Digger - bac and digitally remastered ====================================== The really long digger file - 15/11/2000 by Andrew Jenner This

text file contains the same information as the official Digger Remastered website, which can be found at "http://www.digger.org". Contents -------Introduction Files at the Digger website About Windmill Software About AJ Software Frequently As ed Questions Command line options Hall of fame Running on other platforms The future About remastering What's new? Digger pages on the web and other versions of Digger Mailing lists Contact us Introduction -----------Digger was originally created by Windmill software in 1983 and released as a copy-protected, bootable 5.25" floppy dis for the IBM PC/XT. As it requires a genuine CGA card, it didn't wor on modern PCs. In 1998 a new version was created by Andrew Jenner which runs on all PCs with CGA or better and, whilst retaining all the atmosphere and playability of the original, has many new features, including: * * * * * * * Exit button Optional VGA graphics Recording and playbac Real time speed control Keyboard redefinition Gauntlet mode Two player simultaneous mode

Download -------The following files can be downloaded at http://www.digger.org: The latest version of Digger Remastered for DOS. The download is 78K. The Digger Remastered extras pac (187K), containing the level editor, extra levels, icons, Windows 95 file associations, the hall of fame games, and a screensaver. Please read the EXTRAS.TXT file first. Windig, the Windows 95 version of Digger Remastered by Tim Draper (105K). The SDL version of Digger Remastered by Maxim Sobolev (108K) - see "ports"

section of website or digger.txt for building instructions. The RiscOS port of Digger Remastered (52K). The DJGPP/Allegro protected mode port (298K). The C source code to Digger (177K). Please read the DIGSRC.TXT file first. The Java version of Digger in downloadable form (45K). The Source code to the Java version of Digger (32K). The graphics from Digger in .BMP (24K) or .GIF (35K) format. Note that the .BMP files do not have the correct transparency information. These files have been ZIPped twice (the first time with compression off) to reduce download time. This is a handy technique for improving compression performance if you have lots of similar files in an archive. Styx Remastered, another Windmill Software that Andrew has fixed (25K). The source code for Styx remastered in Assembler (43K). The ripped version of Digger (23K). The ripped version of Styx (19K). The ripped version of Rollo and the Brush Bros (19K). The ripped version of Conquest (25K). The ripped version of Moonbugs (22K). The ripped version of The Exterminator (18K). Floppy Frenzy. The archives from the old Digger Chat mailing list. Now as complete as they're ever going to be (probably).

Play Java Digger ---------------There is now a Java version of Digger at "http://www.digger.org/java.html". It is 46K long. The eys are as the default Digger eys - arrow eys to move, F1 to fire. Press F9 (not F10 as in other versions) to abandon a game in progress and return to the title screen. Press + or - to change speed, and Esc on the main menu to switch between 1 and 2 player mode. Clic on the Java applet to give it focus if it does not respond. Sound and many of the "Remastered" features such as VGA graphics, eyboard redefinition, gauntlet mode, 2-player simultaneous mode and recording have not yet been implemented. About Windmill Software

GETSCORE - utility to extract the high scores from an old Digger floppy dis and convert them to a DIGGER.SCO file.

----------------------Windmill software is based in Canada and run by Jo-Anne Kempe. They no longer publish games, but now specialize in software for property management systems and custom management information systems (MIS) software. If you would li e more information about Jo-Anne's company and its international capabilities in housing and building/facility management in custom MIS projects, contact her at Canada 905 639 4515. Windmill published at least seven games between 1982 and 1984: "Floppy Frenzy", "Moonbugs", "The Exterminator", "Styx", "Digger", "Conquest" and "Rollo and the Brush Brothers." I have also heard mention of "Video Tre 88" but have not been able to get hold of copy of this. If you have a copy of this game, or you now of any other Windmill Software games not mentioned here, please get in touch. I have written to Jo-Anne but she has not yet replied. Rest assured that as soon as I hear anything you'll be able to read it here first. Frequently As ed Questions -------------------------Q: What are the eys you need to play the game? A: They are (by default): Down, Left, Right, Up (or 2, 4, 6, 8 on the numeric eypad) to move Digger, F1 to fire, Space to pause, F7 to toggle bac ground 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 eys corresponds to an increase or decrease in the command line speed parameter of 5. The default eys for the second player in two player simultaneous mode are W, A, S, Z and Tab to fire. All these eys except Esc, N and F8 can be redefined with the /K option. Q: How does the scoring system wor ? A: As follows: * * * * * * Emerald: 25 points. Eight consecutive emeralds (octave): Extra 250 points. Gold: 500 points. Killing a Nobbin or a Hobbin by shooting or hitting with a bag: 250 points. Bonus: 1,000 points. (In bonus mode) Eating a Nobbin or a Hobbin: 200 points for first, 400 for 2nd, etc. (doubling each time) - still 250 for other methods of illing, though. * At every multiple of 20,000 points you get an extra life. Q: What's the most you can score? A: The maximum possible score on completion of level 1 is 8,650 plus 3,900 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. 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 bac ground?

A: The bac ground 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.popcornsong.com". The bac ground 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 now about Digger? A: In my explorations of the code of the game, I have discovered lots of things which might be of interest to someone. 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 ta es 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 bro en bag) disappears very quic ly 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 bac ground 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 ma e all 6 appear at the same time. When you get a game over and no high score, the screen used to flash 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 ta ing ages to get bac to the title screen, so I removed it. You can't collect more than 4 spare lives unless you use the /U option. There are no more extra lives to be had at or after the 1 million point mar . Although this was a bug in the original Digger (a ludge really - Windmill

software never counted on anyone getting that far) I've ept it on in Digger Remastered to give an extra little bit of difficulty to anyone that good. 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 (for a given speed setting), 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 To do this, simply specify the speed on the command higher numbers give slower speeds, lower numbers (1 faster speeds. You can also adjust the speed whilst using the + and - eys. your personal preference. line. The default is 40, being the lowest) give the game is in progress

If you're good at the game you might li e to try playing it at a faster speed. If you use a really slow speed li e 500, you may have to hold the eys 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. Q: Can you send me this other game I used to play called...? A: No, try Gangsters (http://www.gangsters.org) or Altavista (http://www.altavista.com) . I haven't got time to go searching the web for you if you can't be bothered to wor out how to do it yourself. 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 an expensive telephone line, and the other half of the time I have very limited mailbox space. Sending large binaries over email is nown as mail-bombing and is extremely rude. If you want to send something, email me first describing exactly what it is and as me if I want it. If I do, I'll tell you the best way for you to get it to me. 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. If it does, 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 ma e one which reproduces the bug. If you're having problems with the Windows version not going at constant speed,

I'm investigating and hope to have a fix soon. Q: My computer does not now how to run .ZIP files. What do I do? A: If you're using Windows, download Winzip at "http://www.winzip.com" and learn how to use it. If you're using a Mac, see the next question. If you use some other sort of computer, you really ought to now how to unzip files. I won't send you an unzipped version. Unzipping files is a s ill you really need to learn if you're going to be downloading programs from the internet: it is an industry standard format. Give a man a fish and he will eat today, teach him to fish and he can eat forever. Q: My Apple Mac won't run Digger. What do I do? A: Go and buy a real computer, Macs are horrible! (See http://homepages.enterprise.net/berrypar /andrew/computer/macs.html for details) :-) 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. You could also try the Java version. Hopefully sometime soon a Mac programmer will write a native version. Q: I li e Apple Macs and want to write a nasty message to you about that last comment. Where should I send it? A: To the wastebas et. 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-clic ing on an icon in Windows 95 or above, right-clic 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 li e "C:\Games\Digger\Digger.exe" but it's the same principle. In Windows 3.x press Alt-Enter whilst the icon is highlighted to get a box with the command line. Hopefully in the future there will be user friendly menus which will mean you never need to use the command line. Q: Where can I get the original version of Digger? A: I don't now. It is impossible to download it from the internet because it is hardware, not software (a copy protected floppy dis , as opposed to the program on it). If you had that dis you'd still need an XT with genuine CGA graphics and a 5.25" floppy dis drive to run it. However, many people played the old Digger without the original dis . It is possible to extract the program from its dis , a process nown as "ripping". If you do this, it still doesn't wor because because the game is copy protected. It is possible to remove the copy protection (a process called "crac ing"). After these steps, the game will run but it will run too fast unless you have an XT, and you won't be able to see it unless you have CGA. Also, if you were to get a high score, it would try to save it on the dis in drive A, possibly wiping out some of the information on any such dis . The ripped copies of Digger, Styx, Moonbugs, Conquest, Rollo, The Exterminator

