Welcome to... ************************************************* * L U U DD III CCC RR OOO U U SSS * * L U U D D I C R R O O U U S * * L U U D D I C RR O O U U SSS * * L U U D D I C R R O O U U S * * LLL UUU DD III CCC R R OOO UUU SSS * ************************************************* A Novelty Program! (C)1991 John O'Reilly LOADING:- ********* To load Ludicrous, simply double-click on it's icon in the disc window. INTRODUCTION:- ************** The basic idea behind the program is rather simple: the user inputs ten names and ten funny situations and the computer randomly generates some amusing scenarios. On it's own this doesn't sound rather thrilling, but Ludicrous contains numerous features which complement the original idea. Some of the features include: Load and save data and parameters. Speech interface, of which the user has complete control. Horizontal or 3D Starfield can be switched on or off at will. Option to load music and then play it in the background. Attractive copper-bars add colour to text. FIRST-STEPS:- ************* The first thing to do when the program has loaded is to load in the demo data which is contained on the disc. Hold the right mouse button to bring up the menu bar and then move the mouse pointer up to the DISC menu heading. A menu should now drop down showing various load and save options. The one we're interested in is the LOAD ALL option. Move the pointer down until the option is highlighted and then release the right mouse button. A file selector will now open and a directory listing displayed. Click on the "Ludicrous" folder and then double-click on the file called "Demo.LUD". The demo data will then load itself. Click the left mouse button when this is complete to return to the main screen. Since the program is set to use speech, it is necessary that we turn off any music that may be playing. Access the menu bar as described above and move the mouse up to the LUDICROUS menu. Move the pointer down to the MUSIC option and you will see another small menu pop up to the side of it. Move the pointer across to the menu and then down to the OFF option. Release the right mouse button now to turn off the music and return to the main screen. Now we need to 'run' this data. 'Running' the data simply means that the computer will generate the random scenarios described earlier. Select the LUDICROUS menu and move down to the RUN LUDICROUS option. Release the mouse button and the data will be run. To exit from run mode, hold down the left mouse button as described at the bottom of the screen. Now it's time to load in the demo set of parameters from the disc. Access the LUDICROUS menu and move the pointer down to the PARAMETERS option. A small menu should pop up at the side of it. Move across and move the pointer to the DISC option. Another small menu will be displayed. Select the LOAD option from this menu and a file selector will open. Click on the "Ludicrous" folder and then double-click on the file called "Demo.PARAMS". The parameters will now load into memory. Press the left mouse button when requested. With the demo parameters in memory, run the demo data again to see the difference. The speech will now be in a 'terminator' style, the copper-bar replaced with fading pink text and the program will wait for a keypress before moving to the next scenario. Hold down the left mouse button to exit. QUICK START:- ************* You may be wondering how you go about entering your own data into the program. This section will quickly show you how to go about doing just that. Firstly, we need to create some new names so select CREATE NAMES from the CREATE DATA menu. If you followed the demonstration above, you will receive a message telling you that you are about to overwrite data already in memory. Press Y to confirm that you wish to enter new data. The screen will now clear and a small table displayed in the centre of the screen. You will now need to enter ten names into the table, pressing return after each one. You don't have to use real names, be as silly as you like! Pressing 'delete' will delete any mistakes you make as long as you notice them before you press return. Any mistakes which you notice after pressing return can be corrected later on, so don't worry about them. After you have entered you ten names, you will have to tell the program which sex the people are. It will go through each name in turn, asking you to press M for male and F for female. Again, any mistakes you make can be corrected later. When this has been done for all ten names, press the left mouse button as instructed. Next, we need to create some new situations. Select CREATE SITUATIONS from the CREATE DATA menu. Press Y if the prompt appears and another table will be