Game Review – Trivia Crack

It has been some time since I have written an iOS game review. So I thought I should review a couple of games that I have been introduced to and playing for the past couple of weeks.

Trivia Crack – I love trivia games (And I usually do pretty good at them). A game that I got addicted to, and played quite often called Trivie was discontinued by it’s company so I had been without a solution for my trivia fix for quite a while, until I saw others playing this on Facebook.

There are two modes of game play, a 10 Question Challenge, played between 10 people, and a standard 20 round game played between a random opponent or a friend from Facebook.

In the 10 question / 10 person challenge, you must answer as many of the 10 questions in each of the Trivia Crack Categories (Art, Entertainment, History, Geography, Sports and Science). The person who answers the most questions correctly in the shortest amount of time wins the challenge.

In a regular game, you can play against your friends on Facebook who are also signed up to play, or a random opponent. A game consists of 25 rounds, where you spin a wheel with the symbol for each of the 6 categories and the crown. The category is chosen by the symbol you land on. Once you answer 4 questions correctly or the wheel lands on the crown. You get to pick a category that if you get right allows you to win the category. The winner of the game is the person who wins all 6 category. There is also a special 6 question challenge that if you win, you will steal that symbol from your opponent

Trivia Crack is available for iOS (iPad and iPhone), Android, and available for Windows 8, 8.1, and Windows 10! You can play either linked to your Facebook account or through a standalone Trivia Crack account. In game languages, include English, Japanese, Korean, French, Italian, Catalan, German, Russian, Dutch, Chinese, Danish, Finnish, Turkish, Norwegian, Greek, and Swedish so it can be played by people in many countries.

I highly recommend downloading this app from the Apple App Store, or Microsoft Store.
If you would like to challenge me to a game, my id is brent_hendricks. I welcome the challenge.

One of the cool features of IMAGE BBS and C-NET was displaying fun and witty sayings during the login process (On older versions of C-Net I believe this was referred to as a Fortune Cookie.

 

 

 

In some ways, especially if you login to a UNIX/LINUX box via a terminal, it looks just like a giant BBS. I thought it would be fun to duplicate this feature on my Linux development box. It will also give me the opportunity to introduce to you login scripts or “Profiles”, as well as basic file manipulation.

The last 2 BASH demonstrations were taken from Commodore 64 BASIC programs, and from an IMAGE BBS +. File, so let’s switch gears here, and take our source from a CNET Amiga 3.5c module that was written by Jim Selleck of Beverly James Products. This module was included on the CNET 3.05c Demo and Productions disks, and the comments state it originated with C-Net Amiga 2.0.

Before we begin I would like to throw out a quite plug for C-Net Amiga 3, and the brilliant work done by its author Ken Pletzer. C-Net Amiga 3.05c happened to be one of the most stable, customizable, and feature rich BBS software that I had a pleasure to run. This particular module was written in ARREX, which was an Amiga port of the REXX scripting language developed by IBM and included with Amiga DOS 2.0. There is a version of REXX that will run under Linux. So maybe in the future we could actually explore some native REXX scripts running under Linux itself.

Lets quickly take a look at the original source, as REXX, and it’s features under C-Net Amiga are pretty straight forward and lend itself to very easy porting into BASH.

/******************************************************/
/* Random Quotation Generator 2 for CNet AMIGA v2 */
/* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ */
/* By Jim Selleck © 1992 Beverly James Products */
/* */
/* Installation: */
/* */
/* Stick this Arexx program and the QUOTATIONS file */
/* in your PFILES: directory. */
/* #*/
/******************************************************/

options results
filename = “pfiles:quotations”

if ~exists(filename) then

do
transmit ” ”
transmit ” ”
transmit “The Quotations could not be found! Please inform”
transmit “the Sysop !!!”
transmit ” ”
transmit ” ”
logentry “Quote: `”||filename||”‘ not found!”
exit
end

call open quote,filename,”R”

