
                     Digger - back and digitally remastered
                     ======================================

                     The really long digger file - 17/6/1999

                                by Andrew Jenner
                        with thanks to Windmill Software

Included in the distribution is the game itself, this document, and an icon for
running under Windows or OS/2 (but see Known bugs and issues for information
about running Digger under these operating systems).

There is also a version for RiscOS. See the website for more information.


Contents
--------

The story so far...
How to play Digger
Frequently Asked Questions
Extra levels
Hall of Fame
Technical details
Windows version
Known bugs and issues
Ideas for future enhancement
Digger pages on the web and other versions of Digger
What's New?
Feedback


The story so far...
-------------------

Finally, after 3 years of (on and off) hacking, Digger is back! This game, for
those who don't know it, was one of the best games available for the XT - the
CGA graphics were beautifully drawn and animated, and the sound effects and
music were state of the art.

It wouldn't run on modern PCs, of course. The CGA graphics directly accessed
hardware registers that the VGA didn't have (and wouldn't have looked so hot on
today's high resolution monitors anyway), the background music and sound
effects just didn't sound right and the whole thing just ran far too fast.
Also, you probably didn't want the game to access the disk directly and save
your high scores in an arbitrary place (probably overwriting some other file)
or to reset your computer just to exit the game.

I was extremely disappointed to discover all these things when we replaced the
family PC1512 with a brand new multimedia 486, so I set about re-writing it. It
was a big job - all the code had to be disassembled, the necessary routines
re-written and the whole thing put back together again. I finally finished the
project in Easter 1998, having decided not only to fix all the compatibility
problems but also to convert all the graphics to VGA standard, redrawing them.

Since then, I have almost completely rewritten Digger in C to make it easier to
add new features and move it to other platforms. This is the result!

Unfortunately, I have not been able to contact the original author of the game,
as all I know is the copyright message on the title screen "(C) Windmill
Software 1983." I have heard one rumour that the author died shortly after
completing the game, but if you know otherwise, or, indeed, if you are the
author, please get in touch.

Jaap van Hengstum found the original address of Windmill Software in an ancient
computer magazine. It is:

Windmill Software Inc.
2209 Leominster Dr.
POB 1008
Burlington
Ontario
L7P 3W8
CANADA

I have written to this address but received no reply. The next stage of the
story is that someone found another address for a Windmill Software in a
listings directory. It is:

Windmill Software Inc.
2200 Glenwood School Dr.
Burlington
Ontario
Z1Z 1Z1
CANADA

Same city, different street. That postcode seems too good to be true, though. I
wrote to this address, but my letter came back (opened - I hadn't put a return
address on the back) saying "return to sender". Stamped on the front of my
envelope was a list of reasons why letters were returned with little boxes, one
of which was presumably meant to be ticked, but it was too faint to read.

The directory also listed a telephone number: (905) 639-4515.


How to play Digger
------------------

The keys you need to play the game are, by default: Left, Right, Up, Down (or
2, 4, 6, 8 on the numeric keypad) to move Digger, F1 to fire, Space to pause,
F7 to toggle background music and F9 to toggle all sound. On the title screen
press Esc or N to toggle one or two player mode, or F8 to save the last game if
you forgot to give a name on the command line. To exit from the game to the
title screen or from the title screen to the operating system press F10. To
increase the game speed during play, press +. To decrease it press -. Each
press of these keys corresponds to an increase or decrease in the command line
speed parameter of 5. The default keys for the second player in two player
simultaneous mode are W, A, S, Z and Tab to fire. All these keys except Esc, N
and F8 can be redefined with the /K option.

The command line options are:
  /S:n    = Set speed to n.
  /L:name = Use level file "name".
  /C      = Use CGA graphics - these are faster than VGA but this is only
            really noticeable if you have a slower computer or are playing at
            high speeds.
  /B      = Use CGA graphics with BIOS palette functions (try this if the
            palette doesn't work properly with the /C option, but be warned: it
            might cause a crash if you get a high score).
  /Q      = Quiet mode (no sound at all) - use this if you're running under
            Windows.
  /M      = Turn background music off.
  /R:name = Record game to file "name".
  /P:name = Playback game file "name" and restart program.
  /E:name = Playback game file "name" and exit program.
  /O      = Go back to the beginning of the command line and start again. Handy
            for playing recorded games as screensavers.
  /K      = Redefine keyboard. To redefine all the redefinable keys, use /KA.
  /G:time = Gauntlet mode.
  /2      = Put two diggers on screen at once.
  /?      = Display this list.
  /A:1,port,irq,dma,rate,length= Use SoundBlaster sound, e.g.
            /A:1,220,7,1,20000,128. No background music yet.
  /V      = Synchronize timing to screen refresh.
  /U      = Allow unlimited lives.
  /I:level= Start on the specified level instead of level 1. You can't go on
            the hall of fame if you use this option.

