| OTHELLO PC plays the popular board game Othello. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| File Name | File Size | Zip Size | Zip Type |
| OTHPC3.DOC | 4691 | 2020 | deflated |
| OTHPC3.EXE | 35968 | 23039 | deflated |
Download File OTHPC3.ZIP Here
Contents of the OTHPC3.DOC file
Version 3.0, release date 3-29-1986
To run the program after unpacking from the .ARC file, enter the
command OTHPC3. The main screen will be displayed.
OTHPC plays the popular board game Othello. This is a one-player
game, with you pitted against the computer in a duel of skill and
strategy. The game is played by placing a piece of your color on
the 8x8 game board so that a row of your opponent's pieces is
surrounded, with a piece of yours on either end. All of the opponent's
pieces so "outflanked" are turned to your color. The object is
to have the most pieces when the entire board is filled.
Playing the game is fairly straightforward. The dark colored pieces
are yours, and the computer plays the light pieces. To execute a
move, use the arrow keys to position the blinking cursor at the
desired position, and press the Return key. Your move will be
recorded and the program will respond with its countermove.
In addition there are 9 special functions you can perform. These
are shown along the bottom of the screen and are selected by
pressing the first letter of the command (shown in angle brackets).
The special functions are:
for the filename. If no extension is given, it defaults to .OTH
default filename extension.
Incidentally the saved game files are in ascii format and can be
TYPEd. An identifying string containing the time & date is written
to the end of the file for future reference.
on the screen. This is useful when the situation gets complicated and
you can't seem to find a legal move.
Technically, you can only forfeit if you have no legal move. If you
attempt to forfeit when a legal move exists, the program will not
allow it. However, you can forfeit as the first move of the game
(allowing the program to move first) or after
ack - the takeback command allows you to take back a move, and
returns the board to the position previous to the last move you
made (in other words it goes back two moves, your previous move and
the computer's response). The ack command will also restore the
position previous to a
any position, and use the function keys as follows:
f1 - enter one of your pieces
f2 - enter one of opponent's pieces
f3 - enter blank square
f4 - transpose the entire board: turn all pieces to opposite color
f5 - exit the editor
(the numeric keys 1-5 will also function instead of the f keys).
Editing is provided so you can set-up different positions to have
the computer operate on. You can enter theoretical positions, new
opening positions, etc. Of course you can use it to cheat, but this
is discouraged.
When you exit from edit mode, you can either enter your next move,
or press
this by accident you can press ack to recover.
rint - prints out a copy of the game board on the printer. The
board is printed using regular Ascii characters.uit - ends the game and exits back to MS-DOS.
Normal game play continues until the entire board is filled with
no empty squares remaining. When the game is over a message will be
displayed, however the program will not end and you can either pressuit to exit, or any of the other
options to edit, print, or save the board.
Occasionally the game will develop into a position where neither
side can make a legal move, but the entire board is not filled. In
this case no message will be displayed, but the game is over and
you can determine the winner by reading the current score displayed
on the right side of the screen.
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OTHPC is an original program and does not contain any code from
other public domain versions of Othello. The program is written in
BASIC and compiled on an IBM-PC using the BASCOM compiler. Please
distribute this program to other users and if you like it, don't
forget to send a few dollars my way so that I can continue bringing
programs to the public domain.
Frank LaRosa
46 Twixt Hills Rd.
St. James, NY 11780
Sysop of The Searchlight BBS (516) 724-0971