
NEWS file for the Portable Infocom Interactive Fiction datafile
interpreter. This file lists the user-visible changes for the latest
version.


Revision 3.0:
-------------

  * Released 08 Oct 1992.
    The changes/enhancements below were made by Paul Smith
    <paul_smith@dg.com> unless otherwise noted.

    This version is quite a bit different than 2.0: some of the major
    changes are listed below.

  * Defined an interface between the interpreter and display handlers so
    that new systems could more easily be supported.  Many, many changes
    here.

  * Rewrote the UNIX interface.  Added special support for terminfo,
    termcap, termio, termios, sgtty, scrolling regions, GNU readline, shell
    escapes, environment variables, etc. etc.

  * Added an extremely simple display interface (stream.c) which should
    work on any system with a C compiler, for those systems which aren't
    explicitly supported.

  * Amiga TI (amiga*.[ch]) contributed by Olaf Barthel
    <olsen@sourcery.mxm.sub.org>.

  * MS-DOS TI (msdos.c) contributed by Mike Threepoint
    <linhart@remus.rutgers.edu>.

  * Reallocated many of the command-line options.

  * Tidied most of the information printing modes.

  * Added scripting support: scripts can go to the printer or to any disk
    file (currently only Amiga goes to the printer).

  * Added the ability to support proportional-width fonts for TI's which
    can do it (currently only the Amiga).

  * Added support for fixed window creation (used in _Seastalker_).

  * Added dummy operations to handle #comm, #reco, and #unre commands.
    These will be fully supported in a future version.

  * Added -r <file> command option to restore saved games from the command
    line.

  * Added a list of default game names and extensions which the interpreter
    looks for if the game name isn't give on the command line.

  * Added the ability to generate sound, or play games with sound without
    crashing if the TI doesn't support sound (currently only the Amiga
    supports sound).

  * Implemented support for Tandy License and alternate prompt bit flag
    setting via the command line (-T and -P respectively).

  * Implemented an "interpreter escape" command set which allows certain
    interpreter features to be shown/modified at runtime.

  * Added the -V command-line option to verify the file on disk (the
    $verify command) but not play the game.  Fixed verify to work on all
    version games (v 3,4,5,6).

  * Enhanced the -v output to put the []'s around just the real characters
    of a bad vocabulary word.

  * Added support for alternate alphabets in the data file (needed for
    Shogun): ideas on how to do this were gleaned from Mike Threepoint's
    _zorkword_ program (v.7).

  * Added informational printing support (command-line options -h, -o, -O,
    -v, and -V) for Z code version 4, 5, and 6 data files.  Information on
    the object list data structures for these versions was also obtained
    from _zorkword_.

    Also reformatted this output.

  * Added a -l option to set the number of lines on the screen.

  * Added a -i option to allow text to be indented from the left margin as
    well as the right; command prompts are not indented.  This may make
    reading the text a little easier (or not...).

  * Added code to use getopt(3) for more standard option support.  Provided
    my personal version of getopt(3) for those poor folks whose systems
    don't have one.

  * Added new options -c and -m to the command line to allow run-time
    setting of the # of old lines of context to keep on the screen when
    deciding when to --More--, and the number of spaces in the right margin
    respectively.

  * Put ``pinfocom'' under the GPL.

Other points of interest (note these aren't necessarily user visible):

  * Totally rewrote the paging algorithms in page.c to be faster and
    simpler.

  * Rewrote the printing functions to print all text to a buffer and only
    display it on the screen when a newline is needed.

  * Did a bunch of performance tuning and removed some bottlenecks (beta
    testers report this version is significantly faster than 2.0).

  * ANSI-ified the source if you have an ANSI compiler (added prototypes,
    used new-style definitions, etc.)

  * Modified sections of code to create a foundation for v.4,5,6 datafile
    support in the future.

  * Large amounts of other bug fixes, enhancements, etc. :)


Original InfoTaskForce Version 2.0 (REV_C)
------------------------------------------

  * Released 04 Nov 1990.
    Written by the InfoTaskForce.

    See the history.txt file in the lastest version of the InfoTaskForce
    interpreter, version 4.01.


Local Variables:
mode:           Text
fill-column:    75
End:
