Kurt Hoffman... EXCELLENT job on Shootout. Way to show us all what FAT can really do! :-p
and of course thanks to Thomas Nussbaumer for making FAT for us! You guys both rock!! :-)

Dude, the FAT-Engine is phat (pretty hot and tempting)!!!

Terrible reference to a good Chris Tucker movie......

Do I want to know?

no

Do I want to know?

no

if they only still had program of the month... BRING BACK POTM

At least Corridor92 and ShootOut should be on the Featured Programs List. Both of them brought a new kind of gaming experience to your calc. Or have you seen another 3D shooter with comparable features before?

BTW: The development of the FAT-Engine hasn't stopped yet. The next major feature is the support for real doors (sliding doors). Thanx to Scott Noveck the implementation is done. You can expect the first SDK beta in the next days. A demo showing doors can be already downloaded from the URL supplied with this posting.

Hold down [+] and [-] to open/close a door when you stand in front of it.

that's awesome... several suggestions:
1. (regarding the engine itself, not doors) - when you're walking parrallel to a wall, and somewhat close to it, it looks like you're looking at a corner (you probably know what i'm talking about)... that needs to be fixed if possible... mazerunner fixed it by not letting you get that close... whatever works
2. piviting doors (probably impossible) but it's worth a try, cus that would also be awesome... (piviting doors as opposed to sliding doors... i can't think of a better word for it, or even the correct spelling, but i think you know what i mean)

Doors with hinges? That might be a bit better ...
Or how about traditional doors?

Or how about the Doors for the 89 (bad pun, I know. I just had to say it. =P)

No, no you didn't. Now you get slapped. <slap>

THIS IS AWSOME!@1 I can see some Counter Strike in the near future. All i need is a mouse...

BTW Thomas : Instead of having +/- open/close doors, why not try a "default" use key, for doors, etc.

An excellence-oriented '80s male does not wear a regular watch. He wears
a Rolex watch, because it weighs nearly six pounds and is advertised
only in excellence-oriented publications such as Fortune and Rich
Protestant Golfer Magazine. The advertisements are written in
incomplete sentences, which is how advertising copywriters denote
excellence:

"The Rolex Hyperion. An elegant new standard in quality excellence and
discriminating handcraftsmanship. For the individual who is truly able
to discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of crafting
things by hand. Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold. No watch
parts or anything. Just a great big chunk on your wrist. Truly a
timeless statement. For the individual who is very secure. Who
doesn't need to be reminded all the time that he is very successful.
Much more successful than the people who laughed at him in high
school. Because of his acne. People who are probably nowhere near as
successful as he is now. Maybe he'll go to his 20th reunion, and
they'll see his Rolex Hyperion. Hahahahahahahahaha."
-- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"

Dear Emily:
I'm having a serious disagreement with somebody on the net. I
tried complaints to his sysadmin, organizing mail campaigns, called for
his removal from the net and phoning his employer to get him fired.
Everybody laughed at me. What can I do?
-- A Concerned Citizen

Dear Concerned:
Go to the daily papers. Most modern reporters are top-notch computer
experts who will understand the net, and your problems, perfectly. They
will print careful, reasoned stories without any errors at all, and surely
represent the situation properly to the public. The public will also all
act wisely, as they are also fully cognizant of the subtle nature of net
society.
Papers never sensationalize or distort, so be sure to point out things
like racism and sexism wherever they might exist. Be sure as well that they
understand that all things on the net, particularly insults, are meant
literally. Link what transpires on the net to the causes of the Holocaust, if
possible. If regular papers won't take the story, go to a tabloid paper --
they are always interested in good stories.