and Floppy Frenzy which you can download at http://www.digger.org have been crac ed and modified not to save their scores. Nothing else has been done to them, however, so you they run too fast and the graphics are bro en in some of them. A more original (although less useful) downloadable version of one of these games would be an "image" of the original dis (not a picture but a file containing all the data from the dis : boot sector, file allocation tables and all.) I don't have any dis images of Windmill games, however (nor do I want any - I have no use for them, except to put on this website, and I won't do that unless there is sufficient demand for it). If you actually want to play Digger, I suggest you download Digger Remastered. It plays and sounds exactly the same as the original did, loo s the same if you use the /C option, and wor s on all the same computers as well as more modern ones. Q: Is this legal? A: Strictly spea ing, no. According to intellectual property law, a wor copyrighted by a company continues to be copyrighted for 75 years.

I have no moral objections to violating Windmill software's copyright by re-releasing the game, and I feel you should have no moral objections to playing it (unless you're doing it when you should be doing something else). Copyright exists to protect intellectual rights, not to prevent people from having access to software. I can thin of two reasons why Windmill software would want to protect their intellectual rights: * To ensure that they are recognized as the true authors of Digger. * To ensure that they ma e as much money as possible. I have retained the original copyright messages in the game and I ta e pains to ensure that Windmill are credited properly whereever possible so the first of these concerns is ta en care of. As for the second - Windmill hasn't made any money from Digger for a long time, and if they insist I will relinquish all rights to Digger to them to do with as they wish. Having Digger restored and wor ing on modern computers, they would be in a much better position to ma e money from it than they would if I hadn't remastered it. In conclusion, therefore, I thin that Digger Remastered follows the spirit of the law, if not the letter. And since laws, being so rigid, can never be perfect, the world wor s much better this way (as any Digger fan must concur.) For more information about abandonwarez and the associated legal problems, have a loo at http://www.mobygames.com/featured_article/feature=7/. Q: Why doesn't the unlimited lives option wor ? A: It does, it just doesn't do what you thin it does. Unlimited lives does not mean infinite lives. Unlimited lives means you can collect as many extra lives (you get one every 20,000 points by default) as you li e, not that you can die as much as you li e without the game being over. If you don't enable the unlimited lives option, you can only collect 4 "spare" lives, as you could in the original Digger. If you want to live forever, try using the option /G:3599, which will give you an hour's play with as many lives as you li e, after which time you will probably be bored anyway.