/S and /L are optional (you can just specify a name and/or number) but are
harmless, and will help to prevent confusion (especially if you have a level
data file called something like "20.DLF").

/Q and /M don't completely disable sound and music, you can still toggle them
with the F9 and F7 keys.

/K lets you choose the keys you want to use to play the game with. Normally,
the program will let you redefine the keys to move Digger around and fire, but
if you override another key (by making the space bar fire, for example) other
keys will be redefined. If you specify the /K option, the program enters
keyboard redefinition mode before the title screen appears. In keyboard
redefinition mode, the name of each action which needs a key comes up on the
screen in red, and changes to green once you've pressed the key for that
action. Note that the name of the key does not appear on the screen: it would
be too complicated to program Digger with knowledge of all known keyboard
layouts. However, I may program it with knowledge of some of the keys in a
future version. I do not recommend redefining N, Esc or F8 as anything else, as
these keys cannot currently be redefined so this could cause confusion. To
return all the keys to their defaults, delete the DIGGER.INI file.

/G starts Gauntlet mode: infinite lives but only finite time. You can specify a
time on the command line, for example "DIGGER /G:60" for one minute play. If
you don't specify a time it defaults to 2 minutes. You can have anything up to
1 hour. Countdown stops when you pause and between levels, but not when you die
(so you get a time penalty of 5 seconds or so (depending on the game speed)
each time you die). Instead of an extra life at 20,000 points you get 15 extra
seconds. When playing back a recorded Gauntlet game be sure to play it back
with the same speed it was recorded, or the timer will be wrong. If you play it
back at a slower speed it will timeout before it's supposed to. High scores in
Gauntlet mode are saved in the same file as the normal scores, but are
separate. This same table is used no matter what Gauntlet time is used.
Gauntlet mode is currently one player only. Thanks to Marek Zgadzaj for this
idea - he played a hacked version of the original Digger to do the same thing.

/2 starts two player simultaneous mode. The first time you do this you will
probably want to use the command line "DIGGER /2 /K" as the default player 1
keys use both sides of the keyboard and you will probably want them to be only
on one side. Two player mode can be used with Gauntlet mode. The scores are
saved separately from the one player modes. The two player simultaneous game
has not quite been finalised yet - the rules may change slightly. Recording
works, but games recorded with this version might not play back with future
versions. When one digger dies the other can continue, and after a while the
digger that died will be reincarnated (if he has any lives left). He will flash
for a short time after being reincarnated. During this time, he is invincible.

/A may eventually be used to enable many different sound cards. However, the
only one currently supported is SoundBlaster, but most sound cards seem to be
able emulate this one. If you do not have a genuine SoundBlaster card, ensure
that your sound card is set up to emulate SoundBlaster before you run the game.
How you do this will depend on your card. If you've set up games before, you
should know how to do this. You should also know the port address, IRQ number
and DMA channel that your card uses. Factory defaults are usually 220,7,1. To
enable SoundBlaster sound, use the /A option as follows:
/A:1,220,7,1,20000,128. The first "1", after the colon, means SoundBlaster. No
other values for the first option have any meaning at the moment. The second
"1" (the fourth option) is the DMA channel, so if you use port 210, IRQ 5 and
DMA channel 3, the option is /A:1,210,5,3,20000,128. The 20000 is the sample
rate (this means 20,000 samples per second). You can change this: higher
numbers give better sound quality, but if this number is too high the sound may
break up. The last option is the buffer length. If the sound is breaking up you
can try increasing this instead of decreasing the sample rate. If the sound
seems to "lag" behind the action, decrease this value.

See the Known Bugs and Issues section for information about the /V option.

/U gives you the ability to save up as many lives as you like. Digger
originally only let you have up to 4 reserves. If you use this option, save up
more than 4 lives and get a score eligible for the hall of fame, the score you
obtained on the last few lives won't count (the score will be added up by the
original rules).


Record and playback could hardly be easier to use. There are two ways to record
your game: either give Digger a filename when it starts, or press F8 once your
game is over. The filename used if none is specified on the command line is
composed of your score and the initials you entered if you got a high score.
Bear in mind that any previously saved games in this file will be overwritten
unless you rename or move the file first.

To automatically save your game once it is finished, simply start Digger with a
command such as "DIGGER /R:DIGGER.DRF". Then, the last game you play before
exiting to DOS will be saved to this file (in this case, DIGGER.DRF, although
it can be anything you like). The recommended extension is .DRF (Digger
Recorded File). Again, remember that only the last game played before exiting
is kept.

To playback the file, use either the /P or the /E option:
"DIGGER /P:DIGGER.DRF" or "DIGGER /E:DIGGER.DRF". The only difference is that
when the playback is finished, the /P option restarts the program so you can
play normally, and the /E option exits to the operating system.

If you specify both /P and /R (or /E and /R) on the command line (/R first),
the playback itself is recorded, so some elementary editing of recorded game
files can be done. Not enough to make it look like you've done better than you
have, of course.

