(Even though I have no content)
| ARCANOID: Two-player Pong for remote systems |
ARCANOID (Or just Arcanoid) is a clone of Pong for IBM PCs and compatibles. What makes ARCANOID special is that two players use their own PCs connected through the serial port. The two machines can be anywhere from a couple feet apart using a null modem cable, to across town or across the world using dial-up modems.
ARCANOID gets its timing from the serial port itself, which means the game will run on any x86 compatible microprocessor from the original 8088 clocked at 4.77 MHz to a modern multi-core clocked at several gigahertz, and any combination of two identical or vastly different PCs will be able to play against each other.
And because it gets its timing from the serial port the game will run as slow as necessary to play over any digital communications channel without compromising on reliability. Bell 103 compatible modems are an obvious choice, but theoretically the game could run over ham radio using PSK31. If you get that working, let me know and tell me how you did it!
System requirements are a PC with MS-DOS 2.0 or later, and an RS-232 serial port based on an 8250 UART or compatible. 16550 UARTs, compatibles, and VLSI emulations of such will also work since the 16550 family is backwards compatible with the 8250. ARCANOID runs in 80x25 text mode on MDA, CGA, EGA, and VGA adapters.
ARCANOID.COM is the game, README.TXT is the Simple User's Guide, ARCANOID.TXT is the Detailed User's Guide. Unless you already know what you're doing you will need README.TXT since the game at this stage is admittedly not very user-friendly. ARCANOID.TXT is really only for people who want to know more about why README.TXT tells you what it does, and if you plan on giving this game to someone you might want to consider omitting ARCANOID.TXT; it can get very confusing and overwhelming.
File info
These are the links for Alpha build 0.27 which is the most up-to-date version.
ARCANOID.COM (Right click and choose "Save as...")
File size: 1,919 bytes
README.TXT (Right click and choose "Save as...")
File size: 10.3 KB
ARCANOID.TXT (Right click and choose "Save as...")
File size: 22.8 KB
Feel free to send bug reports to contact@gammamaxx.com
ARCANOID does not come with any warranty or guarantee it will work. I am not responsible for any data loss or other loss of property that may be caused by this program, or for any trouble the user might find themself in for misuse of this game (So like if you're going to play this over ham radio, make sure you're not breaking any laws by transmitting a constant stream of unexplained binary data!)