Q: Has Jo-Anne Kempe of Windmill Software replied to your email yet? A: No. As soon as she does I'll let you now via the website or the Digger Chat mailing list. Command Line Options -------------------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 wor 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 bac ground music off. /R:name = Record game to file "name". /P:name = Playbac game file "name" and restart program. /E:name = Playbac game file "name" and exit program. /O = Go bac to the beginning of the command line and start again. Handy for playing recorded games as screensavers. /K = Redefine eyboard. To redefine all the redefinable eys, 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. /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 li e "20.DLF"). /Q and /M don't completely disable sound and music, you can still toggle them with the F9 and F7 eys. /K lets you choose the eys you want to use to play the game with. Normally, the program will let you redefine the eys to move Digger around and fire, but if you override another ey (by ma ing the space bar fire, for example) other eys will be redefined. If you specify the /K option, the program enters eyboard redefinition mode before the title screen appears. In eyboard redefinition mode, the name of each action which needs a ey comes up on the screen in red, and changes to green once you've pressed the ey for that action. Note that the name of the ey does not appear on the screen: it would be too complicated to program Digger with nowledge of all nown eyboard layouts. However, I may program it with nowledge of some of the eys in a future version. I do not recommend redefining N, Esc or F8 as anything else, as these eys cannot currently be redefined so this could cause confusion. To return all the eys 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 bac a recorded Gauntlet game be sure to play it bac with the same speed it was recorded, or the timer will be wrong. If you play it bac 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. Than s to Mare Zgadzaj for this idea - he played a hac ed 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 eys use both sides of the eyboard 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 wor s, but games recorded with this version might not play bac 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 now how to do this. You should also now 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 brea up. The last option is the buffer length. If the sound is brea ing up you can try increasing this instead of decreasing the sample rate. If the sound seems to "lag" behind the action, decrease this value. /U gives you the ability to save up as many lives as you li e. 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, and the game will end earlier). There are two ways to record your game: either give Digger a filename when you load it, 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 li e). The recommended extension is .DRF (Digger Recorded File). Again, remember that only the last game played before exiting is ept. To playbac 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 playbac 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 playbac itself is recorded, so some elementary editing of recorded game files can be done. Not enough to ma e it loo li e you've done better than you have, of course. To playbac 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 bac 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 ta e 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 ept, nor whether it was recorded with CGA or VGA graphics, so any file can be played bac at any speed or resolution. Recorded files are very small (only a few ilobytes) and are formatted as text files, so they can easily be transported on floppy dis s or sent over email. 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 391,400 points. Recordings of all the official top scores are available in the DIGEXTRA.ZIP file at http://www.digger.org Ran Name 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Country Armenia Bulgaria Russia Israel Poland Poland Indonesia Mongolia Australia Belarus Score 1,561,475 1,206,875 1,037,125 903,750 865,750 823,650 753,825 737,925 406,000 391,400 Level Speed 127 139 134 105 117 99 77 82 49 46 40-120 60-110 40 30-130 40-75 30-200 70-120 80-115 40 40-90

Karen Grigoryan Kalin Savtchev Ni ita Lu ish Dror Bohrer Tome Stochel Roman Tomczy Filipus Hunadi Batzorig Begzsuren Mi e Wang Fedor Selivanov

I thin Kalin Savtchev tried to cheat and get 3 places on the hall of fame by using two aliases (Plamen Babushcov and Stoian Dimitrov). The three games and the emails which accompanied them are extremely similar (than s to Wheels and Wang for pointing this out). If this is true, then shame on you, Kalin! As none of the three responded to my email I have removed the two lower scores from the hall of fame, so Fedor Selivanov and Filipus Hunadi are bac on the board. Karen Grigoryan does li e to do something special with the first level of his games. With his previous record he recorded thevoid.drf. Johnny Veliath did this even more spectacularly in thevoids.drf - completely clearing 6 of the 8

If the hall of fame games don't wor , try the ones in the DIGEXTRA.ZIP file your web browser is corrupting them. I'll fix it soon so that Digger plays bac files even if they've been corrupted.

levels. Johnny also designed a new, ultra-challenging set of levels ("Challenge of the Nobbins") which can be found in the Digger extras pac .

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 "Command line options" for more details. If you can beat 391,400 you can get into the hall of fame. To save your game, wait until you are bac 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 now 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 dis and snail-mail it to me at the address at the end of this file. If you want your dis bac send a suitable SAE as well. For some more information on recording and playbac , see the "Command line options" section. When sending scores, please chec the website first to ma e 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. About Remastering ----------------(Or "How the deed was done") Remastering is a very long and complicated process, involving a deep understanding of both C and assembly language, and how one is translated into the other. There are four main stages to the process: * * * * Disassemble Decompile Deshroud Rewrite

The disassembly stage is reasonably automatic. I use Microsoft's DEBUG utility to dump the code and data segments into a text file, and lots of QEdit macros to ma e the code more reasonable. I don't use a more complicated disassembler such as Sourcer because the extra layer of complexity it uses actually ma es the code more difficult to understand at a fundamental level. The decompilation stage is slow and boring, and I haven't yet wor ed out how to do it automatically, so I use a "wetware" decompiler - i.e. my brain. I am currently experimenting with automatic decompilation techniques which may open up whole new realms of Remastering possibilities.