To playback a file at a different speed, put the speed on the command line
first. Command line arguments are processed in order. You can even play back
multiple files at different speeds with the same command, such as
"DIGGER 20 /P:DATA1.DRF 10 /E:DATA2.DRF" (plays DATA1.DRF at speed 20, then
DATA2.DRF at speed 10, then exits). You can take control of a game that is
playing by pressing Ctrl-T. However, you will not then be able to record that
game (that would be cheating).

No information about the speed at which the recording was made is kept, nor
whether it was recorded with CGA or VGA graphics, so any file can be played
back at any speed or resolution.

Recorded files are very small (only a few kilobytes) and are formatted as text
files, so they can easily be transported on floppy disks or sent over email.

Please send me your recorded files to put on the website!

Unfortunately, the DRF format completely changed on October 15th, 1998, so any
old DRF files you have won't work any more. I'm afraid that no converter is
possible, you'll just have to make new ones. However, the new format is much
smaller and more versatile.

You can set up Windows 95 to play a DRF when you double click on it. The
sequence is as follows (this assumes you've installed Digger in
C:\Games\Digger):

Explorer-View-Options-FileTypes
New Type
Description of Type: Digger Recorded File
Assosiated Extension: DRF
Actions: open
Edit: C:\Games\Digger\Digger.exe "/Q" "/E:%0"
Change Icon: C:\Games\Digger\Digger.ico

You can also do a similar thing with level files:

Explorer-View-Options-FileTypes
New Type
Description of Type: Digger Level File
Assosiated Extension: DLF
Actions: open
Edit: C:\Games\Digger\Digger.exe "/Q" "/L:%0"
Change Icon: C:\Games\Digger\Digger2.ico

You can add the other command line options you usually use as well, or
substitute /A for /Q etc. Thanks to Diethelm Kabus for this information, and
Digger2.ico, which you can download from the website. Diethelm also helped with
these batch files for replaying all the DRFs in a directory in a continuous
loop. This is PLAYALL.BAT:

@echo off
set DIGPLAY=1
:start
for %%i in (*.drf) do call play.bat %%i %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8
if %DIGPLAY%==1 goto start
set DIGPLAY=

and this is PLAY.BAT:

@echo off
if not %DIGPLAY%==1 goto end
digger %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 /e:%1
if errorlevel 1 goto end
set DIGPLAY=0
:end

If you put both of these files in your Digger directory, you can then run
PLAYALL with your preferred options, for example, "PLAYALL /Q /C /S:10" to play
all DRFs in CGA, with no sound, at speed 10. If you get the message
"environment out of space" whilst running from a .PIF file under Windows NT,
use the command line "C:\WINNT\System32\cmd.exe /C playall.bat ..." instead of
"playall.bat ...", changing the "C:" to another drive if your cmd.exe resides
elsewhere.


Frequently Asked Questions
--------------------------

Q: How does the scoring system work? (may be considered spoiler material)

A: As follows:

* Emerald: 25 pts.
* Eight consecutive emeralds (octave): Extra 250 pts.
* Gold: 500 pts.
* Killing Nobbin or Hobbin by shooting or hitting with gold: 250 pts.
* Bonus: 1,000 pts.
* (In bonus mode) Eating Nobbin or Hobbin: 200 pts. for first, 400 for 2nd,
  etc. (doubling each time) - still 250 for other methods of killing, though.
* At every multiple of 20,000 pts. you get an extra life. This is different in
  some of the sets of extra levels (see below for more information on these).


Q: What's the most you can score?

A: The maximum possible score on completion of level 1 is 8,650 plus 3,150 for
every life used. I can repeatably obtain 8,650. The maximum possible score you
can have by the end of level 2 is 19,925 if you don't die, so it is not
possible to start level 3 with more than 2 lives in reserve. I have got maximum
score on the first two levels a few times. For levels 2-7 the maximum score
goes up by 5,250 plus 250 multipled by the level number for each life used
(5,750 on level 2, 6,000 for level 3, 6,250 for level 4 etc.)

I haven't bothered to calculate similar statistics for the other levels, but I
can if anyone's interested...


Q: What's the music that plays in the background?

A: The background music for the main part of the game is called "Popcorn", and
was a hit for the group "Hot Butter" in the 70s. There's more info at
http://www.cam.org/~lafranc/popcorn/origin.html. The background music for the
bonus is the William Tell Overture by Rossini. The music which plays when you
die is "Funeral March" by F. Chopin.


Q: What other interesting things do you know about Digger?

A: In my explorations of the code of the game, I have discovered some things I
didn't know.

On each new level up to level 10:
* The monsters arrive more frequently.
* There are more monsters in total.
* The number of monsters on screen at once increases.
* The number of times nobbins have to cross to become hobbins decreases.
* The monsters move slightly faster on average (their speed is actually
  random).
* The monsters less frequently stop chasing you (they always chase you on level
  6 and above).
* Hobbins stay hobbins for longer.
* Gold hangs around for less long.
* Fire takes longer to recharge.
* Bonus mode lasts for less long.