A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who
demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?"
holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made.
Yet, added he, none of you can tell where it pinches me.
-- Plutarch

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter 'c' would be dropped to be
replased either by 'k' or 's', and likewise 'x' would no longer be part of the
alphabet. The only kase in which 'c' would be retained would be the 'ch'
formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform 'w' spelling,
so that 'which' and 'one' would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might
well abolish 'y' replasing it with 'i' and Iear 4 might fiks the 'g-j'
anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with
Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so
modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai
Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez
'c', 'y' and 'x' - bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez - tu
riplais 'ch', 'sh', and 'th' rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a
lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

The salesman and the system analyst took off to spend a weekend in the
forest, hunting bear. They'd rented a cabin, and, when they got there, took
their backpacks off and put them inside. At which point the salesman turned
to his friend, and said, "You unpack while I go and find us a bear."
Puzzled, the analyst finished unpacking and then went and sat down
on the porch. Soon he could hear rustling noises in the forest. The noises
got nearer -- and louder -- and suddenly there was the salesman, running like
hell across the clearing toward the cabin, pursued by one of the largest and
most ferocious grizzly bears the analyst had ever seen.
"Open the door!", screamed the salesman.
The analyst whipped open the door, and the salesman ran to the door,
suddenly stopped, and stepped aside. The bear, unable to stop, continued
through the door and into the cabin. The salesman slammed the door closed
and grinned at his friend. "Got him!", he exclaimed, "now, you skin this
one and I'll go rustle us up another!"

After his legs had been broken in an accident, Mr. Miller sued for damages,
claming that he was crippled and would have to spend the rest of his life
in a wheelchair. Although the insurance-company doctor testified that his
bones had healed properly and that he was fully capable of walking, the
judge decided for the plaintiff and awarded him $500,000.
When he was wheeled into the insurance office to collect his check,
Miller was confronted by several executives. "You're not getting away with
this, Miller," one said. "We're going to watch you day and night. If you
take a single step, you'll not only repay the damages but stand trial for
perjury. Here's the money. What do you intend to do with it?"
"My wife and I are going to travel," Miller replied. "We'll go to
Stockholm, Berlin, Rome, Athens and, finally, to a place called Lourdes --
where, gentlemen, you'll see yourselves one hell of a miracle."

UNIX Trix

For those of you in the reseller business, here is a helpful tip that will
save your support staff a few hours of precious time. Before you send your
next machine out to an untrained client, change the permissions on /etc/passwd
to 666 and make sure there is a copy somewhere on the disk. Now when they
forget the root password, you can easily login as an ordinary user and correct
the damage. Having a bootable tape (for larger machines) is not a bad idea
either. If you need some help, give us a call.

-- CommUNIXque 1:1, ASCAR Business Systems

A German, a Pole and a Czech left camp for a hike through the woods.
After being reported missing a day or two later, rangers found two bears,
one a male, one a female, looking suspiciously overstuffed. They killed
the female, autopsied her, and sure enough, found the German and the Pole.
"What do you think?" said the the first ranger.
"The Czech is in the male," replied the second.

For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at
the results of this evening's experiments. Astonished at the wonderful
power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous
and bad music may be put on record forever.
-- Sir Arthur Sullivan, message to Edison, 1888

"Sheriff, we gotta catch Black Bart."
"Oh, yeah? What's he look like?"
"Well, he's wearin' a paper hat, a paper shirt, paper pants and
paper boots."
"What's he wanted for?"
"Rustling."

CONSULTANT:
[From con "to defraud, dupe, swindle," or, possibly, French con
(vulgar) "a person of little merit" + sult elliptical form of
"insult."] A tipster disguised as an oracle, especially one who
has learned to decamp at high speed in spite of a large briefcase
and heavy wallet.

Fakir, n:
A psychologist whose charismatic data have inspired almost
religious devotion in his followers, even though the sources
seem to have shinnied up a rope and vanished.

In the morning, laughing, happy fish heads
In the evening, floating in the soup.
(chorus):
Fish heads, fish heads, roly-poly fish heads;
Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up. Yum!
You can ask them anything you want to.
They won't answer; they can't talk.
(chorus):
I took a fish head out to see a movie,
Didn't have to pay to get it in.
(chorus):
They can't play baseball; they don't wear sweaters;
They aren't good dancers; they can't play drums.
(chorus):
Roly-poly fish heads are NEVER seen drinking cappucino in
Italian restaurants with Oriental women.
(chorus):
Fishy!
(chorus):
-- Fish Heads

"I'm looking for adventure, excitement, beautiful women," cried the
young man to his father as he prepared to leave home. "Don't try to stop me.
I'm on my way."
"Who's trying to stop you?" shouted the father. "Take me along!"

