[release] Dr. Mind v1.0

[Mateusz Viste]

Ever wanted to play some Mastermind, but had no one to play with?
Dr. Mind comes to the rescue!

Dr. Mind is a PC adaptation of the Mastermind(TM) board game. The
computer generates a secret color code, then the player has to figure out
the exact pattern through deduction.

Requirements: PC-compatible (8086+), DOS 3+, 100K of avail. RAM, VGA or
MCGA.

http://drmind.sourceforge.net

[T. Ment]

Post by Mateusz Viste
Dr. Mind is a PC adaptation of the Mastermind(TM) board game. The
computer generates a secret color code, then the player has to figure out
the exact pattern through deduction.
Requirements: PC-compatible (8086+), DOS 3+, 100K of avail. RAM, VGA or
MCGA.

MCGA? I had to look that one up. Wikipedia says

Post by Mateusz Viste
MCGA is similar to VGA in that it had a 256-color mode (the 256-color
mode in VGA was sometimes referred to as MCGA) and uses 15-pin analog
connectors.

MCGA hardware was an IBM idea that never caught on, like the PS/2 model
30 and 25 it was made for.

[Mateusz Viste]

Post by T. Ment
MCGA? I had to look that one up.

Then I guess you weren't a kid who played computer games in the
nineties. :) MCGA was often referred to in their setups.

Post by T. Ment
MCGA hardware was an IBM idea that never caught on, like the PS/2 model
30 and 25 it was made for.

Indeed. But what's your point?

Mateusz

[T. Ment]

Post by Mateusz Viste

Post by T. Ment
MCGA hardware was an IBM idea that never caught on, like the PS/2 model
30 and 25 it was made for.

Indeed. But what's your point?

None about your code, I've not tried it. Sorry if that annoyed you. You
can't always get what you want on Usenet.

[Mateusz Viste]

Post by T. Ment

Post by Mateusz Viste

Post by T. Ment
MCGA hardware was an IBM idea that never caught on, like the PS/2
model 30 and 25 it was made for.

Indeed. But what's your point?

None about your code, I've not tried it. Sorry if that annoyed you. You
can't always get what you want on Usenet.

There must have been a misunderstanding somewhere - I do not expect
anything from the Usenet. Was just curious about your post, as I was
unable to figure out its intended purpose. I now understand it was simply
an urge to babble. That's perfectly fine, and probably healthy as well.

Mateusz

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by Mateusz Viste

Post by T. Ment

Post by Mateusz Viste

Post by T. Ment
MCGA hardware was an IBM idea that never caught on, like the PS/2
model 30 and 25 it was made for.

Indeed. But what's your point?

None about your code, I've not tried it. Sorry if that annoyed you. You
can't always get what you want on Usenet.

There must have been a misunderstanding somewhere - I do not expect
anything from the Usenet. Was just curious about your post, as I was
unable to figure out its intended purpose. I now understand it was simply
an urge to babble. That's perfectly fine, and probably healthy as well.

I learnt something from it. I've probably seen it referred to before
as well, but things like that get erased from memory after more than
a year of irrelevance. Wait a year and I'll be facinated to learn
about it again :).

Haven't played Dr. Mind yet, nor have I ever had much to do with the
board game, but I've got your Tetris clone installed on this PC, so
there's hope one day... Thanks for going to the trouble of publishing
your work for everyone to try/find.

[Kerr-Mudd,John]

Post by Mateusz Viste
Ever wanted to play some Mastermind, but had no one to play with?
Dr. Mind comes to the rescue!
Dr. Mind is a PC adaptation of the Mastermind(TM) board game. The
computer generates a secret color code, then the player has to figure
out the exact pattern through deduction.
Requirements: PC-compatible (8086+), DOS 3+, 100K of avail. RAM, VGA
or MCGA.
http://drmind.sourceforge.net

I'll give it a go; but I (and a lot of others) aren't fans of sourceforge
these days.
Hmm, I see it's written in C; It might be my next project to rewrite
"lite mode" in x86 asm.

[Mateusz Viste]

I (and a lot of others) aren't fans of sourceforge these days.

Try closing your eyes when clicking on the download link then. :)

Hmm, I see it's written in C; It might be my next project to rewrite
"lite mode" in x86 asm.

That's easy, just add -S to the tcc command line. Done!

More seriously - I initially pondered about doing the thing in assembly.
Problem is that I had only a few evenings to spare, while creating this
game in x86 asm would require at least a couple of weeks. Besides, an asm
version would have no added value... Possibly a kilobyte or two smaller,
but it would still take the same amount of clusters on disk: drmind.exe
is less than 8K big, UPXed.

But maybe you could create a micro-version (512 bytes or so) of your own
Mastermind instead? You did really well with the optimization of Brad's
pong recently! To be honest, it was the trigger that infected me with the
itching need to make a retro game (albeit I wanted something more "eye-
candy" and less "extreme-code challenging").

Mateusz