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<p>Oh! </p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>I see. So, in other words: GLK would be the interface we should
use that we can come together? Great! I'll have a look. Thank
you!!</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Thomas<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/1/19 5:10 AM, Paul Gilbert wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAEkg9RPonvo+6Yvvj=eoGNuVtuK-jNX+kkkAAyDqXYHh7ryxcQ@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="ltr">Hi Thomas,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm not sure of the status of the Gargoyle Magnetic Scrolls
sub-engine, and I don't currently have any Magnetic Scrolls
games handy to test it on. But unless it's significantly
lacking in support for the later games that your own work adds
support for, it'll likely prove easier to work on converting
it, I'm afraid. Since, after all, someone else has already
done the work of hooking it up to Glk as well. So it'll be
easier to do minimal work (relatively speaking) to hook it up
to the ScummVM version of the Glk layer. And then I can keep
testing it as I properly objectify everything to make sure I
don't break anything along the way.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Though I'll be unlikely to be spending much time beyond
basic polishing up of the sub-engine afterwards. So based on
your experience with the games & engine involved, there
might be opportunities afterwards for you to contribute if
you're interested, and to do pull requests to improve the
functionality of the engine based on your work.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Regards,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Paul.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 2:55 AM
dettus <<a href="mailto:dettus@dettus.net" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">dettus@dettus.net</a>> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>Hello.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>I must admit that I have not heard about Gargoyle or GLK
before. </p>
<p>Judging from the github repository, the Gargoyle engine
for Magnetic Scrolls is using the original magnetic
interpreter from Niclas Karlson. What he did was, as far
as I know, reverse-engineer the C64 ports of the Magnetic
Scrolls games in a painstaking process to make them run on
DOS. What I did was starting from scratch and using his
code as a reference. His code is probably more settled
than mine. Plus, I'd hate to step on somebody's toes who
has already invested copious amounts of time and energy
into a project, so if you prefer to use his code: Please,
please do so! <br>
</p>
<p>What I can offer you is an engine using a more modern
coding style. Even though it is C, I am sure that it can
be integrated easily with C++ projects. I have worked with
projects that use both languages and I am experienced in
designing APIs for that. </p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Thus far, I have the following function pointers for
callbacks:</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><tt>typedef int (*cbLineAOutputChar)(void* context,char
c,unsigned char controlD2,unsigned char flag_headline);</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>typedef int (*cbLineAOutputString)(void*
context,char* string,unsigned char controlD2,unsigned
char flag_headline);</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>typedef int (*cbLineAInputString)(void*
context,int* len,char* string);</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>typedef int (*cbLineADrawPicture)(void*
context,tPicture* picture,int mode);</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>typedef int (*cbLineASaveGame)(void*
context,char* filename,void* ptr,int len);</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>typedef int (*cbLineALoadGame)(void*
context,char* filename,void* ptr,int len);</tt><tt><br>
</tt><br>
</p>
<p>As well as those API functions:</p>
<p><tt>// configuration functions</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>int lineA_getsize(int* size);</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>int lineA_init(void* hLineA,void* pSharedMem,int
*sharedmemsize,void* pMag,int magsize,void* pGfx,int
gfxsize);</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>int lineA_getVersion(void* hLineA,int* version);</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>int lineA_setCBoutputChar(void*
hLineA,cbLineAOutputChar pCB,void *context);</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>int lineA_setCBoutputString(void*
hLineA,cbLineAOutputString pCB,void* context);</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>int lineA_setCBinputString(void*
hLineA,cbLineAInputString pCB,void* context);</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>int lineA_setCBDrawPicture(void*
hLineA,cbLineADrawPicture pCB,void* context);</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>int lineA_setCBSaveGame(void*
hLineA,cbLineASaveGame pCB,void* context);</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>int lineA_setCBLoadGame(void*
hLineA,cbLineALoadGame pCB,void* context);</tt><tt><br>
</tt></p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>You typically initialize the engine with pointers to the
game binaries, set the function pointers, and let it run.
When it reaches a point where an input is required, the
engine generates a callback and pauses until the callback
returns.</p>
<p> <br>
</p>
<p>Regarding pictues: They are also being rendered
internally, and another callback is triggered. An upper
layer must draw it in whatever way it deems appropriate.
So, it does not really care where it sits, or if it will
even be displayed. The data format itself is very basic,
almost .xpm.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><tt>typedef struct _tPicture</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>{</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt> unsigned int palette[16];</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt> int height;</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt> int width;</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt> char pixels[65536];</tt><tt><br>
</tt><tt>} tPicture;</tt><tt><br>
</tt><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>I am sure I can design an extra function for animations,
such as this:</p>
<p><tt>typedef int (*cbLineADrawAnimation)(void*
context,tPicture* frames[],int mode,int framenum,int
delay);</tt></p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Please let me know if this is of interested to you.<br>
</p>
<p>Thomas</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div
class="gmail-m_4236726755311743145gmail-m_8705712999262349308moz-cite-prefix">On
4/30/19 2:20 AM, Paul Gilbert wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">Hi guys,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks for the excellent summary of the current
status, Filippos. As he said, I'm currently in the
middle of working my way through converting all the
Gargoyle engines to ScummVM, cleaning them up and
making them conform to our coding requirements, as
well as making them proper C++ classes. If you do
decide to work on the Gargoyle sub-engine, please
let me know.. I'll hold off working on it until
after I've converted the remaining sub-engines.