max = readln(quote) /* Get maximum number of entries */
num = random(0,max-1,time(‘s’))
ctr = 0

if num > 0 then
do until ctr = num*5
line = readln(quote)
ctr = ctr+1
end

transmit ” ”
transmit ” ”
ctr = 0

do until ctr = 5
line = readln(quote)
if length(line) > 1 then transmit center(strip(line),76)
ctr = ctr+1
end

call close quote
exit

The lines in the /* */ are simply comments, similar to BASH pounds #

Filename = is simply setting the path to the quotations filename in this case “PFILES:quotations”
We then have the script saying, if the file does not exist ~exists, then output the text asking the user to inform the SysOp (System Operator).

‘logentry’ is a specific CNET AREXX function that will write an entry into the systems caller log.

The next line is  opens the quotations file, and then reads the first line, which will specify the number of quotes, Which is 100. Then the result ‘num’ will be a random number between 1 and the number of MAXQUOTES.

The file is then read from line X for 5 more lines, and is center justified for a 79 character line.  So we have a 500 line text file, each 5 lines is a record, containing the quote and the source.

Here is our simple BASH script called ‘rand_quote.sh’. The quotations file was read directly from CNET Amiga using the WinUAE emulator and saved to a capture file.

Let’s now take a look at our BASH script. I would recommend creating this in a dev folder in your home directory, once tested you can move it in to the proper folder.

You must also download the quotations file, from the following link.
https://www.catracing.org/hendrb/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/quotations.txt
1 #! /bin/bash
2
3 # BASH script to display RANDOM QUOTE and center text depending on terminal width.
4 # BASH script and quotations taken from CNET Amiga 2 AREXX PFILE
5 # AMIGA Version Copyright 1992 Jim Selleck and Beverly James Products
6 #
7 # BASH Script (C)24MAY2015 by Brent Hendricks
8 # Script and accompaning BLOG article (C) 2015 Brent Hendricks
9 # Script and quotes are public domain, the accompaning BLOG may only be used with permission
10 # Contact brent.hendricks@catracing.org if you wish to republish the article.
11 # Please visit Brent’s World @ www.catracing.org\hendrb
12
13 ## Get Terminal Width
14 TERMWIDE=”$(tput cols)”
15 ((TERMWIDE = TERMWIDE -3))
16
17 ## Set file path
18 QUOTATIONS=/home/local_hendrb01/dev/bash/randquote/quotations
19 TEMP_QUOTATION=/home/local_hendrb01/dev/bash/randquote/temp_quotation
20
21 ## Get number of quotations
22 QUOTES=”$(cat $QUOTATIONS | wc -l)”
23 ((QUOTES = QUOTES / 5))
24
25 ## Pick a record
26
27 RECORD=$(($RANDOM % $QUOTES * 5))
28
29 ## Read Quote from Quote file
30 sed -n “${RECORD},+5p” $QUOTATIONS > $TEMP_QUOTATION
31 sed -e :a -e “s/^.\{1,${TERMWIDE}\}$/ &/;ta” -e ‘s/\( *\)\1/\1/’ $TEMP_QUOTATION
32
33 ## Remove TEMP_QUOTATION scratch file
34 rm -f “${TEMP_QUOTATION}”

NOTE: Once you download the quotation file, you will need to rename it quotations, or change the quotations path to reflect the .txt extension (WordPress does not allow the uploading of files without extensions.)

We should by now know what line 1 does, and why we put it there, but as a quick reminder, Line 1 tells *NIX which interpreter to use. Just in case the user is in, or defaults to a different shell. Additionally AT&T used to default to the Bourne Shell, while BSD defaulted to the C shell.

While not needed if you never use a different shell, it is good practice, and insures compatibility.

Lines 3 – 11 are my standard comments, comments in shell scripts are preceded by #s

Lines 14 Gets the terminal width, and line 15 subtracts 3 from it. This is for the center justification routines later in the script.

