New Ada ANSI console/X terminal game

New Ada ANSI console/X terminal game

[David Trudgett]

Hi everyone,

For those who may be interested, I've just posted to my website a
first release (version 0.99) of my "High Seas Battleship" network
game. You can find the source code for it at:

http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/dkt/programs/high-seas-battleship.tar.gz

It's a full-screen colour text-based application written for Linux
console or xterm, but should work on most ANSI compatible terminal
devices. My program makes use of Samuel Tardieu's AdaSockets, which I
doubt works on Windows (the manual seems to mention only Unix and
OpenVMS), so I likewise doubt that High Seas will work as it is under
Windows, even assuming that there is a suitable ANSI terminal
available for Windows. It should be easy, however, to adapt the comms
layer to use a different sockets library, if desired.

For non-GNAT users, I should probably mention that the program uses a
GNAT specific library (in the main procedure, battleship.adb) to
access environment variables, so you'll probably want to replace this
with the relevant vendor-specific library, or perhaps
Ada.Command_Line.Environment (I didn't use it myself because GNAT
warned me that this is an internal GNAT package that therefore
shouldn't be used).

Besides AdaSockets and GNAT.OS_Lib just referred to, there are no
other dependencies except that you'll probably want a C compiler to
compile a couple of utility routines (which could probably be omitted,
though).

To compile under Linux/Unix, assuming you have GNAT and libadasockets
installed, you will probably just need to edit the Makefile and run
make.


The project was pursued simply as an Ada learning exercise, so
comments would be appreciated, if you have any.

Regards,

David


-- 

David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/

Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning
people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as
applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to
improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of
their own. The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters,
and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon
human beings by the professional do-gooders, who attempt to set
themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their
views on all others - with the abiding assurance that the end
justifies the means.

    -- Henry Grady Weaver (author), 
       (from The Mainspring of Human Progress) 

Re: New Ada ANSI console/X terminal game

[Pascal Obry]

David,

> It's a full-screen colour text-based application written for Linux
> console or xterm, but should work on most ANSI compatible terminal
> devices. My program makes use of Samuel Tardieu's AdaSockets, which I
> doubt works on Windows (the manual seems to mention only Unix and

No problem. AdaSockets does work on Windows we have been using it for AWS.

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|              http://www.obry.net
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595

Re: New Ada ANSI console/X terminal game

[David Trudgett]

Pascal Obry <pascal@obry.net> writes:

> David,
>
>> It's a full-screen colour text-based application written for Linux
>> console or xterm, but should work on most ANSI compatible terminal
>> devices. My program makes use of Samuel Tardieu's AdaSockets, which
>> I doubt works on Windows (the manual seems to mention only Unix and
>
> No problem. AdaSockets does work on Windows we have been using it
> for AWS.

Good stuff! Thanks, Pascal.

Cheers,

David



-- 

David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/

It's sociologically interesting, though scary, that you can be inside
an evil system and be somehow unaware of it.

    -- Actor Anthony Sher on growing up in apartheid-South Africa,
       interviewed by John Walsh, The Independent, 1 May, 2000

Re: New Ada ANSI console/X terminal game

[Ross Higson]

David Trudgett wrote:

> For those who may be interested, I've just posted to my website a
> first release (version 0.99) of my "High Seas Battleship" network
> game. You can find the source code for it at:
> 
> http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/dkt/programs/high-seas-battleship.tar.gz
> 
> It's a full-screen colour text-based application written for Linux
> console or xterm, but should work on most ANSI compatible terminal
> devices. My program makes use of Samuel Tardieu's AdaSockets, which I
> doubt works on Windows (the manual seems to mention only Unix and
> OpenVMS), so I likewise doubt that High Seas will work as it is under
> Windows, even assuming that there is a suitable ANSI terminal
> available for Windows. It should be easy, however, to adapt the comms
> layer to use a different sockets library, if desired.
> 
...
> To compile under Linux/Unix, assuming you have GNAT and libadasockets
> installed, you will probably just need to edit the Makefile and run
> make.
> 

David,

Nice.

Since you already use some GNAT-specific packages, you could also use 
the package GNAT.Sockets. Then you wouldn't need AdaSockets. It is easy 
to modify your program to use GNAT sockets. I can email you the source 
changes if you want - it took me about 15 minutes to convert, since 
nearly all the changes are in the class_comms package.

Either way, once you have a native windows executable you could use my 
redirect program to run it. For example, instead of entering your commands:

battleship player_1 wait
battleship player_2 connect localhost

you would execute the programs under redirect:

redirect /noedit /uself /mode=vt100 battleship player_1 wait
redirect /noedit /uself /mode=vt100 battleship player_2 connect localhost

The redirect options ("/noedit /uself" etc) tell redirect how to emulate 
the mode your program appears to expect - especially the keyboard emulation.

