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ponder : a 'poetro'
by winghead
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Requirements:

* A 386+ PC (you'll wait a LONG time for the data tables to be built if you
try running it on a 386..) A 486-66 is recommended, since that's what I coded
it on ;)

* 400 or 500k of conventional memory (I really don't know how much, but this
is how much I usually have and it always runs for me)

* At least a meg of total memory (same as above)

* Sound Blaster (or compatible) or GUS in order to hear the music

* A monitor capable of displaying a 256x195 50Hz mode. (All modern monitors
that I know of should work, although some older ones may not. The image will
likely be skewed to one side of the screen or the other, so monitors with
an adjustment for the horizontal placement of the image are preferred). NOTE:
I *may* release this with support for mode 13h as well. If so, typing 'ponder
13h' at the command prompt will force it to use mode 13h. Then again, I may
not finish this in time, in which case the tweaked mode will be the only
choice.

Ponder was coded by me, winghead, in Watcom C++. It consists of approximately
2500 lines of C++ and inline assembler code and several data files, which are
all pictures. (All data tables are generated at startup). It uses pmode/w by
Daredevil and Tran for it's DOS extender, MikMod, by Mikmak, for music
playback and a tweaked video mode from by Liket.

This 'poetro' is, as far as I know, the first and only of it's kind. I have
never seen a combination of poetry and demo before, so if I am mistaken,
please forgive me. :) It is also my first complete demo/intro, so if it's
quality isn't quite up to par, well, you know why.

Ponder was created for the 'Pre-Awakening' party in Olympia, Washington, USA.
I did the code, graphics and musix for it over the course of about two weeks,
although most of that time was unfortunately not spent working on it.

Note that, while ponder runs under Win95 and most likely OS/2, it's performance
will be degraded. Particularly the syncing to the vertical retrace will be
screwy, causing it to run more slowly than it would under DOS. Also, I know
that at least one PC I tested it on *wouldn't* run it under Win95, as it used
some kind of proprietary memory manager or something which prevented the music
player from locking memory for the DMA buffers (of course that shouldn't be a
problem if you have a Gravis Ultrasound).

Greetz to:

Dark Avenger/DDD, Midnight/Simplicity, White Shadow, Anix/RageTech, DeathStar
/Water Logic, Hasty, Phred/OTM, Shaman/Dream Factory, Switch/Sahara Surfers,
Xphase/Danaan, Creeping Death/Danaan, tmL/Enigma, Kodiak, Zed, ae, all
members of Project Eos, #coders, #trax and all the others I doubtless forgot.


If you have any questions, or would just like to give me a shout, you can
reach me at:

via E-Mail:
winghead@cyberspace.com

via Snail Mail:
5522 Roosevelt Way NE Seattle, WA  98105  USA


LEGAL INFORMATION:

All graphics, music and code Copyright 1996 Joshua C. Shepard
All Rights Reserved
ponder may be freely distributed so long as no fee is charged for it, and
it includeds ponder.exe, ponder.uni and ponder.nfo (this file ).
If you would like to put it on a cdrom or otherwise distribute it commercially,
you MUST contact me first.