Out of curiosity, just how many people out are would honestly be interested in a *nix version of TradeWars 2002? By "interested" of course, I mean actually willing to pay money to register.

Of those people, what flavour of *nix specifically would you want to run it on?

By *nix I assume you mean...hell, I won't even presume to know what you mean,...let's take a guess,...Linux?...try e-bay..you never know :]

*nix is a shorthand way of saying any UNIX derivative or clone... it includes many many many OSs... Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, HP/UX, QNX, Mac OS/X, SCO OpenServer, AIX, UnicOS, etc, etc.

I'd register it for Mac OSX!

Thank you...and good luck!

Are you talking about players contributing money for registration, or are you talking about people wanting to run and register a Unix version of Tradewars?

Linux is a very popular flavor of Unix, try http://www.linuxiso.org/ for the ISO images to download for free. Pick a flavor of Linux, Red Hat, Debian, SuSE, Mandrake are all good flavors.

I think that EIS is doing a Linux port of Tradewars anyway, aren't they? Borland made Kylix for Linux to compile Object Pascal code like Delphi has, so a Linux version should be possible.

A Linux/Unix port would be great. The current windows only version of TWGS works really well, however Windows itself doesn't.

Win95 - Can run TWGS - barely. Unstable is it's middle name, constant reboots are necessary.

Win98 - Can run TWGS for up to a week without rebooting, if the TWGS is the only app installed on the machine.

WinME - While it will work, burn the Microsoft CD or use it as a coaster, and install another version of Windows. Why Microsoft ever released this thing is a mystery, it's the WORST version of Windows.

WinNT - By today's standards it's a kludge, it is however a fairly reliable one. I would not recommend using this unless you are familiar with it.

Win2K - Fairly stable, probably the best Windows for use with TWGS.

WinXP - Shoot yourself first. The newest Windows has a variety of objectionable features, including an End User Liscense Agreement that allows Microsoft to take control of your computer at any time, and do whatever they wish (if you don't believe me check it). I'm surprised that no one has yet sued Microsoft over the EULA, and personally suspect it may not be legal.

Whichever version of Windows you run the TWGS with, DO NOT INSTALL ANY PATCHS!

Instead install a hardware firewall, and set it so that all ports except those used for telnet are locked out.

But getting back to a 'Nix version of TWGS, yes, I'd be interested. Would I pay for it? Maybe. Depends on the price.

I'll also mention up front that I would only be interested if it was written for Linux or FreeBSD. I run my TWGS as a hobby, and because I love the game. I can't afford to buy a commercial 'Nix variant.

Without the recent patches, the system could be vulnerable to anything the user runs from the browser. Usually IE exploits. Get Mozilla http://www.mozilla.org/ and download the JRE from Sun http://www.java.com/ to support Java and use that for web browsing. IE security just plain stinks and they aren't updating it any more.

Win2K with TWGS is the best, I agree with you on that.

I toyed with the idea of writing a Tradewars type program in Java or C++ using objects, but I kept putting it off. Never got around to it. A Unix based Tradewars would be best, very stable and not as prone to Viruses/Trojans/Worms as Windows is. I don't think I'd pay more than $60USD to license it, with Gold features and 4 players at once. I don't think I can afford more than that. Problem is my ISP is filtering server protocols from my dynamic IP, so I cannot run Server apps unless I upgrade to a static IP or switch DSL companies.

I wish EIS good luck in the Linux version.

quote:Originally posted by The Mad Hatter


A Linux/Unix port would be great. The current windows only version of TWGS works really well, however Windows itself doesn't.

*snipitty snip snip*

But getting back to a 'Nix version of TWGS, yes, I'd be interested. Would I pay for it? Maybe. Depends on the price.

I'll also mention up front that I would only be interested if it was written for Linux or FreeBSD. I run my TWGS as a hobby, and because I love the game. I can't afford to buy a commercial 'Nix variant.



Yes, I develop on FreeBSD, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, HP/UX, QNX and Solrais systems... and my primary OS is FreeBSD.

I have done an initial port of 2002v2b5.5 (It's somewhere between 5 and 6) It is not heavily tested, and it will never be supported, but it DOES run... you can diddle with it at telnet://nix.synchro.net (Every time you connect, you'll cycle through four different OSs)

However, the top secret plan is not to port v3... v3 has gotten to the point where I'm personally amazed that John has mananged to get it as far as it did... the program was never designed with one fifth of the things it's now doing in mind... so there are numerous *ahem* sub-optimal parts of the code.

No, the top secret plan is to rewrite the whole Darn thing. Using the existing code essentially as an algorithm reference. Because pascal is not overly portable to *nix in any way shape or form (*nix is closely married to C for better or for worse) this means C. Also, it means that we will be able to design the core with multi-user play in mind rather than looking for places that it can be squeezed in.

As a result, the first release of this new system will probobly be as *nix binaries... it would be nice to know that when this happens, there will be people willing to use it.

As far as price is concerned, I don't even have a vauge clue to give you.

C++ is idea for *nix systems. Tradewars: The New Era was written in C++ I think.

Did you get the code to 2002V2b5.5 or are you writing it from scratch to match the features of 2002V2b5.5? Does EIS let you write a competitive product to their product? Or do you have to pay them a license fee?

Pascal for *nix, consider Virtual Pascal:
http://www.vpascal.com/

I think they have ports to many platforms and it is Borland Pascal (Turbo Pascal, Delphi Pascal) compatable.

quote:Originally posted by Orion_Blastar

C++ is idea for *nix systems. Tradewars: The New Era was written in C++ I think.

Did you get the code to 2002V2b5.5 or are you writing it from scratch to match the features of 2002V2b5.5? Does EIS let you write a competitive product to their product? Or do you have to pay them a license fee?


I've got the code for 2002v2b5.5 and am doing this for EIS...

Regarding the other pascals for *nix, they really don't get the job done. the VP ports to non MS/OS2 systems are in fairly bad shape... the FreePascal Linux port is in good shape, but for other *nixes it's fairly rough... I continually have to work around bad headers etc.

Borland also has a Pascal compiler for Linux, but again, that's only Linux. The closest to a free, truely cross-platform pascal that currently exists is gpc - GNU Pascal Compiler... it's part of the GNU Compiler Collection. Unfortunately, it uses ISO standard pascal and doesn't really support all the Borlandisms that most people use heavily in DOS door sources.

On the whole, pascal on *nix is in it's infancy... again... (interestingly enough, the first BSD release was simply AT&T UNIX with a pascal compiler... long since dead)

C support however exists in a stable version for almost every platform in the universe. Since TradeWars really DOES need a ground up rewrite, we felt that C/C++ was the best choice.

Good luck, the C/C++ version should be a lot more portable. Follow the GCC standards and it can be recompiled under most operating systems that have the GCC port. It might be easier to write it from scratch than to translate it from Pascal. If you do translate it, it will take longer as it was written by someone else and takes longer to figure out what they were doing.

What I would do is use C++ and make everything an object, let the objects interact with each other. Not sure if the code you are using is Object Based or not, because I've never seen it.

I am currently working on getting my degree in programming in C++, java script and unix. i can't wait untill i get to the unix part because i just got my hands on SuSE (a flavor of linux) and understand the basics but need to know more
Strider

I'm in the process of doing research (POSIX threading, at the moment) in preparation to eventually create a clone to run under Linux. It'll be a while before I get started coding, but I hope to finish in a couple years.

If someone beats me to the punch I would probably spend the same amount as the Win2k version (but it would be nice if the thing was open source).