PawMac (Paw Map and Convert)

Show us what you're working on, (preferably with screenshots).
Post Reply
User avatar
8BitAG
Dynamite Dan
Posts: 1487
Joined: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:25 pm
Contact:

Re: PawMac (Paw Map and Convert)

Post by 8BitAG »

Yeah, the default database includes a lot of that stuff but if you're building your own file then you need to add a bit of the structure in there.

To be honest, an author will really need to go in and tweak a lot of that stuff anyway.

Regarding your comments on process 1 and 2 in the documentation. In general process 1 has the stuff in it that directly adds to the location description while process 2 is the computer's "turn" each time. The way that you've chosen to filter out any Quill code that triggers an ANYKEY, or checks the auto-decreasing flags, into process 2 seems to be about as much as you can do automatically... authors will need to go in and move any other code that belongs in process 2 manually. I don't think you can automate much more than you have.

Stripping out the verbs and nouns that begin the entries in process 1 and 2 is a fairly good idea, even if there aren't Verb/Noun clashes... Not necessarily for the Spectrum PAWs, but if you use that inPAWs file to make a CP/M game, you need to get rid of that tagging anyway. (And alter a lot of other things too... but that's something I've documented fully elsewhere and is really beyond the scope of an automated tool).

Anyway, the tool looks cool... especially the updated inPAWs... which I'm particularly interested in... Would it be eventually possible to increase its functionality by using the space in the additional pages? (Obviously there are issues regarding those, and differences in the space available in the various 128K versions)
8-bit Text Adventure Gamer - games - research.
bass-on
Drutt
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Mar 15, 2019 4:23 pm

Re: PawMac (Paw Map and Convert)

Post by bass-on »

8BitAG wrote: Sat Apr 27, 2019 10:43 pm Anyway, the tool looks cool... especially the updated inPAWs... which I'm particularly interested in... Would it be eventually possible to increase its functionality by using the space in the additional pages? (Obviously there are issues regarding those, and differences in the space available in the various 128K versions)
Thanks for the feedback - it's really useful. To be honest, I can't make any promises about any further updates to InPaws, as the work I've already done is really at the limit of my meagre abilities. The InPaws source is in C++ and the code comments are in Spanish: both of which are a foreign language to me. It really was a hack job. That said, it's definitely a case of can't rather than won't though, so I'm not ruling it out. :D

As an experiment I converted Part 1 of The Boggit to PAW and that made me realise that there's more work that I can do to convert Patch/Press values to PAW commands. E.g. LET 28 8/7 to CHARSET 1/2 so I'll crack on with that next.
User avatar
8BitAG
Dynamite Dan
Posts: 1487
Joined: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:25 pm
Contact:

Re: PawMac (Paw Map and Convert)

Post by 8BitAG »

bass-on wrote: Sun Apr 28, 2019 10:36 am Thanks for the feedback - it's really useful. To be honest, I can't make any promises about any further updates to InPaws, as the work I've already done is really at the limit of my meagre abilities. The InPaws source is in C++ and the code comments are in Spanish: both of which are a foreign language to me. It really was a hack job. That said, it's definitely a case of can't rather than won't though, so I'm not ruling it out. :D

As an experiment I converted Part 1 of The Boggit to PAW and that made me realise that there's more work that I can do to convert Patch/Press values to PAW commands. E.g. LET 28 8/7 to CHARSET 1/2 so I'll crack on with that next.
I think even the little extra functionality your inPAWs 128 has make it useful... It certainly should be for me, as I have at least one game that I want to port to the Spectrum (from Adventuron) that just doesn't fit in 48K at the moment.

(Re. The Boggit.... that one I imagine was pretty straightforward but some of the old commerical Quilled games may give issues as there are a few custom versions of Quill floating around... such as the four word input variant that was provided by Gilsoft to some companies)

If there are any PAWs stuff I can help out with then let me know... It's a system I am pretty familiar with now... as is inPAWs.

I'm less familiar with the Quill! I was thinking that you may need to address the issue of flags in your documentation. Flags 29 to 59 are reserved by PAWs for system purposes (a couple of extra ones on top of that are used by DAAD too) so authors of Quilled adventures may need to bear that in mind and make appropriate changes. (Flags 0 to 10 are also used by the PAWs system, but these basically line up with the Quill uses... there is a thread of Gilsoft DNA that runs between the Quill, PAWs, SWAN, and DAAD!)
8-bit Text Adventure Gamer - games - research.
User avatar
8BitAG
Dynamite Dan
Posts: 1487
Joined: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:25 pm
Contact:

Re: PawMac (Paw Map and Convert)

Post by 8BitAG »

John Wilson says that you always were a clever little sod, by the way. He's really, really impressed with your tool. :)
8-bit Text Adventure Gamer - games - research.
bass-on
Drutt
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Mar 15, 2019 4:23 pm

Re: PawMac (Paw Map and Convert)

Post by bass-on »

8BitAG wrote: Sun Apr 28, 2019 11:03 am John Wilson says that you always were a clever little sod, by the way. He's really, really impressed with your tool. :)
Ha Ha! Praise from "The Guv'nor!" Life goal achieved. :D

I've checked the manuals and I think it's all good on the flag front. Quill only allocated 11-29 for users to use, and 27-29 ended up being used or reserved by the Illustrator, Patch/Press etc. anyway, so there shouldn't be any instances of user's Quill flags meaning / doing something different in PAW.
User avatar
8BitAG
Dynamite Dan
Posts: 1487
Joined: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:25 pm
Contact:

Re: PawMac (Paw Map and Convert)

Post by 8BitAG »

bass-on wrote: Sun Apr 28, 2019 1:49 pm I've checked the manuals and I think it's all good on the flag front. Quill only allocated 11-29 for users to use, and 27-29 ended up being used or reserved by the Illustrator, Patch/Press etc. anyway, so there shouldn't be any instances of user's Quill flags meaning / doing something different in PAW.
They were quite clever in terms of how code from the Quill and PAWs systems ended up being compatible... Tim Gilberts says he can't understand why they never did an official conversion tool back in the day. I guess it was simply a lack of time.
8-bit Text Adventure Gamer - games - research.
bass-on
Drutt
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Mar 15, 2019 4:23 pm

Re: PawMac (Paw Map and Convert)

Post by bass-on »

8BitAG wrote: Sun Apr 28, 2019 2:01 pm
They were quite clever in terms of how code from the Quill and PAWs systems ended up being compatible... Tim Gilberts says he can't understand why they never did an official conversion tool back in the day. I guess it was simply a lack of time.
Yeah, I never really understood why they went to the trouble, for example, of writing a converter so you could migrate your data over from an A series Quill over to the later C series Quill, but didn't build anything to convert your data from Quill to PAW.

Incidentally... PawMac updated to version 1.4.1, which includes an automated check for a new version.
Post Reply