Levels above 10 use the same variables as level 10 but different layouts.

The level plan is 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-6-7-8 followed by the sequence 5-6-7-8
repeated 247 times. If you complete level 8 249 times, all the subsequent
levels use the layout from level 5.

Gold (as in a broken bag) disappears very quickly if you dig underneath it.

Monsters going up change direction when there is a bag falling on them, but
they do the same thing even if the bag is below them in the same column.

Player 2 (in two player mode, obviously) doesn't get the extra life until after
multiples of 20,000. Player 1 (in either mode) gets it *at* multiples of
20,000.

The noise made when you complete a level is polyphonic if no background music
has been played since the game was started.

The program allocates enough resources for 6 monsters, but only 5 are on screen
at any given time. By changing a single byte in the executable, you can make
all 6 appear at the same time.

When you get a game over and no high score, the screen flashes between its two
colour schemes for a while, but the original didn't do this on my 8086.
Apparently it did on some other people's computers, though, so it must have
been a hardware oddity. It was taking ages to get back to the title screen, so
I changed the number of times it flashes from 20 to 10. This seems to do
something different in the latest version.

You can't collect more than 4 spare lives.


Q: Help me! It runs too fast (or too slow)

A: This version of Digger now uses your computer's internal timing chip for all
its timing, so it should run at exactly the same speed on all machines, no
matter what how much action is happening on the screen. The only exception is
that if there is more action on screen than your computer can handle, it will
run too slowly (as happened with the original game on a 4.77MHz machine). You
won't notice this effect unless you have a very slow computer or are running
Digger at an extremely high speed. Using the CGA graphics rather than the VGA
ones will speed things up in this case.

You can speed up or slow down the game depending on your personal preference.
To do this, simply specify the speed on the command line. The default is 40,
higher numbers give slower speeds, lower numbers (1 being the lowest) give
faster speeds.

If you're good at the game you might like to try playing it at a faster speed.

If you use a really slow speed like 500, you may have to hold the keys down for
longer to get it to do anything.

Note that the music and sound effects are independent of this speed setting.

If you are used to playing Digger on a slower computer, you might notice an
apparent increase in speed as more monsters appear on screen. This is a
psychological illusion! If you notice this, it means that your subconscious has
been counting the number of monsters on the screen and adjusting the apparent
speed to compensate! This effect will disappear after playing the new version
for a while. However, if there is demand I could put in a feature to actually
slow down the game more when there is more action on the screen.

If you get bursts of speed, see the Known bugs and issues section.


Q: Can you send me this other game I used to play called...

A: No, try Altavista.


Q: Can I send you this other game I used to play called...

A: No! Please, whatever you do, DON'T send me games over email - half the time
I have to download my email over a very slow modem and expensive telephone
line, and the other half of the time I have very limited mailbox space. Sending
large binaries over email is known as mail-bombing and is extremely rude. If
you want to send something, email me first describing exactly what it is, ask
me if I want it and if so, what the best way to get it to me is.


Q: I have found a bug in Digger. Can you fix it?

A: First download the latest version from http://www.digger.org, and see if
your bug still happens with that. If it doesn't, I already fixed it. Next, look
at the DIGGER.TXT file that came with it and see if the "Known bugs and issues"
section lists this bug. If it does, I know about it already. If not, please
send me details of the bug, the operating system you are using, the command
line parameters you gave to Digger and a .DRF file if you can make one which
reproduces the bug.


Q: My computer does not know how to run .ZIP files. What do I do?

A: Download Winzip from http://www.winzip.com and learn how to use it. (How did
I guess you're using Windows?) Unzipping files is a skill you really need to
learn if you're going to be downloading programs from the internet: it is an
industry standard format.


Q: My Apple Mac won't run Digger. What do I do?

A: Go and buy a real computer! :-) Or you could, if you are so inclined, try to
run it on a PC emulator. Some people have reported limited success in doing so.
Hopefully sometime soon a Mac programmer will write a native version.


Q: I like Apple Macs and want to write a nasty message (a flame) to you about
that last comment. Where should I send it?

A: To the wastebasket.


Q: How do I specify command line arguments?

A: This depends on how you load the game. If you load it from a DOS prompt by
typing the command "DIGGER" and pressing enter, then it is as simple as typing
the options after the word "DIGGER", i.e. "DIGGER /C 20" to play in CGA at
double speed.

If you're running it by double-clicking on an icon in Windows 95 or above,
right-click the icon, select properties and there will be a command-line box
which you can change in the same way (although instead of saying just "DIGGER"
it may say something like "C:\Games\Digger\Digger.exe" but it's the same
principle.

There may be a feature to make this easier to use in the future.