Filipus Hunadi too his time over his DRF. One of the levels too and a half hours to record!

over eight

After the decompilation stage, the program is in the form of C source, but all the information about variable and function names has been lost - this is effectively "shrouded" source. The next stage is deshrouding, which is sometimes extremely satisfying and sometimes extremely frustrating. During this stage you get to find out all the hidden secrets of the program and exactly how it wor s. The rewriting part is the most fun bit. As PC technology has changed so much, huge sections of the code have been made redundant and can be deleted or substituted with much simpler lines. For example, the high scores are now saved in an actual file, DIGGER.SCO, and *not* on an arbitrary sector of the dis in drive A:, as the original did. This is also where new features get added and bugs eliminated. This is also the part that is never quite finished... The other tools I used were Borland's Turbo C 2.0 to write simple utilities for mundane tas s such as extract the graphics data and putting 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. Some parts of Digger are still written in Assembler, and these are assembled with A86. The whole caboodle is now compiled with Borland's C++ 4.52 compiler and compressed using PKLITE. I am always on the loo out for the next game to remaster, but it has to have some particular properties: * It must me free or abandoned by it's copyright owner. * There has to be a good reason for remastering. In the case of Digger, it was to get the game wor ing again. In the case of Sopwith, it is to get the networ game wor ing. Updating the graphics isn't a good reason if I don't actually have any replacement graphics (I'm not good enough at drawing to do them myself). * It has to be a real unique or the definitive version of the game. For example, if you were to as me to remaster Pacman I wouldn't even now exactly which game you are referring to because there were so many versions. There are also lots of good versions which wor on modern machines, so I would refuse anyway. * I have to enjoy playing the game! Since I don't have much patience with games, it therefore has to be one that I can pic up and don't have to learn - it must be fun to play straight away. * It must not be too big or remastering will ta e forever! Running on Other Platforms -------------------------Running DOS Digger under Windows 3.1 This wor s fine, expect for the sound, which cases the game to crash when you complete the first level. To solve this problem, either use the /Q option to turn all the sound off, or the /A option to use the SoundBlaster card if you have one. Better still, exit Windows (by selecting "Exit Windows" from the program manager's File menu) before you play the game - the timing will be more accurate. Runing DOS Digger under Windows 95 or 98 To use PC spea er sound, create a shortcut to Digger.exe, right-clic the shortcut, clic "Properties", "Program", "Advanced..." and ensure that "Suggest MS-DOS mode as necessary" is unchec ed. Better still, run the game in MS-DOS mode - the timing will be more accurate. To do this, press "Start", "Shut down" and select "Restart in MS-DOS mode". You can then run Digger from the MS-DOS prompt. You can also set up a shortcut to run Digger in MS-DOS mode ("Use

default settings" will usually wor ). When running Digger in MS-DOS mode, be sure to exit using F10 and not Alt-Ctrl-Del, otherwise your computer will always load Digger when it starts. If you find this is happening and F10 doesn't ma e any difference, boot your computer in Safe mode and remove any lines referencing "Digger" from your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. Running DOS Digger under OS/2 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 IDLE_SENSITIVITY INT_DURING_IO SESSION_PRIORITY ON 100 ON 32

OS/2 displays the Windows icon with no problems. Than s to Mariusz Bor ows i for this information. WinDig To run WinDig you need to have Windows 95 or 98. It will also run on Windows NT 4.0 if you have service pac 3+. (I'm not sure about previous versions of NT.) 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 at "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 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 wor ing * * * * * * Single player / 2 player game 2 player simultaneous mode Gauntlet mode Change speed with /S switch, +/- eys on num pad, and with menu Recording with F8 and with menu Playbac of recorded files with /E and /P switches and also with menu (use T instead of CTRL-T) * VGA/CGA graphics * Switch between Windowed and Fullscreen mode using Alt-Enter or Graphics menu) Known problems for version (TD WIN 19990717) Graphics * Changing your screen resolution/color depth or starting a full-screen DOS session while WinDig is running will cause WinDig to crash. * Colors are a bit strange when the game is running in full-screen mode and the menus are activated or a dialog box is displayed. * If Windows is running at 256 color depth and you run WinDig in full-screen mode, the colors in the main menu screen may occasionally be wrong. Keyboard & Joystic :

