1ATC(6) BSD Games Manual ATC(6)
2
4 atc — air traffic controller game
5
7 atc [-u?lstp] [-gf game name] [-r random seed]
8
10 atc lets you try your hand at the nerve wracking duties of the air traf‐
11 fic controller without endangering the lives of millions of travelers
12 each year. Your responsibilities require you to direct the flight of
13 jets and prop planes into and out of the flight arena and airports. The
14 speed (update time) and frequency of the planes depend on the difficulty
15 of the chosen arena.
16
18 -u Print the usage line and exit.
19 -? Same as -u.
21 -l Print a list of available games and exit. The first game name
23 printed is the default game.
24 -s Print the score list (formerly the Top Ten list).
26 -t Same as -s.
28 -p Print the path to the special directory where atc expects to find
30 its private files. This is used during the installation of the
31 program.
32 -g game
34 Play the named game. If the game listed is not one of the ones
35 printed from the -l option, the default game is played.
36 -f game
38 Same as -g.
39 -r seed
41 Set the random seed. The purpose of this flag is questionable.
42
44 Your goal in atc is to keep the game going as long as possible. There is
45 no winning state, except to beat the times of other players. You will
46 need to: launch planes at airports (by instructing them to increase their
47 altitude); land planes at airports (by instructing them to go to altitude
48 zero when exactly over the airport); and maneuver planes out of exit
49 points.
50 Several things will cause the end of the game. Each plane has a destina‐
52 tion (see information area), and sending a plane to the wrong destination
53 is an error. Planes can run out of fuel, or can collide. Collision is
54 defined as adjacency in all three dimensions. A plane leaving the arena
55 in any other way than through its destination exit is an error as well.
56 Scores are sorted in order of the number of planes safe. The other sta‐
58 tistics are provided merely for fun. There is no penalty for taking
59 longer than another player (except in the case of ties).
60 Suspending a game is not permitted. If you get a talk message, tough.
62 When was the last time an Air Traffic Controller got called away to the
63 phone?
64
66 Depending on the terminal you run atc on, the screen will be divided into
67 4 areas. It should be stressed that the terminal driver portion of the
68 game was designed to be reconfigurable, so the display format can vary
69 depending on the version you are playing. The descriptions here are
70 based on the ascii version of the game. The game rules and input format,
71 however, should remain consistent. Control-L redraws the screen, should
72 it become muddled.
73 RADAR
75 The first screen area is the radar display, showing the relative loca‐
76 tions of the planes, airports, standard entry/exit points, radar beacons,
77 and ``lines'' which simply serve to aid you in guiding the planes.
78 Planes are shown as a single letter with an altitude. If the numerical
80 altitude is a single digit, then it represents thousands of feet. Some
81 distinction is made between the prop planes and the jets. On ascii ter‐
82 minals, prop planes are represented by a upper case letter, jets by a
83 lower case letter.
84 Airports are shown as a number and some indication of the direction
86 planes must be going to land at the airport. On ascii terminals, this is
87 one of `^', `>', `<', and `v', to indicate north (0 degrees), east (90),
88 west (270) and south (180), respectively. The planes will also take off
89 in this direction.
90 Beacons are represented as circles or asterisks and a number. Their pur‐
92 pose is to offer a place of easy reference to the plane pilots. See THE
93 DELAY COMMAND section below.
94 Entry/exit points are displayed as numbers along the border of the radar
96 screen. Planes will enter the arena from these points without warning.
97 These points have a direction associated with them, and planes will
98 always enter the arena from this direction. On the ascii version of atc,
99 this direction is not displayed. It will become apparent what this
100 direction is as the game progresses.
101 Incoming planes will always enter at the same altitude: 7000 feet. For a
103 plane to successfully depart through an entry/exit point, it must be fly‐
104 ing at 9000 feet. It is not necessary for the planes to be flying in any
105 particular direction when they leave the arena (yet).
106 INFORMATION AREA
108 The second area of the display is the information area, which lists the
109 time (number of updates since start), and the number of planes you have
110 directed safely out of the arena. Below this is a list of planes cur‐
111 rently in the air, followed by a blank line, and then a list of planes on
112 the ground (at airports). Each line lists the plane name and its current
113 altitude, an optional asterisk indicating low fuel, the plane's destina‐
114 tion, and the plane's current command. Changing altitude is not consid‐
115 ered to be a command and is therefore not displayed. The following are
116 some possible information lines:
117 B4*A0: Circle @ b1
119 g7 E4: 225
120 The first example shows a prop plane named `B' that is flying at 4000
122 feet. It is low on fuel (note the `*'). Its destination is Airport #0.
123 The next command it expects to do is circle when it reaches Beacon #1.
124 The second example shows a jet named `g' at 7000 feet, destined for Exit
125 #4. It is just now executing a turn to 225 degrees (South-West).
126 INPUT AREA
128 The third area of the display is the input area. It is here that your
129 input is reflected. See the INPUT heading of this manual for more
130 details.
131 AUTHOR AREA
133 This area is used simply to give credit where credit is due. :-)
134
136 A command completion interface is built into the game. At any time, typ‐
137 ing `?' will list possible input characters. Typing a backspace (your
138 erase character) backs up, erasing the last part of the command. When a
139 command is complete, a return enters it, and any semantic checking is
140 done at that time. If no errors are detected, the command is sent to the
141 appropriate plane. If an error is discovered during the check, the
142 offending statement will be underscored and a (hopefully) descriptive
143 message will be printed under it.