Extra levels
------------

An extra 35 sets of levels are available from my website at
http://www.digger.org/diglev.zip. To use these, unzip the file into directory
where you installed Digger, and make sure that this is the current directory
when you run the game.

To play a different level set, just specify its name on the command line when
you play the game.

Note that the scores are now saved in the same files as the level data, not in
separate .SCO files as in one old version (although the DIGGER.SCO file is
still used if no .DLF file is specified). If you played this version and have
lots of .SCO files, email me for the conversion utility.

Most of the levels in the pack were designed by Mikel Lavrentyev and his
friends.

The files VALYA123, VALYA2 and VALYA3 were designed by Valentina Borisenko, a
schoolgirl from the Irkutsk (Russia).

The file ANTON was designed by someone called Kalmykow Anton, who hacked into
Digger in 1987 and made several changes. His version of Digger (ANTONDIG.EXE)
displayed the graphics better than the original on non-CGA displays and had a
whole new set of levels but there were still many problems with it.

Note that the recommended extension for level files has changed from .DAT to
.DLF, so if you have any level files with the extension .DAT files, rename
them.


Hall of fame
------------

Welcome to the hall of fame. Your name could be here! All you need to do is
send me a recording of a game you played where you got more than 127,350
points. Recordings of all the official top scores are available on the website.


Rank Name                    Country        Score  Level Speed

  1  Dror Bohrer             Israel        903,750  105   30-130
  2  Tomek Stochel           Poland        226,775   23   40-60
  3  Krishna Kumar           India         205,600   24   40
  4  Filipus Hunadi          Indonesia     196,075   23   35-60
  5  Avi Nakash              Israel        188,450   25   25-55
  6  Urmas Tartes            Estonia       186,250   22   40-50
  7  Gal Masri               Israel        161,975   20   45?
  8  Ramin Darvari           United States 143,825   14   50
  9  Dharmendra Rana         Australia     138,800   16   65-165
 10  Henrik Olsen            Denmark       127,350   14   25-50


Notes:

* Yes, Dror Bohrer's score really is genuine! It took over 4.5 hours to record.
  You need version 19990408 or later to play it back. It's quite lucky that the
  game finished when it did, because with the version of Digger Dror was using,
  an internal buffer would have overflowed in one or two more levels and the
  game wouldn't have been recorded at all! This problem should not occur with
  the latest version of Digger.
* Stephane Reusser from France recorded THEVOID.DRF, a new way of playing
  Digger which really must be seen to be believed...

Please note that games recorded with the /I option are not eligible for the
hall of fame, and that if you use the /U option, your fame score may be lower
than the total score from the game. See the How to play Digger section for more
details.

If you can beat 127,350 you can get into the hall of fame. To save your game,
wait until you are back at the title screen (after the "Enter your initials"
screen, or when the "Game Over" screen has disappeared) just hit F8. Then exit
the program in the normal way. This will create a file with the extension DRF
and a name composed of your score and the initials you entered. You can then
send this to me.

If you have access to email, this is the best way to send it: simply attach the
DRF file to an email and send it to "fame@digger.org". If you don't know how to
attach a file to an email, simply open the DRF file in a text editor (such as
Notepad in Windows), select the whole thing, copy it and paste it into the
email message. If you don't have access to email, you can still send in your
DRF - put it on a floppy disk and snail-mail it to me at the address at the end
of this file. If you want your disk back send a suitable SAE as well.

For some more information on recording and playback, see the "How to play
Digger" section.

When sending scores, please check the website first to make sure that your
score is good enough. Also, please tell me your full name, nationality and
whether or not you want your email address published on the website.


Technical details
-----------------

The disassembly was done using Microsoft's DEBUG utility and lots of QEdit
macros. The new code was completely written by me, from scratch. Most of the
old code was subsequently converted from assembler to C line by line, by hand.
I wrote utilities in Borland's Turbo C 2.0 to extract the graphics data and put
it into a format I could use with CHARDES, my personal favourite sprite editor.
I used this program to redraw all the graphics in glorious 16 colour 640x400
VGA. With more utilities I wrote, I turned the new sprites back into C code so
it could be easily linked with the code. Finally, I assembled everything with
A86 and Turbo C, linked it all with Borland's TLINK and compressed it with
PKLITE (it's now smaller than the original!)

Note: the high scores are now saved in an actual file, DIGGER.SCO, and *not* on
an arbitrary sector of the disk in drive A:, as the original did. If you're
clever, you can hack into this file and make your scores apparently arbitrarily
large. Please don't do this, it's very antisocial. Don't do it on Minesweeper
or Freecell, either.


Windows version
---------------

To run WinDig you need to have Windows 95 or 98. I don't know if it will work
with Windows NT or not. DirectX is recommended as without it there will be no
sound. DirectX 6 is especially recommended as without it there will be no
full-screen mode and a possible performance penalty. DirectX 6 can be
downloaded from the Microsoft website
(http://www.microsoft.com/directx/download.asp) if you don't already have it
but beware: it is a large download (7Mb).

