Frotz, Any users? Options

[JimR]

Hi there.
I'm trying to get Frotz running on my C3200 (Running SharpROM w/ English conversion), and I'm having some trouble, basically because I'm not sure of the file-tree on Linux/the Zaurus.
I can run frotz through the terminal, but I don't know how to load any games because I don't know where the program is looking. Basically, how can I tell the terminal to load from the SD Card? Or, conversely, where should I drop the game file so that Frotz can find it?

Also, using QKonsole, can I rotate orientation? The rotate option is not available under the menu, and any keyboard commands are translated into input. SHould I use another terminal program?
Thanks!
Jim

[tux]

Hi there.
I'm trying to get Frotz running on my C3200 (Running SharpROM w/ English conversion), and I'm having some trouble, basically because I'm not sure of the file-tree on Linux/the Zaurus.
I can run frotz through the terminal, but I don't know how to load any games because I don't know where the program is looking. Basically, how can I tell the terminal to load from the SD Card? Or, conversely, where should I drop the game file so that Frotz can find it?

Also, using QKonsole, can I rotate orientation? The rotate option is not available under the menu, and any keyboard commands are translated into input. SHould I use another terminal program?
Thanks!
Jim

I've just checked the syntax on my desktop to be sure. So all the paths refer to my directory structure in /home/stan

There are two ways to do this. Both involve using the console.

1: cd into your gamefile directory. E.G. cd /zorks/data then frotz zork1.dat or zork2.dat as applicable. The adventure loads and runs. You might prefer to only cd to the zorks directory and specify the ./data/zork1.dat file.

2: Specify the full file path E.G. frotz ./zorks/data/zork1.dat.

Of course you'll need to use the actual position of your adventure files in your path or in the cd instructions that you use.

I prefer the second method because it minimises directory changes and makes it easy to use the history commands to play the games.

Hope that helps.

I've got hold of the Scott Adams games as well as most of the Zork genre. The Adams' ones can be freely downloaded and i believe that there are legitimate sources for some of the Zork one.

As regards the rotation from within the console:I've always rotated the screen beforehand and then run the console. So I have no direct help for you: I think searching the forums should find you some hints on what you want to do. Good luck.

This post has been edited by tux: Aug 9 2008, 05:21 AM

[JimR]

Thanks Tux, you really helped me out.
Got it all figured out now!
Next up, ScummVM!
Jim

Hi there.
I'm trying to get Frotz running on my C3200 (Running SharpROM w/ English conversion), and I'm having some trouble, basically because I'm not sure of the file-tree on Linux/the Zaurus.
I can run frotz through the terminal, but I don't know how to load any games because I don't know where the program is looking. Basically, how can I tell the terminal to load from the SD Card? Or, conversely, where should I drop the game file so that Frotz can find it?

Also, using QKonsole, can I rotate orientation? The rotate option is not available under the menu, and any keyboard commands are translated into input. SHould I use another terminal program?
Thanks!
Jim

I've just checked the syntax on my desktop to be sure. So all the paths refer to my directory structure in /home/stan

There are two ways to do this. Both involve using the console.

1: cd into your gamefile directory. E.G. cd /zorks/data then frotz zork1.dat or zork2.dat as applicable. The adventure loads and runs. You might prefer to only cd to the zorks directory and specify the ./data/zork1.dat file.

2: Specify the full file path E.G. frotz ./zorks/data/zork1.dat.

Of course you'll need to use the actual position of your adventure files in your path or in the cd instructions that you use.

I prefer the second method because it minimises directory changes and makes it easy to use the history commands to play the games.

Hope that helps.

I've got hold of the Scott Adams games as well as most of the Zork genre. The Adams' ones can be freely downloaded and i believe that there are legitimate sources for some of the Zork one.

As regards the rotation from within the console:I've always rotated the screen beforehand and then run the console. So I have no direct help for you: I think searching the forums should find you some hints on what you want to do. Good luck.

[alexl]

I can run frotz through the terminal, but I don't know how to load any games because I don't know where the program is looking. Basically, how can I tell the terminal to load from the SD Card? Or, conversely, where should I drop the game file so that Frotz can find it?

This may not be of much help since my reply is VERY late: the commandline version of Frotz (I'm using Frotz 2.43 with ncurses) looks at the environment variable INFOCOM_PATH. I have something like this in my .bash_profile:

CODE

export INFOCOM_PATH=/home/lex/Infocom

Frotz then finds the data files, whatever the current dir.

Also, Frotz doesn't pick up the width and height of the tty that I'm logged into, so I renamed the Frotz binary to 'frotz.arm' and wrote a script to call it:

CODE

#!/bin/sh
# Call frotz.arm with width and height
# 03-Oct-08
# Get rows and columns from stty, as tput doesn't allow querying
rows="`stty -a | head -n 1 | cut -d ";" -f 2 | tr -dc "0123456789"`"
cols="`stty -a | head -n 1 | cut -d ";" -f 3 | tr -dc "0123456789"`"
$0.arm -w ${cols} -h ${rows} $@

I hope that this helps!

Lex