* Keyboard remapping doesn't wor

yet. (Unless you want to manually edit the

Digger.ini file...) * No joystic /game controller support yet. Sound: * The sound might brea up/s ip a bit more than the DOS/SoundBlaster version. * The end-of-level tune plays too slowly on some computers (when the music is on). * Other programs cannot use the sound card while WinDig is running, even if the sound in WinDig is turned off. * If no version of DirectX (DirectSound) is installed on the computer but a sound card is installed, you will still hear sound and music, however, the sound may lag behind the action more than it would if DirectSound was installed. Other: * Using the /R switch causes WinDig to crash at the end of the game. Use the F8 ey or the menus to record your game instead. * The game continues to run and accept eyboard input even when it is in the bac ground. * If WinDig cannot find the level-file specified in the digger.ini file, it may tac on the .DLF extension (even if the filename already has an extension). This may eventually cause WinDig to crash at startup. If this happens, erase the LevelFile= line from the DIGGER.INI file. This hasn't been tested on very many computers, so I'm sure there are many, many more problems that I don't now about yet. I apologise if the program crashes, or loc s up your computer or something. But if it does do something li e this, please let me (Tim Draper) now and I will try to fix it as quic ly as possible. If you change the sample rate or buffer size in the dialog box, you must restart the program for the changes to ta e 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 'Asynchronous' option improves the performance of the game while in Windowed mode only. You may notice that when this is chec ed, 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. RiscOS Digger This port wor s quite well, but there are a few rough edges: the sound is rather coarse and there are no CGA graphics. It's also quite thoroughly out of date - a number of the newer features are missing. SDL Digger This wor s with FreeBSD (using the console graphics driver) and SDL (a graphics API which has been ported to many platforms: Gnu/Linux, Win32, FreeBSD, BeOS, MacOS etc.). This distribution does not include binaries but there are ma efiles for various platforms. For questions, comments and suggestions on this version, email Maxim Sobolev. Building Mini-HOWTO If your system is already supported by the Digger/SDL (currently FreeBSD, Linux

and Windows with Cygwin tool it) then do the following: * Download Digger's source tarball. * Unpac it. * Edit Ma efile.sdl to uncomment appropriate "ARCH = your OS" and comment all others. * Ma e sure that you have the SDL library installed, if not then install it. The SDL library can be found at http://www.devolution.com/~slou en/SDL/ * Build it using "ma e -f Ma efile.sdl". * Have fun with Digger. To enable sound start it with "/A" option. NOTE: If you are using FreeBSD, then it would be mach easier for your to chec official ports collection first, as it is li ely that when you are reading this words Digger's port is already there. Porting mini-HOWTO It should be fairly easy to port Digger/SDL to any platform which supported by the SDL library and has GNU Ma e, GNU C compiler and libz comression library on it. * Edit Ma efile.sdl to replace "FooOS" with actual name of your system. * Define additional flags necessary for compiler to find various include files, libraries etc., and fill where appropriate. * Edit def.h:

* *

If your system doesn't have strup() function then add its name to the section where "fbsd_sup.h" being included and ma e sure that you have added fbsd_sup.c to the list of object files for your system in the Ma efile.sdl. If your system doesn't have stricmp() and strnicmp() string-comparing functions, but instead has strcasecmp() and strncasecmp() then add the name of your OS to the appropriate section of Ma efile.sdl.

* Try to compile Digger. Do not give up if something will go wrong, try to resolve the problems instead - it should not be very difficult to sort out. * If you have succeded please report your progress to Maxim Sobolev or Andrew Jenner Protected mode Digger Currently this doesn't do much more than Real Mode Digger. Notable additions include title-screen eyboard commands and configuration menu, support for joystic s (and other game controllers), a different sound engine which supports more soundcards than Real Mode Digger and enhanced 256 colour graphics. The author, David Down, has big plans, though, and there may be lots more exciting new features in the future. A 386 and VGA are required, SVGA is required if you want high-res graphics. Note: this version still has a few rough edges and is currently completely unsupported by AJ Software. Emulators and virtual machines Digger has been successfully run under a PC emulator on the Mac and using VMWare on Linux. It is not supported on these platforms, however.

If your system is a UNIX-li e (API's, filesystem layout, memory management etc), then replace "YOUR_UNIX_LIKE_ARCH_GOING_HERE" with actual name of your OS. If your system has a flat memory model (most modern protected-mode system) then add its name to the list of OSes for which FLATFILE should be defined.

