.a and libl.a). Ugh. Other than that, everything was fine ...
I can get around the termio.h with no regrets, and I can get around
the getopt and strspn problems (boo), but I'll have to get my 4.2
expert to help me find those libraries.
Tom Fisher ihnp4!druxn!tsf
John Buck
> using exchange sectors. Now this one I'm really interested in. Anyone
> out there know how to do this?? So far the report is lacking details,
> but I'm eagerly awaiting those details so we can get it fixed.
>
Yes, this bug is as old as the hills. It is especially useful with exchange
sectors, since exchanges allow teleporting stuff from one side of the world
to the other. The bug will work with any type sector, if it is Checkpointed.
(Or a highway).
Simply have your friend move the stuff out of his exchange while you are buying
it from him. IE. you enter the 'trade' command, and it prints all the
lots available. After it asks you which lot, simply have the guy who owns
the sector (exchange) move the stuff out that he had for sale. He gets
the stuff, and you do too. You can do this over and over again, duplicating
stuff. Kind of like cloning all the resources you need. (Like the
containerization bug that allows you to increase your population by orders
of magnitude over night!)
Note this works with the 'load' command too. Have someone move the stuff you
are loading out of the (checkpointed) harbor while you are sitting at
the load prompts; one item at a time.
I have fixed all these bugs in my version. There are lots of other
ones too (along the same lines) that have been fixed.
(So many, that I could not list them all here.) How about creating anti-sectors
for example?? IE get negative military and civilians in a sector, then
grant these sectors to your enemies. It brings their population/power
down. IE you can theoretically cancel out all their people with anti-people,
and there is not way for them to get rid of the anti-people, since they do
noot exist (you cant move them, since the code checks for count <= 0)
Real neat.
PS I do not advocate the practices listed above. This is not playing
Empire, this is hacking, which is a different game. True Empire die-hards
will not use these bugs against their friends, as it is unethical.
PSS if you want to get my latest/greatest version, read old news for the
instructions, or send me email, ill send you instructions on how to get it.
John Buck
Polytechnic Inst. of NY
Route 110
Farmingdale, NY 11735
516-454-5191
decvax!mcnc!{philabs!ron1,rti-sel}!polyof!john