displayed. Enter the ten situations as instructed, pressing return after each one. Mistakes can be corrected later. Before you enter your situations, it is important that you understand the way that the program generates the scenarios. The program uses the following logic in generating them:- (NAME 1) met (NAME 2) and (SITUATION) him/her This must be taken into account when entering your situations. For example, let's say you wanted to have a situation where person one borrowed some money to person 2. The following would work:- Fred Bloggs met Bob Smith and borrowed some money to him Whereas the following would not:- Fred Bloggs met Bob Smith and borrowed some money him When you've enter your ten situations, it's time to correct any mistakes that you may have made. Use the EDIT DATA menu for this purpose. Further details can be found below. Now your data is all correct it's time the run it. Select RUN LUDICROUS from the LUDICROUS menu and away you go!! EDITING DATA:- ************** If you enter any mistakes while you are creating your data, you will need to use this menu. Select either the EDIT NAMES or EDIT SITUATIONS option depending on what you need to change. You will be asked to press a number key corresponding to the item that is incorrect. Pressing the 0 key will select item 10. You will now be asked to enter your new data. Press return when you've finished. If you selected EDIT NAMES, you will be asked to enter the sex. Press either M or F as before. Once you have corrected all your mistakes, reply N at the prompt and press the left mouse button to return to the main screen. SPEECH:- ******** You will find that there is a seperate menu used for editing speech. When you create your data, the program make two copies of the data, one is what will be displayed on the screen, and the other is what the computer will say. It is with this menu that you can alter what the computer says. Here is an example:- If you entered my name, John O'Reilly, as one of your names, then the computer would display John O'Reilly on the screen and it would also say John O'Reilly. If you try this, you will notice that it will not say my name correctly. This is because of the way the computer interprets speech. For it to work proper, you would need to use the EDIT SPEECH NAMES option in the SPEECH menu. In the list that is displayed, one line would have two copies of my name on it. The left column is what the program displays on the screen, and the right column is what the computer says. You would need to change the spelling of my name in the speech column to John O Ryeley. If you tried this now, the program would still display John O'Reilly, but it will now say my name correctly. You may find it handy to use a dictionary to see how some words should be pronounced. Both the EDIT SPEECH NAMES and the EDIT SPEECH SITUATIONS options work the same way so I'll describe them together. When you select either of the above options, a table containing the display data and the speech data will be displayed. You will also see a prompt requesting you to press either H,S or E. Pressing H will let you hear how the computer will say the phrase without having to run the data. Pressing E will let you alter the speech data so it is spoken correctly. Pressing S will stop the editing and return to the main screen. The LIST SPEECH NAMES and LIST SPEECH SITUATIONS options will simply display a listing of the current data so you can see at a glance what the current data is. The final option in the menu, the EDIT SPEECH PARAMETERS option, is the most powerful. This controls the way the program speaks to you. When you select this option, a set of buttons and sliders will be displayed, enabling you to easily alter the parameters. The first option will select whether a male or a female voice is used. The second option will decide whether a normal or a robotic voice is used. The third option will set the pitch of the voice: the higher the number, the higher the pitch. The fourth option will set the rate of the voice in words per minute. Pressing the right mouse button will return you to the main screen. LOADING AND SAVING DATA:- ************************* All loading and saving of data is done by using this menu, except for those used by the music and the parameters options. All loading and saving of any data is done through the FILE-SELECTOR. The file-selector is multitasking. That is, you don't have to wait until you have a full directory listing before selecting a file or a folder. Selecting a folder is done by clicking the left mouse button once, and a file is selected by double-clicking the left mouse button. By pressing the right mouse button, a listing of the current devices in displayed, allowing you to quickly