P-ROBOTS

                A Game for IBM and Macintosh PASCAL Programmers

                                      By

                                David Malmberg

                                Distributed by

                                   Softworks
                               43064 Via Moraga
                      Mission San Jose, California  94539
                                (415) 659-0533


                              _______
                         ____|__     |  MEMBER
                      --|       |    |-------------------
                        |   ____|__  |  Association of
                        |  |       |_|  Shareware
                        |__|   o   |    Professionals
                      -----|   |   |---------------------
                           |___|___|


                    Copyrighted 1988 -- All Rights Reserved
                               By David Malmberg


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


P-ROBOTS owes a great deal to many people and to several previous programs.

The P-Code PASCAL compiler that was used in P-ROBOTS has a long history.  It
was originally developed and published in 1976 by Nicklaus Wirth, the "father"
of PASCAL.  In 1982, M. Ben-Ari developed and published a book describing how
to make the compiler capable of multi-tasking.  Over the years, this compiler
has been converted to many, many different computers and to many different
dialects of PASCAL.  In 1986, Charles Schoening converted the compiler to
Turbo Pascal version 2.0 on the IBM and released his version to the public
domain.  I have enhanced and converted the compiler to the most recent
releases of Turbo Pascal (version 4.0 and 5.0 for the IBM and compatibles and
version 1.1 for the Macintosh).  This version was then adapted to be the
compiler "engine" for P-ROBOTS.

The inspiration for P-ROBOTS and the basic overall design of the program came
from a similar program called C-ROBOTS by Tom Poindexter, which was first
published in 1985.  As might be expected from the name, C-ROBOTS allows the
programmer to design and program his/her robots in the C language, rather than
PASCAL.  If you are interested in C-ROBOTS, Tom is selling it as Shareware for
a $20 registration fee.  The registration fee entitles you to the latest
version of the program, a large collection of excellent robots, and the source
code for the C-ROBOTS (written in C -- of course).  C-ROBOTS can be ordered
from Tom at the following address:

          Tom Poindexter
          6864 Amherst Court
          Highlands Ranch, CO
                    80126

INTRODUCTION


P-ROBOTS ("pee-robots") is a game based on computer programming in PASCAL.
The objective of the game is to design and program a "robot" that can triumph
over similar robots designed and programmed by others in a real-time battle of
wits and flying missiles.  You control your robot by writing a procedure in
PASCAL to specify your robot's behavior and strategy in its efforts to
vanquish up to three other robots in a battle to the death.  A variety of
pre-defined P-ROBOTS PASCAL functions allow your robot to track its position
on the battlefield, monitor its health or damage condition, and calculate the
distance and angle to opponents from its current battlefield position.  Each
robot is equipped with a cannon to fire missiles, and a motorized drive
mechanism to either close in for the kill of a hapless opponent or flee from a
fierce foe.

P-ROBOTS is an excellent way for the novice programmer to sharpen his/her
PASCAL skills and have fun at the same time.  However, P-ROBOTS does assumes
that the robot designer/programmer already knows the fundamentals of
programming in PASCAL.

For the experienced programmer, P-ROBOTS offers a chance to see just how well
you program in a programming environment where "bad" code can lead to graphic
and ignoble defeat and "brilliant" code can bring triumph and glory.


FILES ON THE DISK

You should have the following files on your P-ROBOTS disk:

     P-ROBOTS.EXE   The is the main program that is executed whenever you hold
                    a P-ROBOTS contest.

     P-ROBOTS.DOC   This file contains the documentation for P-ROBOTS.  It is
                    a text file and can be printed by giving the command at
                    the DOS prompt: TYPE P-ROBOTS.DOC > PRN

     PR-DEMO.BAT    This is a tiny batch file that gives a demonstration of a
                    typical P-ROBOTS contest between three robots.

     HOTSHOT.PR     This is a file containing the PASCAL source code for a
                    robot named HOTSHOT.  This is the robot that is given as
                    an example later in this manual.

     ????????.PR    These are other PASCAL source code files for other robots.
                    All P-ROBOTS robots MUST have .PR file extensions.
                    Without this .PR extension, P-ROBOTS will not compile the
                    robot and enter it in any robot contests.