You'll need at least a 486 to play WinDig, but a Pentium is recommended. A
DirectX compatible sound card is also recommended (or you won't be able to hear
the sound) as is a display capable of 256 colours or more.

Things that are working (at least in part):

* single player / 2 player game
* 2 player simultaneous mode
* gauntlet mode
* change speed with /S switch and also +/- keys on num pad
* recording with /R switch and F8
* playback of recorded files /E /P (use T instead of CTRL-T)
* limited support for keyboard redefinition (non-alphabet/number keys may not
  work properly. Cannot use same DIGGER.INI file as the DOS version) VGA
  graphics in a window or full-screen
* the /? switch works (although some of the information it displays is not
  appropriate for the Win95 version)
* ALT-ENTER to switch between Windowed and Fullscreen mode

  Known problems:
Graphics:

* no CGA graphics yet
* the flashing palette is very slow (when you get a high score)
* changing your screen resolution/color depth while digger is running will
  cause digger to crash.
* in windowed mode, the game may draw over top of any windows that are above
  it, including the taskbar.

  Keyboard:

* keyboard remapping doesn't work yet.
* future plans: use DirectInput

  Sound:

* The sound might break up/skip a bit more than the DOS/SoundBlaster version.

  Other:

* There are many, many bugs.
* There is very little error checking done at the moment.
* There are a few calls to exit() in digger (i.e.. after playback using /E) so
  some memory, GDI objects, etc. may not be released properly when this
  happens.
* switches (DO NOT use these): /c /b /q /m /a /v /i
* occasionally, Windows performs some disk access during the game (this is kind
  of annoying)
* on one computer it was tested on, the playback of a recorded file didn't work
  properly. The background didn't appear, but the other sprites did.
* starting a DOS fullscreen session while the game is running may cause the
  game to crash.
* no joystick support

  This hasn't been tested on very many computers, so I'm sure there are many,
many more problems that I don't know about yet. I apologise if the program
crashes, or locks up your computer or something. But if it does do something
like this, please let me (Tim Draper) know and I will try to fix it as quickly
as possible.

Notes:
If you change the sample rate or buffer size in the dialog box, you must
restart the program for the changes to take effect. Don't put anything
unreasonable as the sample rate, since this may cause the program to crash on
start-up. (You can edit the INI file if this happens.)

The 'Aync' option improves the performance of the game while in Windowed mode
only. You may notice that when this is 'on', some of the flashing sprites that
you normally see (when pushing bags, etc.) don't flash. This option has no
effect when in Full Screen mode.

I added the 'Aync' option so that Digger would run on an old 486 that I have.
It has no sound card, and only a VGA monochrome monitor (and a VLB video card).
Although the game will run on a 486, I recommend running it in FullScreen mode
only. In Windowed mode, there will be major slowdowns whenever the palette
flashes (before/after bonus) and in the 'enter your initials' screen. Also, the
game is unplayable (far too slow) if the Async option is off.


Known bugs and issues
---------------------

Most of these have arisen because of the way the original game uses the
hardware, and I that want to keep it as similar to the original as possible, in
terms of sound and gameplay). However, with the latest version this list is
looking a bit depleted...

* Pressing F8 before playing a game means that you can't start a new game. I'll
  fix this very soon.

* The PC speaker sound doesn't work with Windows 3.1 (it crashes when you
  complete level 1). To hear it under Windows 95 or 98, create a shortcut to
  Digger.exe, right-click the shortcut, click "Properties", "Program",
  "Advanced..." and ensure that "Suggest MS-DOS mode as necessary" is
  unchecked. Please let me know if this doesn't work for you.

* I have had some reports of problems related to the speed, running too fast,
  erratically, or with occasional bursts of speed. If you notice this, at least
  one of the following cures should work:
  1) If you're using the /A option then try not using it. If you're not using
  it and you have a SoundBlaster compatible soundcard then try using it.
  2) If you're not using the /A try the /M (disable music) option, and if that
  doesn't work try the /Q (disable sound) option.
  3) Try the /V option. The timing may not be quite so smooth, you may have to
  use a larger buffer with the /A option and there may be other adverse effects
  on other areas of the game in the future, so don't use it unless you have to.
  4) If you're running under Windows, try a true DOS session (not a DOS box).
  How you do this depends on which version of Windows you are using. If it's
  3.x, select "Exit Windows" from the program manager's File menu. If it's 95
  or 98, press "Start", "Shut down" and select "Restart in MS-DOS mode". You
  can then run Digger from the MS-DOS prompt. In Win95 or 98, you can also set
  up a shortcut to run Digger in MS-DOS mode ("Use default settings" will
  usually work).

* There are still one or two minor problems with SoundBlaster sound - crashing
  if you specify the wrong parameters and some strange artifacts with certain
  sample rate (22050 for example). Fixes are in progress.

