Adventureland
by Scott Adams

This BASIC adventure game was discovered by chance on disk #203 in the 
PC-SIG Library. The disk is titled "Game Series No 14". On the disk the 
game is referred to as "Adventure by Scott Adams". In the PC-SIG Library 
Catalog 4th ed., 2nd printing (January 1988), the game is referred to as "a 
version of the classic Adventure". The game titles itself "Adventure 1".

A closer examination reveals that this is a version of Scott Adams's 
"Adventureland". As you know, Adventureland was probably the first 
adventure to be specifically written for a home micro, and was directly 
inspired by the original ADVENTURE which Scott Adams had played in 
its mainframe version.

For more information on Scott Adams, Adventureland and other games by 
Adventure International, see ADAMS.TXT which should be included in 
this package.

Apparently Scott Adams first wrote a BASIC version of Adventureland, 
and then translated it to his own adventure language system written in 
machine language. The included source must therefore be a copy of the
BASIC version, translated to run on ABASIC/GW-BASIC (or similar) under
MS-DOS.

Seven lines in the original BASIC source has been changed by me. One is
an outright bug and is an essential change to be able to complete the
game. Four are for convenience, the sixth for nostalgia and the seventh
for visuality. Both the original and changed lines appear below, to
satisfy the purists. The '#' marks the change.

1. To be able to complete the game, line 5010 has to be changed from
        5010 DATA *SMALL STATUE OF A BLUE OX*/OXE/,26,*DIAMOND RING*/RIN/,0
to
        5010 DATA *SMALL STATUE OF A BLUE OX*/OX/,26,*DIAMOND RING*/RIN/,0
                                                #
This assures that the ox statue can be referred to as 'OX' in the game.
Neither 'OX' nor 'OXE' works if the change is not made.

2-5. To be able to save to harddisk, lines 370, 380, 1390 and 1410 are
changed from
        370 PRINT"Is previously saved game now on the disk in drive B:? ";:GOSUB 80:K$=IN$:PRINT K$:IF LEFT$(K$,1) <> "Y" THEN 350
        380 OPEN "B:ADVEN-1.DAT" FOR INPUT AS 1
        1390 PRINT "Is disk drive B: ready to receive the saved game? ";:GOSUB 80:K$=IN$:PRINT K$:IF LEFT$(K$,1)<>"Y" THEN 1440
        1410 OPEN "B:ADVEN-1.DAT" FOR OUTPUT AS 1
to
        370 PRINT"Is previously saved game now on the disk in drive C:? ";:GOSUB 80:K$=IN$:PRINT K$:IF LEFT$(K$,1) <> "Y" THEN 350
                                                                    #
        380 OPEN "C:ADVEN-1.DAT" FOR INPUT AS 1
                  #
        1390 PRINT "Is disk drive C: ready to receive the saved game? ";:GOSUB 80:K$=IN$:PRINT K$:IF LEFT$(K$,1)<>"Y" THEN 1440
                                  #
        1410 OPEN "C:ADVEN-1.DAT" FOR OUTPUT AS 1
                   #
This is not necessary, but nice if you have a harddisk and do not want to
save to floppies.

6. In the original Adventureland, the sign in the hidden grove read
'Paul's place'. I don't know if this gives any more meaning than just
's place', but personally I think the 'paul' part of the sentence is
missing by accident. Anyway, line 5080 is changed from
        5080 DATA "sign says- S PLACE -",25,"trees",11," ",0," ",0
to
        5080 DATA "sign says- PAUL'S PLACE -",25,"trees",11," ",0," ",0
                              #####

7. The adventure interpreter looks for a star in the beginning of a location
description. If this star is present, it writes the description without the 
"I'm in a" prefix. As you can see, this prefix is missing in line 4200.
Change the line from
        4200 DATA 0,0,0,0,0,0,"I'm on a narrow ledge by the throne room-across chasm-ledge."
to
        4200 DATA 0,0,0,0,0,0,"*I'm on a narrow ledge by the throne room-across chasm-ledge."
                               #

Otherwise ADVEN1.BAS is unchanged from the PC-SIG version.

Three additional hint files named HINT1.DOC, HINT2.DOC and 
HINT3.DOC were also included on the disk. These files were BASIC 
source; I have cleaned them up ever so little and named them HINT1.BAS, 
HINT2.BAS and HINT3.BAS. They can all be run as normal basic programs.

The programming style in ADVEN1.BAS is totally awful, with lots of
GOTO's within FOR-NEXT loops, which means that QBASIC reports errors
upon a trial run of ADVEN1.BAS. I have made two minor quick-and-dirty
modifications to ADVEN1.BAS and removed unnecessary line numbers. This
new file is named ADVEN1_Q.BAS, and will, hopefully, run under QBASIC. I
have successfully completed ADVEN1.BAS running on GW-BASIC 3.20 and
ADVEN1_Q.BAS running on QBASIC 1.1.

It should be fairly simple to convert the game to any dialect of
BASIC. The source files included in this archive are all saved as
ASCII-files for this purpose.

And, do remember to use CAPITAL LETTERS when playing Adventureland.

If you want information on PC-SIG or PC-SIG disks, you could try to 
contact PC-SIG via its 1988 address or phone numbers:

        PC-SIG, INC.
        1030 E. Duane Avenue, Suite D
        Sunnyvale, CA 94086
        USA

Orders:
        (800) 245-6717 - USA (except California)
        (800) 222-2996 - California only
        (408) 730-2107 - FAX

------------------------------------------------------------
These comments by:

Morten L�hre
Chateauet
S�re �yjorden 36
N 5035 BERGEN-SANDVIKEN
NORWAY

Internet: EDB_MORTEN@DEBET.NHH.NO