That'll give you plenty of time.. the TADS &
Hugo sub-engines are big enough that that'll likely
take me a while to finish converting :).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>If you have any questions about the Glk engine
specifically, feel free to drop me a line. There's
also the technical forums at <a
href="http://intfiction.org" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">intfiction.org</a>. Though
my schedule is a bit packed for the next few weeks,
so if you do email, I may take a bit to get back to
you.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>As far as music and animation goes, music at
least should be easy, so long as it's a standard
format ScummVM understands. Currently the engine
supports raw sound, wav files, aiff, and mp3. As for
graphics, that's somewhat straightforward as well,
as long as the graphics can be segmented into
completely separate windows than the text, and it
looks like the Magnetic Scroll games do.. when you
create windows in Glk, you can specify what portion
of the screen each will use (for text vs graphics).
I've had a lot of trouble with the Frotz sub-engine,
but only because graphics and text can intermingle
in the same windows, which Glk doesn't allow. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Regards,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Paul Gilbert (aka DreamMaster).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Apr 29, 2019
at 7:18 PM Filippos Karapetis <<a
href="mailto:bluegr@gmail.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">bluegr@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px
0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">Sorry, forgot to say that the glk
engine in ScummVM can be found here:
<div><a
href="https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/tree/master/engines/glk"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/tree/master/engines/glk</a> </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>There are currently subengines for the alan2,
frotz, glulxe, magnetic, scott, and tads
interpreters, in various stages of development.
dreammaster is mainly working on these. You can
also find information about the glk engine in our
wiki:</div>
<div><a
href="https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=ScummGlk"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=ScummGlk</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Regards</div>
<div>Filippos Karapetis </div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Apr 29,
2019 at 12:14 PM Filippos Karapetis <<a
href="mailto:bluegr@gmail.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">bluegr@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px
0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">Hello, and glad to hear about your
interest in ScummVM, and your work on the
Magnetic Scrolls games!
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It's great that you are working on this.
Bear in mind, though, that there has been
extensive work on the Magnetic Scrolls games,
which has been integrated into the Gargoyle
interpreter:</div>
<div><a href="http://ccxvii.net/gargoyle/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://ccxvii.net/gargoyle/</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Gargoyle is being integrated as a subengine
into ScummVM, in the glk engine. The glk
engine is a port of the Gargoyle engine into
ScummVM. There's an extensive wiki for
Gargoyle, here:</div>
<div><a
href="http://ifwiki.org/index.php/Gargoyle"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://ifwiki.org/index.php/Gargoyle</a> <br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>So, my advice would be to make your engine
part of the glk engine, and base your work on
the already working Magnetic Scrolls
interpreter from the Gargoyle engine. The
interpreter is open source, and can be found
here:</div>
<div><a
href="https://github.com/garglk/garglk/tree/master/terps/magnetic"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://github.com/garglk/garglk/tree/master/terps/magnetic</a> </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The list of supported Magnetic Scrolls
games can be found here:</div>
<div><a
href="https://github.com/garglk/garglk/blob/master/terps/magnetic/Generic/games.txt"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://github.com/garglk/garglk/blob/master/terps/magnetic/Generic/games.txt</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>And there's an archive about interactive
fiction games, where a lot of resources about
the Magnetic Scrolls games can be found, here:</div>
<div> <a
href="http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archive/magnetic-scrolls/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archive/magnetic-scrolls/</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks for your interest in these games! It
would be great to see your work on them :)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Regards</div>
<div>Filippos Karapetis</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Apr
29, 2019 at 10:08 AM dettus <<a
href="mailto:dettus@dettus.net"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">dettus@dettus.net</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Hello.<br>
<br>
<br>
My name is Thomas, I am a big fan of ScummVM.<br>
<br>
Currently, I am in the process of writing an
interpreter for classic <br>
text adventures from Magnetic Scrolls, such as
"The Pawn" or "The Guild <br>
Of Thieves".<br>
<br>
Even though I am not saying that it SHOULD be
integrated into ScummVM, I <br>
would like to think that it COULD. It is WAY
to early to really start <br>
integrating it, but I like to be prepared.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
So, the reason why I am writing this mail is
because I would be <br>
interested as on how I would have to design my
code to make it possible. <br>
Currently, my interpreter needs a couple of
hooks into any form of GUI:<br>
<br>
- Initialization, where pointers to the
original binaries are being provided<br>
<br>
- Callbacks for textual input (strings)<br>
- Callbacks for textual output (strings)<br>
- Callbacks for textual output (characters)<br>
- Callbacks for drawing a picture (XPM)<br>
<br>
My code is purely C, so callbacks I am using
function pointers. Said <br>
functions are, at the moment, doing nothing
more than just a simple <br>
printf() and fgets(). The games I can play so
far are "The Pawn", "The <br>
Guild of Thieves" and "Jinxter". HOWEVER,
later games, such as <br>
"Corruption", "Myth", "Fish!" and "Wonderland"
added features such as <br>
animation and music.<br>
<br>
SO MY QUESTION is this: How would I best
design the callbacks for <br>
animation and music in way so that it MIGHT be
integratable into ScummVM?<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Dettus<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
P.S.: My interpreter is available at <a
href="http://www.dettus.net/dMagnetic"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.dettus.net/dMagnetic</a>.<br>
<br>
(Hopefully this link, and the fact that this
is my first email will not <br>
make this spam. ;) )<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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<div><br>
</div>
-- <br>
<div dir="ltr"
class="gmail-m_4236726755311743145gmail-m_8705712999262349308gmail-m_3635847852077674210gmail-m_2011843848087004711gmail_signature">"Experience
is the name every one gives to their mistakes" -
Oscar Wilde </div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br clear="all">
<div><br>
</div>
-- <br>
<div dir="ltr"
class="gmail-m_4236726755311743145gmail-m_8705712999262349308gmail-m_3635847852077674210gmail_signature">"Experience
is the name every one gives to their mistakes" -
Oscar Wilde </div>
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