* The screen goes all speckly when you get a high score. The faster your
  computer the more speckly it gets. Sometime I will write something to try and
  make it more like the original.

* Digger can be run under OS/2 in a full-screen DOS session, but the music may
  be a little distorted. To fix it, set:

  HW_TIMER         ON
  IDLE_SENSITIVITY 100
  INT_DURING_IO    ON
  SESSION_PRIORITY 32

  OS/2 displays the Windows icon with no problems. Thanks to Mariusz Borkowski
  for this information. If anyone knows how to do something similar to Windows
  NT, let me know.


Ideas for future enhancements
-----------------------------

Please get in touch and tell me which of these you'd particularly like/hate or
if you have any better ideas.


* Analogue joystick support (this was in the original game, but didn't work
  unless you were running the game on a 4.77MHz 8088).

* Level editor, graphics editor, background music editor etc.

* Changes to two player simultaneous mode. Is it too easy? Should some monsters
  reappear when only one digger dies? Separate keys for one and two player
  modes? No friendly fire option? Team total score?

* Network play (Null modem, modem, network, internet).

* Windows version.

* More than two players.


Which other classic games would you like to see restored? Styx has already been
restored, and can be obtained from http://www.digger.org/styx. I have three
other Windmill software games ("Conquest", "Rollo and the Brush brothers" and
"Moonbugs") and have heard of another 3 ("The Exterminator", "Floppy Frenzy"
and "Video Trek 88"). I mentioned here previously that I'd like to restore
Datasoft's 1983 masterpiece "Bruce Lee", but it had already been done and only
needed a minor speed patch. Email me for further information. I also might do a
new version of "Sopwith" by BMB Compuscience.

Any programmers interested in working on Digger - implementing new features,
making secondary products such as screensavers and editors, or porting to new
platforms such as Unix, Mac, Atari, Amiga and Java - should download the source
code from http://www.digger.org.


Digger pages on the web and other versions of Digger
----------------------------------------------------

* http://www.digger.org
  The latest version of this document is available at my own site, redesigned
  by Aycan Gulez. Various other bits and pieces, including recorded games are
  also available here. Check back here often for updates. The 80s Server's
  "Totally Awesome site of the day" on January 25th, 1999.

* http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Horizon/9754/
  SteppenWolf has written another Windows/DirectX version of Digger. I haven't
  tried it yet because it's a 6Mb download but you can tell from the
  screenshots that it is based on the Windmill software game.

* http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Maze/1723/
  Andy Skyman created this shrine to Digger. There are some bits of information
  and programs about getting the original Digger to run on modern machines as
  well, if you're interested.

* http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Underground/3842/Digger/
  Chris's Digger page was somewhat out of date last time I looked at it.

* http://home.worldonline.nl/~terdudio
  Reinder Kraaij of Holland has started a rewrite of Digger in Java. The
  graphics are as in the original, but the game itself is being rewritten from
  scratch. What is there is playable, but it's just not the same as the
  original -- yet. Work on the project has restarted, so watch this space! (Or
  that one...)

* http://www.digger.subnet.dk
  I barely understand this site at all, but it's obvious what it's about!

* http://www.hole.ru/~mikel
  Mikel Lavrentyev of Russia has written a "patcher" for the original Digger
  which fixes most of the problems. The loader also has a level editor and many
  sample levels. This package is highly recommended, although the patcher does
  have some unwanted side effects - neither the speed nor the background music
  is quite right. The levels from Digger's Loader are available for use with
  this version of Digger - see the "Extra levels" section of this file for more
  details.

* ftp://ftp.torget.se/pub/games/reader_files
  This game plays nothing like the original Digger, although it does have
  certain game elements in common. Don't be fooled by the 4Mb installation or
  deliciously rendered title screen, the game itself is simple, slow and fairly
  boring. It does, however, attribute itself to the original Digger so I
  include it here. To download, get both digger_1.zip and digger_2.zip and use
  PKUNZIP with the -d option.

* http://klyatskin.da.ru
  Constantine Klyatskin of Russia has created a version of Digger for the
  Palmpilot. It is currently a 1 level demo and is shareware, costing US$8.
  With the proceeds from the demo, Constantine hopes to create a real Palmpilot
  version which will also be shareware and will cost about US$12 (although
  there may be a discount for those who register the demo).

* http://www.oldskool.org
  The Oldskool PC used to host the Digger site and is an invaluable reference
  for anyone interested in old games or demos and running them on modern PCs.


Know of any more? Get in touch!


What's new?
-----------

* 24 May 1999: The source code is now available from the website.

* 6 May 1999: Minor bugfix release. Protected mode version released.

* 16 Apr 1999: Minor bugfixes in WinDig.

* 8 Apr 1999: WinDig now doesn't need DirectX at all. DOS Digger will now
  record and playback really huge DRF files correctly.

* 3 Apr 1999: Update to Windows version: now runs correctly in 256 colour mode
  and without DirectDraw 6.