A manager was about to be fired, but a programmer who worked for him
invented a new program that became popular and sold well. As a result, the
manager retained his job.
The manager tried to give the programmer a bonus, but the programmer
refused it, saying, "I wrote the program because I though it was an interesting
concept, and thus I expect no reward."
The manager, upon hearing this, remarked, "This programmer, though he
holds a position of small esteem, understands well the proper duty of an
employee. Lets promote him to the exalted position of management consultant!"
But when told this, the programmer once more refused, saying, "I exist
so that I can program. If I were promoted, I would do nothing but waste
everyone's time. Can I go now? I have a program that I'm working on."
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the
warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design:
an accounting package or an operating system?"
"An operating system," replied the programmer.
The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an
accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating
system," he said.
"Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package,
the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas:
how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to
the tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited my outside
appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the
simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system
is easier to design."
The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well, but
which is easier to debug?"
The programmer made no reply.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

i am done

4.2 BSD UNIX #57: Sun Jun 1 23:02:07 EDT 1986

You swing at the Sun. You miss. The Sun swings. He hits you with a
575MB disk! You read the 575MB disk. It is written in an alien
tongue and cannot be read by your tired Sun-2 eyes. You throw the
575MB disk at the Sun. You hit! The Sun must repair your eyes. The
Sun reads a scroll. He hits your 130MB disk! He has defeated the
130MB disk! The Sun reads a scroll. He hits your Ethernet board! He
has defeated your Ethernet board! You read a scroll of "postpone until
Monday at 9 AM". Everything goes dark...
-- /etc/motd, cbosgd

A novice asked the Master: "Here is a programmer that never designs,
documents, or tests his programs. Yet all who know him consider him one of
the best programmers in the world. Why is this?"
The Master replies: "That programmer has mastered the Tao. He has
gone beyond the need for design; he does not become angry when the system
crashes, but accepts the universe without concern. He has gone beyond the
need for documentation; he no longer cares if anyone else sees his code. He
has gone beyond the need for testing; each of his programs are perfect within
themselves, serene and elegant, their purpose self-evident. Truly, he has
entered the mystery of the Tao."
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

A reverend wanted to telephone another reverend. He told the operator,
"This is a parson to parson call."
A farmer with extremely prolific hens posted the following sign. "Free
Chickens. Our Coop Runneth Over."
Two brothers, Mort and Bill, like to sail. While Bill has a great
deal of experience, he certainly isn't the rigger Mort is.
Inheritance taxes are getting so out of line, that the deceased family
often doesn't have a legacy to stand on.
The judge fined the jaywalker fifty dollars and told him if he was
caught again, he would be thrown in jail. Fine today, cooler tomorrow.
A rock store eventually closed down; they were taking too much for
granite.

Ya this string is REALLY relevant to the FAT engine...

my thoughts excactly...

this string was so funny I had to paste it onto word and print it. too bad word is combatible with whatever ticalc uses, otherwise it would have taken me less time. so, ticalc can now delete this inappropiate string cause it's too long anyways.

Yes, back onto the FAT engine-
Has anyone considered proting it to z80?
The TI-83+ seems a standard model (it's the only one I've ever seen in the shops) and surely a refinement of the engine to make it smaller and simpler wouldn't be too difficult?
I'd try myself, it's just the code seems to be in C and that gives me headaches...
I'm trying to convert a BASIC 3d engine of my own to ASM. I just need to work out matrices...
(Actually, the BASIC engine runs fairly quickly. It's just the naff 'ClrDraw' that makes the screen flash like a nightmare).
So, please, any z80 people that understand C, could they convert the engine?

That's funny. As soon as it said something about a six-pound watch, I immediately knew who you were quoting :-D

I prefer the Omega Speedmaster, NASA's and Russias official moon watch...