Lines 18 and 19 set our file paths.
Line 18 is the path of the actual quotation file.
Line 19 is the path of the temp file created by SED

Lines 22 and 23 gets the number of quotations from the quotations file and puts them in the variable QUOTES. Note that our script is a bit different because we use the wc command to dynamically derive the number of quotes, as long as you remember that each quote uses 5 lines. This is done with the QUOTES=”$(cat $QUOTATIONS | wc -l)” command. Note the use and format here of command substitution. I am going to get nailed here by someone much smarter with BASH scripts than I am. For the wasteful use of the cat command, when technically you could have used just the wc –l and the file name. If done this way, the output was would have been ‘500 quotations’. To save time with a filtering statement, I just had the file cat’d, and piped through wc. The value is held in the variable QUOTES, then divided by 5. Since each 5 lines is a quote.

Line 27 Picks a random quote, in steps of 5. Since it would not do us much good to start reading in the middle of quote now would it?

Lines 30 and 31 are where the real magic occur, and what took me the longest to figure out. I could read various quotes all day until the sun came home, but while BASH has a command to left and right justify, it will not center justify. Again my method and someone else’s methods might vary. I could very well have loaded the quotations file in nano, or word and center justified it and re saved it. However that defeats the purpose of learning, defeats the purpose of making your quotation file dynamic, as each time you added a quote you would have to remember to justify it. It might also look funny if someone had a different sized terminal window then you did when you justified it.

Line 30 reads the 5 lines from the quotations file, and saves it in a file called temp_quotation.
Line 31 uses sed to center justify the text in the temp file and display it to the screen. The use of SED is outside the scope of this blog, and many good descriptions are available elsewhere on the net. If you are interested in the working of stream editor. I would start here. http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sed.html

Line 34 simply deletes the temp file, without prompting.

There you have it! A random quote generator for *NIX!

If we want this to be just like a BBS, and display it when a user logs in, we now have several choices to make.

Do we want this script to be run only when we login, or for all users?

If you want it displayed for all users, we must first move it somewhere where they have access to execute it. For this demonstration let’s move it to the /opt volume.

We can use the mv (MOVE) command.

sudo mv ./randqutoe /opt

I have to use sudo here, because root is the owner of the opt directory, and I do not have my local username added to the root group.

Once it is moved, I can verify the entire contests of the randquote directory were copied.

If I cd to /opt/randquote, I should have two files.

-rw-rw-r--. 1 local_hendrb01 local_hendrb01 9893 May 24 07:30 quotations
-rwxrwxr-x. 1 local_hendrb01 local_hendrb01 1169 May 30 13:22 randquote.sh

Make sure the file permissions match.

The next decision is if you want the randquote script to run only when you login to the console, or both the console and the terminal.

If you want it to execute when logging a console only,

Edit the following file in your favorite editor.
/etc/profile

And the following lines.

##Display Random Quote On Login For All Users Console Login ONLY
## Added by Your Name / DATE
echo
/opt/randquote/randquote.sh
echo

Save the file.
We must now edit the following lines in our randquote program, since it is no longer residing in your standalone development directory.

Change line 18 to read:
QUOTATIONS=/opt/randquote/quotations

Change line 19 to read:
TEMP_QUOTATION=/opt/temp_quotation
Save the file, now logoff then back on and you should now the random quote generated.

If you also wish a random quote to be generated when you launch a shell from a terminal window in XWindows or from the console.

NOTE: If you put in both files, you will have 2 quotes generated when logging in from the console!

We must do the following.

Using your favorite editor, add the following lines to /etc/bashrc

##Display Random Quote when opening a shell session via the terminal For All Users
## Added by Your Name / DATE
echo
/opt/randquote/randquote.sh
echo

Save the file.

Open a terminal session.

If you only want specific users to have the random quotes displayed.

edit their respective .profile and .bashrc files in their home directory /home/<shortname>/

For our next tutorial we are going to do three things with this script!