* 2 Apr 1999: More slight bug fixes in DOS version.

* 1 Apr 1999: Slight bug fixes in both DOS and Windows versions.

* 28 Mar 1999: Windows 95 version added, thanks to Tim Draper. SoundBlaster
  music now works. Various other tweaks and bug fixes.

* 30 Jan 1999: Bug fix: Recording two-player simultaneous games with the music
  off now works properly. If you have any two-player simultaneous recordings
  which you want to keep but which now do not playback, send them to me and
  I'll see if I can fix them.

* 28 Jan 1999: Bug fix: You can't lose all your lives in Gauntlet mode any
  more.

* 21 Jan 1999: Bug fix: In old-style two-player mode, player one doesn't get
  all the points for bags killing monsters.

* 18 Jan 1999: Bug fix: Digger doesn't stall if you pause for too long.

* 15 Jan 1999: Unlimited lives (/U) and start at different level (/I) cheat
  switches added to Digger at the request of players.

* 13 Jan 1999: SoundBlaster cards using IRQ numbers 8 to 15 should now work.
  Bug with more than 4 spare lives fixed. Vsynch option restored for those with
  serious timing problems.

* 12 Jan 1999: The SoundBlaster sound should now work on genuine SoundBlaster
  sound cards. Thanks to Tomer Gabel for finding the cause of this bug.
  Recommended extension for level data files changed from .DAT to .DLF.

* 9 Jan 1999: Yet another bug fix: You now don't die twice if you die whilst
  completing a level.

* 8 Jan 1999: More bugs in old two player mode and keyboard redefinition fixed.

* 5 Jan 1999: SoundBlaster sound added, although it may not work properly and
  there's no background music yet. Bug fixes: Old two player mode now works,
  and some bugs in the keyboard redefinition routines have been fixed.

* 15 Dec 1998: Bug fix: keyboard redefinition in two player simultaneous mode
  now works.

* 13 Dec 1998: Two player simultaneous mode (/2 option) added.

* 9 Dec 1998: Digger level editor added. This is a Windows program and should
  be pretty self explanatory to use, so there isn't any information about how
  to use it here.

* 7 Dec 1998: Bug fix for Gauntlet mode high score table, added /V and /T
  command line options to help with timing problems.

* 25 Nov 1998: Gauntlet mode added.

* 20 Nov 1998: Minor bug fixes to do with the high scores, playback and taking
  over.

* 18 Nov 1998: Minor timing bug fixed. Major timing bug caused by fixing minor
  timing bug fixed.

* 14 Nov 1998: Hall of fame revamped.

* 13 Nov 1998: Keyboard redefinition (/K option) added.

* 4 Nov 1998: New URL: http://www.digger.org . Minor bug fix for /O option.

* 21 Oct 1998: Minor changes so you can playback a recording as a screensaver.

* 18 Oct 1998: Another minor bug fix: you can't score twice for killing one
  monster.

* 17 Oct 1998: Update to RiscOS version: minor bug fixes and sound added.

* 16 Oct 1998: RiscOS version added. Minor bug fix to DOS version making the
  keyboard work more like it did in the original. Speed control and playback
  cheat added.

* 15 Oct 1998: Major new version! Most of the changes are invisible but will
  help with future development. However, there are some major new features,
  including a greatly improved recording/playback feature, which you will need
  if you want to get on the new Hall of Fame.

* 13 Oct 1998: Digger chat mailing list added. You can subscribe at
  "http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/digger".

* 22 Sep 1998: Four new sets of levels added in the extra level pack.

* 8 Sep 1998: Trivia section added in the FAQ.

* 7 Aug 1998: If you liked Digger, try Styx (http://www.digger.org/styx), the
  latest game from Windmill Software / Andrew Jenner.

* 28 Jul 1998: DRF compressor program (now obsolete) and DRF files added.

* 25 Jul 1998: Digger should now run on slower computers.


Feedback
--------

That's about all I can think of to put in the really long Digger file for now.
Let me know if there's any other Digger information you urgently need or you
want to be put on an email list to be told whenever a new version comes out.

If you have access to email that is the best way to contact me - my address is
andrew@digger.org

If not, you can snail-mail me at:

Andrew Jenner
Queens' College
Cambridge
CB3 9ET
ENGLAND

You can also visit my personal website at
http://homepages.enterprise.net/berrypark/andrew if you're interested.

If you liked the Digger website and want Aycan to design your site, you should
email him at "gulez@rorqual.cc.metu.edu.tr".

Many thanks to Matthias Wermann (matt@digger.org) for the very generous
donation of the digger.org domain name and web server. Matthias runs an ISP,
the URL of which is "http://www.emsnet.de".

The Windows 95 version of Digger is by Tim Draper, who can be contacted on
"tdraper@trytel.com".

Tim Lees wrote the Digger level editor for Windows. His email address is
"balltung@hotmail.com".

Finally, many thanks to Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) for all his advice
and encouragement.