The Future ---------Please get in touch and tell me which of these you'd particularly li e/hate or if you have any better ideas. * Analogue joystic support (this was in the original game, but didn't wor unless you were running the game on a 4.77MHz 8088). * I'm planning to separate the VGA graphics from the executable file and ma e CGA graphics the default mode. This will allow easy addition of extra sets of graphics in the future. * Updates to the sound routines - better quality sound through sound cards and in non-DOS versions, WAV output. * Updates to speed routines which should fix the speed bugs which seem to happen on some computers. * Option to use cyan/magenta/white graphics as the original did on some CGA cards. * Improve the playbac routines so they are less sensitive to problems with the line endings. * Separate eys for 1 player mode and 2 player simultaneous mode * Improvements to website: * * Testimonials section Screenshots section

* Graphics editor * Bac ground music editor * Changes to two player simultaneous mode. Is it too easy? Should some monsters reappear when only one digger dies? Separate eys for one and two player modes? No friendly fire option? Team total score? * Networ play (Null modem, modem, networ , internet). * More than two players, perhaps with an expanded play area. * Digger 3D - a true 3D game with 3D playing field and 3D characters. Lin s ----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. Chec bac here often for updates. The 80s Server's "Totally Awesome site of the day" on January 25th, 1999. http://www.digger.org/styx The Styx site is dedicated to another great Windmill game which is in the process of being remastered. http://www.sopwith.org Sopwith dot org is the home of the latest greatest remastering project, Sopwith. http://rainbow.mimuw.edu.pl/~maf/digger/ Mare Futrega has a copy of his Digger Java applet on his site and it's better than the one here because it saves the high score table. rg/rustic/rustic.shtml The Rustic Classics version of Digger is a very amusing Digger clone not based on the original Digger source. The guy who wrote it, Philip Hassey, doesn't want any money for it, just marbles (I guess he's lost his...)

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Horizon/9754/ SteppenWolf has written another Windows/DirectX version of Digger. It loo s good but isn't nearly as fun to play as the original. It's also a 6Mb download. http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Maze/1723/ Andy S yman 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 loo ed at it. http://conradie.tmfweb.nl/Digger/Main.htm" This site is a blatant rip-off of www.digger.org but I'm not bitter. I just wish I had his email address so that I could tell him to put a lin bac to here so that visitors to his site new where to go for the latest versions. http://home.worldonline.nl/~terdudio Reinder Kraaij of Holland started a rewrite of Digger in Java before being beaten to it by Mare Futrega. http://www.digger.subnet.d I barely understand this site at all, but it's obvious what it's about! http://www.hole.ru/~mi el Mi el 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 pac age is highly recommended, although the patcher does have some unwanted side effects - neither the speed nor the bac ground 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. http:// lyats in.da.ru Constantine Klyats in of Russia has created a version of Digger for the Palmpilot. It is shareware and costs US$12. http://dmoz.org/Games/Video_Games/Titles/D/Digger/ Chec out the Digger category in the Netscape Open Directory. http:// olding.8m.com/digger.htm Kenneth Kolding's Digger page. http://metu-alumni.org.tr/bonus/eylul/digger.html Here is a review of Digger written for a Tur ish computer magazine. http://www.do a.ru Do a are soon going to release (commercially) a game called Digger 2000. I'll let you now more details when I have them. For now, though, there are some nice screenshots at that site. http://www.olds ool.org The Olds ool 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. http://www.gangsters.org Gangsters is a great place to go if you want to download a computer games that is too old to be found in the shops. There are no actual downloads on that site, just lin s to sites that do carry the games.

http://www.mobygames.com Mobygames is the ultimate online encyclopedia of computer games. Go there and vote for your favorite computer game! http://www.popcornsong.com Popcorn has everything you ever wanted to now about the song "Popcorn" and lots more, including lots of versions of the music in various playable formats. Know of any more? Get in touch! What's New? ----------18 Oct 2000: Two new lin s added to the sidebar - Styx and Sopwith are the latest games to get the remastering treatment. 13 Apr 2000: Score saving bug in SDL Digger fixed. 7 Apr 2000: Maxim Sobolev's SDL version released, allowing users of FreeBSD and GNU/Linux to play Digger natively. 8 Feb 2000: Minor bug in level editor fixed (than s for Mariusz Bor ows i for finding it).