1) Add it to a LINUX login profile, for both terminal and console login
2) Add it to a OS X login profile, for both terminal and SSH login
3) We are going to add something magical for our OS X users!

So be sure to come back for next month’s technical blog, as we do more with *NIX!

Special thanks go to Ken Pletzer and Jim Selleck for the wonderful work you did in the 90s with C-Net Amiga Professional BBS. For the many hours of fun I had with your product!

Making Your OS X Terminal Look And Feel More Like Linux

If you are a Mac OS X power user who has spent any time in the terminal, and also used Linux. You will know firsthand that the OS X terminal can look kind of, well dull by comparison. One of the first things that you will notice is missing is the colorized directories, colorized grep output, as well as some of the directory listing shortcuts such as ‘ll’, and ‘l.’

 

In this article we will explore how to modify your OS X terminal experience to match what you are used to seeing when using Linux.

First let’s take a look at the expanded List Directory Contents ‘ls’ command functionality in Linux.

We all know that to list the contents of a directory, in both Unix and Linux you use the ‘ls’ command. We can specify additional options on the command line. Like this

-a displays all files, including hidden files.
-l displays a long directory listing, displaying more information such as POSIX permissions, owner, group and file size information
-h displays “human readable” file sizes in a long listing.

These options can be combined in a single command, so typing ‘ls –lah’ will display a long listing, displaying all files, with “human readable” file sizes.

As mentioned above, most Linux distributions (RHL/CentOS, and Ubuntu), allow you to use the ls command to display a short list, ll to display the long list. Without specifying any options.

How is this done? How can I add the same functionality to my OS X terminal session?

In actuality it is quite easy, and done the same in OS X as it is done in Linux (Linux just happens to already have it in your login script.). It is done using the alias comman.

Alias allows you to set up alias’s for any command, with options, and use the normal command name, or you can choose a different name.
If you have access to a Linux box, open up a terminal windows and type ‘alias’ at a shell prompt. On CentOS 7, you will see the following output.

$ alias
alias egrep=’egrep --color=auto’
alias fgrep=’fgrep --color=auto’
alias grep=’grep --color=auto’
alias l.=’ls -d .* --color=auto’
alias ll=’ls -l --color=auto’
alias ls=’ls --color=auto’
alias which=’alias | /usr/bin/which --tty-only --read-alias --show-dot --show-tilde’

As you can see, in Linux when you use the ls command, it is not just ‘ls’ that is being executed but ls with the –color=auto option <colorizing OS X listing is done differently> which we will cover in the second part of this blog. Stay focused on the alias command for now.

Let’s add the l. and ll functionality right now.

The alias command is pretty straight forward.
Alias <COMMAND>=‘command string’

If you do not still have your OS X terminal window open, please open it again now.

At the command prompt type.
alias l.=’ls –d *’ <Hit Enter>
alias ll=’ls –l’ <Hit Enter>

Now let’s verify that it took your alias entries.
At the command prompt type alias

If the system accepted the alias’s you should now be able to do the following in your shell environment.

l. – Will display only directories in your current working directory
ll – Will display a long listing.

 

Go ahead and test the functionality, while also play around with some of the other options. If you type ll –h for instance, you will see a long directory listing with the filesizes presented in “Human Readable Form” one of the great things about the BASH shell, is that you still have full command substitution available within an alias.
Part II – I also made reference to the ability to colorize the OS X directory listings. This is also done within the alias command, however it is done a bit differently.

OS X uses the –G option in the ls command to output the listing in color.

So let’s add some color to the standard ‘ls’ command

At your shell prompt type,

Alias ls=’ls –G’ <ENTER>

Type alias and <ENTER> to make sure your alias has been entered into the system.

Now let’s go back and add color to the other alias’s we created.

