*HANGMAN 83*
Programmer: Brian Williams
 email: indianawwi@aol.com
Version 1.2

INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE:
CAUTION: Hangman is not to be used for corrupt, manipulative purposes; just good clean fun.

Unzip all the files in the hangman.zip file and download them onto your TI-83. All the files beginning with an "H" are necessary to run the program (sorry it's such a mess, but that's the way it goes with BASIC), and Pic1.

Once you have all the files on your 83, run H1; this installs and initializes the Hangman program (otherwise it won't work at all). If you ever encounter any errors as the Hangman game runs, re-run H1 to reinitialize (such as if you accidentally erase list S, which stores saved game data).

Once you have run H1, run HANGMAN. This is the main file and is all you should have to run from now on, whenever you play. Just do as the program directs you (you don't have to use the ALPHA key when you enter letters) and everything should be fine.

DISCLAIMER: I apologize for the relative primitiveness of the program, especially when compared to assembly. It should be virtually bug-free (all I know of is one, and it only happened to me once and it didn't crash the calc or mess up the program, just made it look weird for one game of hangman), but if you encounter any bugs email me at indianawwi@aol.com. There are many aspects of the game that could be improved, and believe me, I am working on it, slowly. It took me a year to get this far. But I promise that one day, maybe by the time I'm out of college, a version 1.3 and possibly 1.4 will be released for the TI-83. Maybe even a Z80 assembly version, too.

GAME HISTORY:
Early July 1999: In a tremendously vigorous three weeks of programming, Hangman v1.0 is produced. There are many bugs, so I would probably call this an alpha version. Much thanks to Jeremy Altman (fellow Georgia Governor's Honors Program math major) for beta testing. This is done while I am participating in the 1999 Governor's Honors Program in Valdosta. Little did I know that prominent ticalc.org programmer Ahmed El-Helw was also attending the program as a math minor.

Late July 1999: Hangman v1.1 completed. Nearly all bugs are removed. New feature: ability to save game, just in case you are interrupted by perhaps the random instructor (also the reason behind the "teacher key", labeled "Hide" on the menu).

April 2000: Final nasty bugs removed, code edited to trim 100 bytes off size. This constitutes v1.2.

In the future, I plan to make a deluxe v1.3, with program autodetection, a more interesting title screen (this one sucks) that loads faster, a screen that can be accessed during gameplay to show you which letters you have already guessed, and an option to solve by filling in the other player's word.

This will probably make the program even larger, so I might make a v1.4 with code optimization to minimize overall program size. But don't wait on it too anxiously.