change from one drive to another etc. Instead of using the mouse, you can use the keyboard if you wish. The box immediately under the file listing window is the current device and path- name, and the box at the bottom is the file-name. By clicking on these with the left mouse button, you can type in whatever file you wish to load. The other button on the file-selector are self-explanitory. It is important that you use the extensions specified when loading and saving files. This is so you can easily tell what files are which and so the program knows the type of file. Loading in a file that is not in Ludicrous format can cause the machine to crash so you are recommended to use the extensions requested. THE MENUS IN DETAIL:- ********************* This section will go through every menu option, telling you it's purpose and how to use it. LUDICROUS menu ABOUT LUDICROUS - Shows information about the program. RUN LUDICROUS - Runs the data as described earlier. TIME DELAY - Brings up a sub-menu with options for changing the time delay between each scenario. 1 SECOND - Sets delay to one second 2 SECONDS - Sets delay to two seconds 5 SECONDS - Sets delay to five seconds 10 SECONDS - Sets delay to ten seconds OWN TIME DELAY - Brings up a slider bar for you to change the time delay. WAIT FOR KEYPRESS - Waits for keypress between each scenario. SILLY MODE - Allows a person to meet himself eg. Fred Bloggs met Fred Bloggs and sat on him. ON - Turns silly mode on. OFF - Turns silly mode off. MUSIC - Brings up a sub-menu allowing you to play and load music. ON - Plays music in memory. OFF - Stops any playing music. LOAD - Allows you to load and standard AMOS music bank from disc into memory. A file selector will appear, allowing you to select your music. SPEECH - Displays a sub-menu containing several speech options. ON - Turns speech on. WARNING: You are recommended not to have music and speech on at the same time. This could crash the machine! You have been warned! OFF - Turn speech off. MODE - Shows another sub-menu. WAIT - Halts the program whenever any speech is spoken. MULTITASK - Allows the program to carry on executing while speech is being spoken. WARNING: Using Multitasking speech in not recommended! However, the option is there if you wish to experiment. TEXT COLOUR - Brings up a sub-menu. SELECT COLOUR - Displays three colour sliders with which you alter the colour of the text in run mode. COPPERLIST - Shows another sub-menu. GREEN/CYAN etc. - Initialises a copperbar composed of the indicated colours which will be displayed behind the text in run-mode. BACKGROUND - Displays a sub-menu. HORIZONTAL STARFIELD - Displays a three-level parallax starfield on screen. 3D STARFIELD - Displays a 3D effect starfield on screen. CLEAR - Erases any of the above two options from the screen. PARAMETERS - Brings up a sub-menu. SHOW - Shows all the parameter settings on the main screen. HIDE - Hides the parameter settings. DISC - Brings up another sub-menu. LOAD - Loads a set of parameters off disc. SAVE - Saves a set of parameters onto disc. QUIT LUDICROUS - Displays a confirmation sub-menu. ARE YOU SURE? - This exits Ludicrous. Make sure you've saved your work first! CREATE DATA menu CREATE NAMES - Displays a table which allows you to enter your names. CREATE SITUATIONS - Displays a table onto which you enter your situations. EDIT DATA menu EDIT NAMES - Displays your names on screen and give you a chance to correct your mistakes. EDIT SITUATIONS - Brings your situation up on to the screen and give you the option to correct your mistakes. LIST DATA menu LIST NAMES - Simply displays a list of your names on screen. LIST SITUATIONS - Displays a list of your situations on screen. DISC menu LOAD NAMES - Loads a set of names into memory off disc. SAVE NAMES - Saves a set of names onto disc. LOAD SITUATIONS - Loads a set of situations off disc. SAVE SITUATIONS - Saves a set of situations onto disc. LOAD ALL - Loads a combined set of names and situations off disc. SAVE ALL - Saves a combined set of names and situations onto disc. SPEECH menu LIST SPEECH NAMES - Lists the current speech names. See the special section on speech for more information. LIST SPEECH SITUATIONS - Lists the current speech situations. EDIT SPEECH NAMES - Allows you to edit the current speech names. EDIT SPEECH SITUATIONS - Allows you to edit the current speech situations. EDIT SPEECH PARAMETERS - Enables you to change the way the program speaks to you. END BIT:- ********* If you have any comments, complaints, improvements etc. for this program then I would like to hear from you. Just drop me a line at the following address and I promise to answer all letters! 1 Charles Cradock Drive Higher Broughton SALFORD M7-OXT Have Fun!