We can simply use command history to go back to the previous commands we have entered. Keep pressing your up cursor key until you see ‘alias ll=’ls –l’. Then use your left cursor key to move your cursor to the right of the single ‘ quote. Simply add the dash – and capital G and hit <ENTER>.

Now if you type the alias command by itself at your shell prompt you should see the modified ll alias.

Let’s try it out by typing ll at your shell prompt.

Use command history and go back and add – and capital G to the l. command.
Use the alias command by itself to make sure it took
Test the l. alias.

Very good! You now have color directory listings in your OS X terminal environment.
Part III – Making these changes permanent.

Now that we have made the OS X terminal environment a little more colorful for your everyday use, and made it a perform more like the Linux systems you have been using there is one catch.

These changes are not yet permanent, in fact if we simply closed down our terminal window right now all our aliases would be lost! We do not even need to reboot or shut down our system!

So how do we make these changes stick?

There are a few files we need to modify, and depending on if you want it to apply to only a single user (Your account), or to any account that is on the system and opens a terminal shell or might ssh remotely to the computer.

If you only want the alias’s to be assigned to your shell environment, you need to add your alias commands to the ~\.bash_profile.

NOTE: ~\ is shorthand for YOUR home directory. So ~\.bash_profileis actually located in /Users/<shortname>

So let’s add the alias commands to the .bash_profile file

At your shell prompt enter alias
Select the output of the alias command
Copy the output

Now type nano ~\.bash_profile
Move the cursor to the bottom of any entries already in the file.
Paste your text in the file
Enter CTRL-X
Answer YES to save changes
Hit <Enter> to keep the same filename

Test functionality by typing exit then closing and reopening the terminal window.

Type alias, and you should see that the aliases you added are still there.

If you want to assign the alias’s to all users on the system, then add the above lines to the \etc\profile file.
PART IV – Modifying shell color output

You can specify how to color the specific componate in an ls output by using the LSICOLORS= option in your login script.

Adding LSICOLORS=<COLOR Colorcode> will modify the colors used for outputting the 11 functions.
The default value is, ‘exfxcxdxfxegedabagcad’

I have created this chart for ease of use.

Best practice calls for placing the line CLICOLOR=1 and LSCOLORS=exfxcxdxfxegedabagcad into your login script, but this is not necessary.

There you have it!  thanks for reading another Brent’s World OS X terminal / Linux blog!  We hope that you enjoyed learning a little more about your system!  Please remember, while using alias’s or system customization to make your system easier to use.  These modifications will not be available on other system, so practice the original functionality.

 

This weekend I thought I would again do something different, I have done a couple of reviews on game ports to the iPad from one of my favorite historical computer platforms, so this week I thought I would share something that I came across when looking at some of the files I have stored on my MacBook Pro as I get ready for my big cruise.

Before the Macintosh, and the Amiga the good ol Commodore 64 (Later a Commodore 128D and flat 128) had its place on my computer desk. The Commodore 64 is known for not only being the top selling single computer model of all time, with something like 2 million units sold, but for it’s exhaustive game library.

I came across the disk images for a game that holds a very very special place in my heard, I think this is because it was the first and ONLY graphical text adventure game I have actually successfully completed. I remember fondly my older brother and I working together to complete the game, but somewhere along the way he gave up, and I ultimately finished it. It also prompted me to check out the book from the school library (I think I was in the 3rd at All Hallows Academy then.)

The game that is bringing back such fond memories, is Robert Luis Stevensons Treasure Island, by Windham classics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Windham classics formally Telarium, made a name for itself with its line of graphic/text adventures for the Commodore 64 and other computers. Titles such as Rendezvous with Rama, Nine Princes in Amber, and Fahrenheit 451. After being purchased by Spinnaker Software, the new name was acquired, and they produced adventures for classic children’s stories. Besides Treasure Island their other titles include.

Below the Root
Swiss Family Robinson (I owned this as well but never completed it)
The Wizard of Oz
Alice in Wonderland
Treasure Island

Let’s go ahead and take a brisk walk down memory err… Through the game.

