CliFrotz -------- CliFrotz is a port of the Frotz interpreter for the PalmOS devices. Frotz is an Interactive Fiction interpreter that plays ZMachine (Infocom, Inform) games such as Zork and HitchHiker's Guide. It specifically makes use of Hires screens, OS4 or OS5, expansion cards and the large dynamic memory area available from OS4 onwards. If your handheld does not meet these requirements then try FrobNitz or PilotFrotz. CliFrotz supports V1-V8 games and V6 MG1 graphics. CliFrotz is based on the Frotz 2.43 core. Change History -------------- v1.3 04/03/04 * Fixed menu problems with OS4 devices * Fixed ROM version checking for devices such as 610C * Added memory card selection to preferences * Some screen drawing speed ups v1.2 25/02/04 * Added V6 Graphics (MG1) support!!! * Added option for UX50 to disable wide landscape support * Fixed messy screen clearing on some games * Fixed line input erasing and cursor positioning * Fixed Shogun ZC_GAP displaying, gets rid of square character * Save files automatically have ".sav" appended v1.1 09/02/04 * Change to line input event processing to fix issues with menu shortcuts, etc. * Added transcription support, i.e. "script/unscript" command. * Added Frotz Hotkey support with Debugging, Recording and Playback. * Fixed colour issues with popupforms, DIA and terpetude. * Fixes to Clie NX display and DIA. * Fixes to Insertion Point, and changed its colour to stop it disappearing. * Added "Free Heap RAM" menu option. v1.0 24/01/04 * First release Installing ---------- Simply install the clifrotz.prc file on your PalmOS handheld. **NOTE for Tungsten T3 users** Install the AppSlipRotate.prc and StatusBarLib.prc files (they MUST be installed together) from the "Tungsten T3 DIA" directory. This will enable widescreen support. The screen is forced to landscape widemode even when the slider is shut, also you will not be able to change the orientation when the game is playing. This is because Frotz does not like the screen size to be changed during a game. There is an option in the preferences to allow portrait mode on the T3. When using this option, change it and restart CliFrotz for it to take effect. Make sure your Expansion Card is inserted and run CliFrotz. This will create the required directories on your Card. Next copy your story files into \Frotz on the expansion card using a flash card reader or the Clie "MS Import" utility. Your save files will go into \Frotz\Save. These are Quetzal saves so that they can be exchanged with games played on your PC. Story files should _not_ be converted PDB files, such as those used in Frobnitz. You cannot Hotsync the files with your PDA unless you use something like "Media Manager" to tell it where to put the files. If you want V6 graphics files for the games Arthur, Shogun, Journey, ZorkZero and Beyond Zork title screen, then you need to copy the MG1 files into the \Frotz\ directory. The file names should match the equivalent story files, i.e. the graphics file for Shogun.z6 should be Shogun.mg1 These files are available from: http://ifarchive.org/if-archive/infocom/media/mcga/ Using ----- Infocom games are still copyrighted so you'll need to buy them from somewhere. There are still Infocom collections available but I don't know where. The Zork games are now freely available but they aren't particularly good IF games. There are lots of great free Inform/Infocom games available from: http://ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/ When first starting CliFrotz it is best to set the "Num cols:" value to match the "Act cols:" so that games will look best on your screen. If you do not have a landscape mode Palm or Clie then you may need to set the "Num cols:" to a value of 63 or more for some games to play. When changing font sizes you will need to exit and restart CliFrotz for the changes to take affect. When running CliFrotz for the first time on a PDA, check the "Free Heap RAM" menu to see if you have enough RAM available. If you have less than 1MByte free then you will most likely have problems running many larger IF games. This free RAM is not the same as shown in the Application launcher. When playing a game, tapping on a word will bring up a menu allowing quick word entry. You can also scroll backwards by dragging the screen. The 'Hotkey' menu enables access to the Frotz Hotkey functions such as undo, record, playback and debugging. When using record and playback the file is put into the \Frotz\Misc directory, the name is automatically generated from the Story filename. For example to use a playback file for story Zork1.z3, name the playback file Zork1.rec Transcriptions, i.e. the "script/unscript" command also go into the \Frotz\Misc directory. They will have the extension .scr, the files generated are text files. If you have problems running CliFrotz with it crashing before a game starts, try freeing up some internal memory. Some technical notes -------------------- CliFrotz makes use of the larger dynamic memory available on OS4 and later devices, so the program could make use of the Frotz core code with little change. The original Tungsten T may not have enough dynamic memory to use this program. Virtually all OS5 devices have large dynamic memory, most OS4 devices don't with the exception of a number of Clies. All files must be on an expansion card. Hires support was a fundamental design goal of this project, so it includes support for Clie & OS5 HiRes and landscape screens such as the UX50 and Tungsten T3. Building the code ----------------- CliFrotz is built using Codewarrior. There is no Makefile for GCC but it should be possible to build it in that environment also. Libraries required are: ClieSDK 5.0, PalmSG SDK, PalmOSGlue, PalmOS SDK5r3 IMPORTANT - Do not switch on the compiler optimiser, causes strange problems with various games (i.e. Shogun) ISSUES ------ * Rogue locks up, no solution found yet. * KeyQuick can cause the Return key to generate double events, causing page scrolling to skip a page. Solution is to delete the Return key entry from KeyQuick. * Transcription isn't automatically switched off/on on autosave. Workaround is to "unscript" before switching applications. * Shogun saves get corrupted if you save at the "Save this game position", instead do a "Save" command during the game. This is a Frotz issue not a CliFrotz issue. Thanks ------ Thanks to everyone who posted bugs on Sourceforge. Thanks also to Rick Reynolds, Paul Margrave, Jeff Mitchell and Stefan Jokisch (for the Frotz engine). CliFrotz uses code from PalmFrotz, by Rick Reynolds, and PilotFrotz, by Paul Margrave. Support ------- Go to the CliFrotz Sourceforge homepage at http://clifrotz.sourceforge.net. Remember a project I do in my free time (which is pretty limited). Any help is appreciated. Enjoy Sian Quade