Redirect is part of the Ada Terminal Emulator package. It uses GWindows 
and compiles under GNAT 3.15 or GNAT GPL 2005. But you don't need to 
compile it - just download the compiled version from:

http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/~rosshigson/

Ross.

Re: New Ada ANSI console/X terminal game

[David Trudgett]

Ross Higson <rossNOSPAMhigson@optusnet.com.au> writes:

> David Trudgett wrote:
>
>> For those who may be interested, I've just posted to my website a
>> first release (version 0.99) of my "High Seas Battleship" network
>> game. You can find the source code for it at:
>> http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/dkt/programs/high-seas-battleship.tar.gz
>

> Nice.

Hope you like it! :-) I take it you got it working on Windows, then?


>
> Since you already use some GNAT-specific packages, you could also use
> the package GNAT.Sockets. Then you wouldn't need AdaSockets. 

Actually, the only GNAT-specific package I used was the GNAT.OS_Lib
one, and that was purely for access to environment variables which, at
a pinch, could easily be removed from the program. On the other hand,
sockets are kind of essential for a network game! ;-)

I tried to avoid GNAT-specific packages mainly for portability to
other compilers. However, it could be a possibility to have two
versions: a GNAT.Sockets and an AdaSockets version. How much mucking
around that would be in practice I'm not sure at the moment. Clearly,
though, if the code is already written for me, then that's already a
bit less mucking around! :-)


> It is easy to modify your program to use GNAT sockets. I can email
> you the source changes if you want - it took me about 15 minutes to
> convert, since nearly all the changes are in the class_comms
> package.

Hey, 15 minutes, that's pretty good going! Yes, I'd love to see your
mods, if you would like to email them to me. I may be able to make use
of them, as I indicated above.


>
> Either way, once you have a native windows executable you could use my
> redirect program to run it. For example, instead of entering your
> commands:
>
> battleship player_1 wait
> battleship player_2 connect localhost
>
> you would execute the programs under redirect:
>
> redirect /noedit /uself /mode=vt100 battleship player_1 wait
> redirect /noedit /uself /mode=vt100 battleship player_2 connect localhost

That sounds great! I was wondering how I might accomplish that little
feat! Does the noedit switch also suppress local echo? You probably
noticed my "no echo" routine was Unix specific. I don't think it's
absolutely essential to suppress local echo in any case.

Unfortunately, I don't have a Windows box that I can easily use to try
all this, and to build a Windows executable. The kids have a very old
machine that might be sufficient, but it has got like about 50Mb free
disk space, and they swear! that there's nothing much that can be got
rid of! There are some really important games on there, you see! :-)
Little do they know that I have a really, *really* important game to
put on it. ;-) I'll conduct a proper inspection, I think, when I get a
few minutes.


>
> The redirect options ("/noedit /uself" etc) tell redirect how to
> emulate the mode your program appears to expect - especially the
> keyboard emulation.

Sounds pretty funky!


>
> Redirect is part of the Ada Terminal Emulator package. It uses
> GWindows and compiles under GNAT 3.15 or GNAT GPL 2005. But you don't
> need to compile it - just download the compiled version from:
>
> http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/~rosshigson/

OK, muchas gracias. I'll probably be doing that sometime soon, after I
pay a visit to the kids' museum piece!


David



-- 

David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/

The recognition or non-recognition of a certain truth depends not on
external causes, but on certain other causes within the man himself.
So that at times under external conditions apparently very favorable
for the recognition of truth, one man will not recognize it, and
another, on the contrary, under the most unfavorable conditions will,
without apparent cause, recognize it. As it is said in the Gospel, "No
man can come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him."
That is to say, the recognition of truth, which is the cause of all
the manifestations of human life, does not depend on external
phenomena, but on certain inner spiritual characteristics of the man
which escape our observation.

    -- Leo Tolstoy, "The Kingdom of God is Within You"

Re: New Ada ANSI console/X terminal game

[Ross Higson]

David Trudgett wrote:

> Hope you like it! :-) I take it you got it working on Windows, then?

Yes. I'm not saying it's a great porting job, but but I'll email you the 
modified source. It's mostly simple name changes.

> That sounds great! I was wondering how I might accomplish that little
> feat! Does the noedit switch also suppress local echo? You probably
> noticed my "no echo" routine was Unix specific. I don't think it's
> absolutely essential to suppress local echo in any case.

I simply removed your unix-specific echo manipulation. I have a separate 
"/[no]echo" option in redirect, but it is off by default, so I didn't 
need to specify it.

> Unfortunately, I don't have a Windows box that I can easily use to try
> all this, and to build a Windows executable. 

I'll include a Windows executable in the mail so you can try it with 
redirect. BTW, I notice the "help" command seems to lock up the game. 
Haven't had time to investigate in detail yet.

