Text Adventure Development System - TADS 3 Source Code Distribution Copyright (c) 1999, 2003 by Michael J. Roberts. All Rights Reserved. This is the C++ source code for TADS 3. In order to help make TADS available on a wide range of computer systems, we're distributing this source code. TADS 3 and this source code are copyrighted works, so please read the license information below if you're going to use these files. We want to keep TADS consistent in features and functionality across all of the different computers it works on, so we ask that you do not make any changes to this code beyond what is necessary to make TADS work on your type of computer system. In addition, the author retains the rights to TADS and any derivative works based on this source code. If your main interest in TADS is for writing or playing a game, you probably don't need this source code, since executable versions of TADS are available for a number of platforms. This source code is meant primarily for people who want to port TADS to new systems, or track down and fix problems with the system code itself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ HOW TO PORT TADS 3 TO A NEW PLATFORM To use this code, you will need a C++ compiler, and you may have to do some C or C++ coding to customize TADS to your system, in order to build a working version of TADS from this source code. This code depends upon the TADS 2 Operating System Interface (osifc) layer, which is not included with this distribution. You can obtain the TADS 2 source code, including TADS 2 osifc implementations for many operating systems, via FTP from ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/programming/tads2/source (Note that ftp.ifarchive.org is the new home, effective August 2001, of the former ftp.gmd.de archive.) TADS 3 uses the identical osifc implementation that TADS 2 uses. This means that if TADS 2 has been ported to your operating system, you will probably not have to write any new code to port TADS 3 - all you'll have to do is create a makefile (or your local equivalent) and build TADS 3 using the same osifc implementation files that you used for TADS 2. If TADS 2 has not already been ported to your system, you must first write the code necessary to implement the osifc layer for your platform. You don't need to port all of TADS 2, but you must port at least the osifc code. Refer to the file PORTNOTE.TXT in the TADS 2 source code distribution for information on how to do this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTACTING THE AUTHOR Please contact the author by email at mjr_@hotmail.com if you have any questions or comments about TADS or the license information below. In addition, if you port this software to a new platform, the author would be grateful to hear about any changes you had to make to the portable code to make TADS work on your computer. It is the author's goal that the portable part of the code will compile and run without any changes at all on every system to which TADS is ported. When problems do occur, the author will try to incorporate any necessary corrections into the main code base in an effort to ensure that the same portability exceptions don't recur in future versions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ COPYRIGHT INFORMATION TADS 3 is "freeware," which means that it's copyrighted software that the author makes available free of charge but subject to certain conditions. Please see the accompanying license file LICENSE.TXT for license information.