We start by launching our Commodore 64 Emulator WinVice x64

The only 2 settings you will need to concern yourself with are.

1) Make sure the emulator is set to use NTSC
a. Options > Model Settings
i. C64 model: C64 NTSC
ii. VIC II model: NTSC-M

You can change the SID model here is you would like, I will leave as is at 6581 (ReSID).
Click OK (x64 will perform a hard reset.)

2) Due to copy protection, you need to be using either 1541 emulation, or 1571 emulation, True drive emulation
a. Make sure Options > True Drive Emulation is checked
b. Settings > Drive Settings
i. Drive 8 1541 or 1541 II (There is no reason to use a 1571).
Press OK

Next let’s “insert our disk”
1) Select File > Attach Disk Image > Drive 8
Once the dialogue box comes up just find your .d64 image (Treasure Island has 4 disks)
2) Double click the .d64 or select the image and click OK

You can now proceed to load Treasure Island as you would any ol Commodore 64 game, while getting yourself a cup of coffee.. Unfortunately unlike having a real 1541, you can’t keep said coffee warm, by putting the cup on the vent.  NOTE: You do have to type RUN after the first file has loaded.

After a couple of minutes, you will be greeted with the Treasure Island title screen, and some pretty cool music. One of the things I really like about this game, was the different theme music they used throughout.

Press G to start the game.

We are now in the Adrmiral Benbow Inn, with Captain Billy Bones sitting at the table. The parser uses a simple verb noun style of input. Such as “Talk to Billy”, GO EAST, GO SOUTH, TAKE (Object), USE (Object) etc. You can get a list of suggestions to help you at any time by entering ‘words’ To not make it too easy, the solution to the puzzle you are trying to solve may not be listed, as well as not everything in the suggestion list will actually do anything useful.

HINT: If you are going to try and play the game through, I would highly recommend that you actually go ahead and create a save disk at this point.

Type ‘create’ <You can see here the parser is not actually that picky>

1) Go to File > Attach Disk Image
2) Select Drive 8
3) Enter Save image in the file name
4) Click Create Image
5) Click Attach
6) Hit Enter
7) When prompted re-insert disk 1 into the drive
a. File > Attach Disk Image > Drive 8
b. Select Treasure0.D64
c. Press Any Key (Once you find the ANY key.)

Now let’s begin, As we can see from the first screen Billy wants some run, do a quick ‘LOOK’
Billy wants his rum, so we better go to the South. You can either type Go South, or simply South
Here is where the first puzzle begins. As the purpose of this blog is not to provide a walk through, but an overview of the game, I now leave you to your devices. Good luck and happy treasure hunting!

The game itself is broken down into Chapters, you will be rewarded with some good in game music, and a description of what lies ahead, and what you will need to do to complete the next chapter.

Chapter list

Chapter 1 – Finding Flints fist and escaping the pirates!
Chapter 2 – Going to Bristol and sailing on the Hispaniola.
Chapter 3 – Treasure Island – Stop the mutiny.
Chapter 4 – Save Hispaniola.
Chapter 5 – Finding the Treasure.

While playing the game again today it was interesting just how much I remembered about the game from that long ago, it also struck me that perhaps we have lost something over the years with education software design. Though I have been out of the loop of playing children’s games. I was trying to think of any titles for the PC, Apple Mac, or other platforms today that provide as much opportunity as some of the text, and graphical text adventures like Treasure Island. Not only did the game make me pick up a book I might otherwise had passed on, being too interested in reading The Hardy Boys. It also gave me valuable typing practice, and taught me to really look at my surroundings put pieces of a puzzle together.

If you have never played the game before or would like to play it again for old times’ sake, you can download the game HERE.

If you complete the game, please come back and tell me how long it took you.

Please do not forget to rate this article, and if you want to be notified when new content is posted to Brent’s World, please REGISTER!