> OK, muchas gracias. I'll probably be doing that sometime soon, after I
> pay a visit to the kids' museum piece! 

If you want museum pieces, you've come to the right news group :)

Ross.

Re: New Ada ANSI console/X terminal game

[David Trudgett]

Ross Higson <rossNOSPAMhigson@optusnet.com.au> writes:

> David Trudgett wrote:
>
>> Hope you like it! :-) I take it you got it working on Windows, then?
>
> Yes. I'm not saying it's a great porting job, but but I'll email you
> the modified source. It's mostly simple name changes.

Thanks for the email, Ross, much appreciated. I've had a look through
all the places you changed (made easy by the diffs you supplied), but
I'll have a closer look when I get a chance.


>
>> Unfortunately, I don't have a Windows box that I can easily use to try
>> all this, and to build a Windows executable.
>
> I'll include a Windows executable in the mail so you can try it with
> redirect. BTW, I notice the "help" command seems to lock up the
> game. Haven't had time to investigate in detail yet.

I had a problem like that during development, but fixed it
(seemingly). It doesn't happen on Linux any more. My guess is that
there is a threading issue somewhere that is only showing up on the
Windows version.


>
>> OK, muchas gracias. I'll probably be doing that sometime soon, after I
>> pay a visit to the kids' museum piece!
>
> If you want museum pieces, you've come to the right news group :)

Did I tell you about the time when I was a wee lad...  


David


-- 

David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/

... it is easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by
the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In
other words... their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by
their superficial design flaws.
      
      -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, on the products
         of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

Re: New Ada ANSI console/X terminal game

[Randy Brukardt]

"David Trudgett" <wpower@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> wrote in message
news:m3r79qmd8h.fsf@rr.trudgett...
...
> Actually, the only GNAT-specific package I used was the GNAT.OS_Lib
> one, and that was purely for access to environment variables which, at
> a pinch, could easily be removed from the program.

For Ada 200Y, you should use Ada.Environment_Variables instead. That will be
supported on all Ada 200Y compilers. For Ada 95, well, you'll have to depend
on system specific stuff.

                    Randy.

Re: New Ada ANSI console/X terminal game

[David Trudgett]

"Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> writes:

> "David Trudgett" <wpower@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> wrote in message
> news:m3r79qmd8h.fsf@rr.trudgett...
> ...
>> Actually, the only GNAT-specific package I used was the GNAT.OS_Lib
>> one, and that was purely for access to environment variables which, at
>> a pinch, could easily be removed from the program.
>
> For Ada 200Y, you should use Ada.Environment_Variables instead. That will be
> supported on all Ada 200Y compilers. For Ada 95, well, you'll have to depend
> on system specific stuff.
>

Thanks, Randy, I'll keep it in mind. I'm not sure how long it will be,
though, before the new standard gets widespread support. Wait and see,
I guess. Not that it really matters that much for a little console
game, I suppose.

David



-- 

David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/

It's sociologically interesting, though scary, that you can be inside
an evil system and be somehow unaware of it.

    -- Actor Anthony Sher on growing up in apartheid-South Africa,
       interviewed by John Walsh, The Independent, 1 May, 2000

Re: New Ada ANSI console/X terminal game

[Martin Dowie]

David Trudgett wrote:
> "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> writes:
> 
> 
>>"David Trudgett" <wpower@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> wrote in message
>>news:m3r79qmd8h.fsf@rr.trudgett...
>>...
>>
>>>Actually, the only GNAT-specific package I used was the GNAT.OS_Lib
>>>one, and that was purely for access to environment variables which, at
>>>a pinch, could easily be removed from the program.
>>
>>For Ada 200Y, you should use Ada.Environment_Variables instead. That will be
>>supported on all Ada 200Y compilers. For Ada 95, well, you'll have to depend
>>on system specific stuff.
>>
> 
> 
> Thanks, Randy, I'll keep it in mind. I'm not sure how long it will be,
> though, before the new standard gets widespread support. Wait and see,
> I guess. Not that it really matters that much for a little console
> game, I suppose.

If you're running on Windows there is an Ada95 version available from 
www.afraidof.co.uk

Cheers

-- Martin

Re: New Ada ANSI console/X terminal game

[David Trudgett]

David Trudgett <wpower@zeta.org.au.nospamplease> writes:

> For those who may be interested, I've just posted to my website a
> first release (version 0.99) of my "High Seas Battleship" network
> game. You can find the source code for it at:

Those who have downloaded the initial release may like to know that I
have posted a small bugfix to my High Seas Battleship game. The
updated version is at:

http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/dkt/programs/high-seas-battleship_v0.99a.tar.gz

This fixes a bug whereby it was possible to change the position of
one's fleet mid-game by typing the caret symbol. Oops... ;-)

Cheers,

David

-- 

David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance
and conscientious stupidity.

    -- Martin Luther King, Jr.