18 Jul 1999: Major new version of WinDig: CGA graphics, DLF and DRF files on the menu. The source code to the changes has not been uploaded yet. 11 Jul 1999: Major website redesign and updates to many versions. New level editor. 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 playbac 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, than s to Tim Draper. SoundBlaster music now wor s. Various other twea s and bug fixes. 30 Jan 1999: Bug fix: Recording two-player simultaneous games with the music off now wor s properly. If you have any two-player simultaneous recordings which you want to eep but which now do not playbac , 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

29 Jul 1999: Mare

Futrega's Digger Java Applet added to the website.

the points for bags illing 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 wor . 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 wor on genuine SoundBlaster sound cards. Than s 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.

5 Jan 1999: SoundBlaster sound added, although it may not wor properly and there's no bac ground music yet. Bug fixes: Old two player mode now wor s, and some bugs in the eyboard redefinition routines have been fixed. 15 Dec 1998: Bug fix: eyboard redefinition in two player simultaneous mode now wor s. 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, playbac and ta ing 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 playbac a recording as a screensaver. 18 Oct 1998: Another minor bug fix: you can't score twice for illing 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 ma ing the eyboard wor more li e it did in the original. Speed control and playbac cheat added.

8 Jan 1999: More bugs in old two player mode and

eyboard redefinition fixed.

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/playbac 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/diggerchat". 22 Sep 1998: Four new sets of levels added in the extra level pac . 8 Sep 1998: Trivia section added in the FAQ list. 7 Aug 1998: If you li ed Digger, try 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. 21 Jul 1998: Minor changes to website and documentation, added counter (see "http://w116.hitbox.com/Stats?hb=W42904163261" for our statistics.) 20 Jul 1998: Website was redesigned and "What's New?" section was added. About AJ Software ----------------Andrew Jenner is a third year undergraduate at Queens' College, Cambridge, UK. He studies Physics and tin ers with old computer games in what he laughingly calls his "spare time". Andrew has been messing about with computers since he was nee-high to a grasshopper, and his written many programs, the best of which can be downloaded from his website at "http://homepages.enterprise.net/berrypar /andrew". Andrew has always enjoyed playing Digger and, some years ago, designed some new high-resolution 16 colour graphics for it. It too 3 years before he got around to disassembling the game and ma ing it wor with the new graphics. He had no idea what he was starting - Digger became an unexpected success and spawned ports, level editors and new features galore. In fact, it's now got completely out of hand. Digger was his first "Remastered" game, but he has since remastered Styx and is now wor ing on Sopwith. Mailing Lists ------------There are two Digger mailing lists, one to receive information about new versions and one to chat about Digger, swap DRFs etc. Note that updates are sent to the Chat mailing list as well as the update list, so there's no need to subscribe to both. To subscribe to the Digger Update mailing list, go to "http://www.egroups.com/subscribe.cgi/diggerupdate" and sign up there. To unsubscribe or change your settings, you need to visit "http://www.egroups.com" and login. To subscribe to the Digger Chat mailing list, go to

"http://www.egroups.com/subscribe.cgi/diggerchat" and sign up there. To unsubscribe or change your settings, you need to visit "http://www.egroups.com" and login. The archives from the old Digger Chat mailing list (which was destroyed due to a misunderstanding) are available at http://www.digger.org Contact Us ---------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/berrypar /andrew if you're interested. If you li ed the Digger website and want Aycan to design your site, you should email him at "gulez@rorqual.cc.metu.edu.tr". Many than s 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". Than s also to Avi Ben Zev for setting up the original Digger Chat mailing list and for getting in touch with Windmill Software. The Windows 95 version of Digger is by Tim Draper, who can be contacted on "tdraper@trytel.com". Let him now if you have any problems with that version. The Unix version is by Maxim Sobolev, whose email address is "sobomax@altavista.net". Julian Brown (jules@digger.org) is guilty of the RiscOS port - if you use it write to him and encourage him to update it. David Down (faeries@mpx.com.au) did the Protected Mode version. Any comments about that should be directed to him. Mare Futrega (mare .futrega@students.mimuw.edu.pl) created the Digger Java Applet. Finally, many than s to Jim Leonard (trixter@olds ool.org) for all his advice and encouragement.