144 The command syntax is broken into two parts: Immediate Only and Delayable
146 commands. Immediate Only commands happen on the next update. Delayable
147 commands also happen on the next update unless they are followed by an
148 optional predicate called the Delay command.
149 In the following tables, the syntax [0-9] means any single digit, and
151 ⟨dir⟩ refers to a direction, given by the keys around the `s' key: ``wed‐
152 cxzaq''. In absolute references, `q' refers to North-West or 315
153 degrees, and `w' refers to North, or 0 degrees. In relative references,
154 `q' refers to -45 degrees or 45 degrees left, and `w' refers to 0
155 degrees, or no change in direction.
156 All commands start with a plane letter. This indicates the recipient of
158 the command. Case is ignored.
159 IMMEDIATE ONLY COMMANDS
161 a [ cd+- ] number
162 Altitude: Change a plane's altitude, possibly requesting takeoff.
163 `+' and `-' are the same as `c' and `d'.
164 a number Climb or descend to the given altitude (in thousands of
165 feet).
166 ac number Climb: relative altitude change.
167 ad number Descend: relative altitude change.
168 m Mark: Display in highlighted mode. Plane and command information
170 is displayed normally.
171 i Ignore: Do not display highlighted. Command is displayed as a line
173 of dashes if there is no command.
174 u Unmark: Same as ignore, but if a delayed command is processed, the
176 plane will become marked. This is useful if you want to forget
177 about a plane during part, but not all, of its journey.
178 DELAYABLE COMMANDS
180 c [ lr ]
181 Circle: Have the plane circle.
182 cl Left: Circle counterclockwise.
183 cr Right: Circle clockwise (default).
184 t [ l-r+LR ] [ dir ] or tt [ abe* ] number
186 Turn: Change direction.
187 t<dir> Turn to direction: Turn to the absolute compass heading
188 given. The shortest turn will be taken.
189 tl [ dir ] Left: Turn counterclockwise: 45 degrees by default, or
190 the amount specified in ⟨dir⟩ (not to ⟨dir⟩.) `w' (0
191 degrees) is no turn. `e' is 45 degrees; `q' gives -45
192 degrees counterclockwise, that is, 45 degrees clock‐
193 wise.
194 t- [ dir ] Same as left.
195 tr [ dir ] Right: Turn clockwise, 45 degrees by default, or the
196 amount specified in ⟨dir⟩.
197 t+ [ dir ] Same as right.
198 tL Hard left: Turn counterclockwise 90 degrees.
199 tR Hard right: Turn clockwise 90 degrees.
200 tt [abe*] Towards: Turn towards a beacon, airport or exit. The
201 turn is just an estimate.
202 tta number Turn towards the given airport.
203 ttb number Turn towards the specified beacon.
204 tte number Turn towards an exit.
205 tt* number Same as ttb.
206 THE DELAY COMMAND
208 The Delay (a/@) command may be appended to any Delayable command. It
209 allows the controller to instruct a plane to do an action when the plane
210 reaches a particular beacon (or other objects in future versions).
211 ab number
213 Do the delayable command when the plane reaches the specified bea‐
214 con. The `b' for ``beacon'' is redundant to allow for expansion.
215 `@' can be used instead of `a'.
216 MARKING, UNMARKING AND IGNORING
218 Planes are marked by default when they enter the arena. This means they
219 are displayed in highlighted mode on the radar display. A plane may also
220 be either unmarked or ignored. An ignored plane is drawn in unhigh‐
221 lighted mode, and a line of dashes is displayed in the command field of
222 the information area. The plane will remain this way until a mark com‐
223 mand has been issued. Any other command will be issued, but the command
224 line will return to a line of dashes when the command is completed.
225 An unmarked plane is treated the same as an ignored plane, except that it
227 will automatically switch to marked status when a delayed command has
228 been processed. This is useful if you want to forget about a plane for a
229 while, but its flight path has not yet been completely set.
230 As with all of the commands, marking, unmarking and ignoring will take
232 effect at the beginning of the next update. Do not be surprised if the
233 plane does not immediately switch to unhighlighted mode.
234 EXAMPLES
236 atlab1 Plane A: turn left at beacon #1
237 cc Plane C: circle
239 gtte4ab2 Plane G: turn towards exit #4 at beacon #2
241 ma+2 Plane M: altitude: climb 2000 feet
243 stq Plane S: turn to 315
245 xi Plane X: ignore
247
249 · Jets move every update; prop planes move every other update.
250 · All planes turn at most 90 degrees per movement.
252 · Planes enter at 7000 feet and leave at 9000 feet.
254 · Planes flying at an altitude of 0 crash if they are not over an air‐
256 port.
257 · Planes waiting at airports can only be told to take off (climb in
259 altitude).
260 · Pressing return (that is, entering an empty command) will perform the
262 next update immediately. This allows you to ``fast forward'' the
263 game clock if nothing interesting is happening.
264
266 The Game_List file lists the currently available play fields. New field
267 description file names must be placed in this file to be playable. If a
268 player specifies a game not in this file, his score will not be logged.
269 The game field description files are broken into two parts. The first
271 part is the definition section. Here, the four tunable game parameters
272 must be set. These variables are set with the syntax:
273 variable = number;
275 Variable may be one of: update, indicating the number of seconds between
277 forced updates; newplane, indicating (about) the number of updates
278 between new plane entries; width, indicating the width of the play field;
279 or height, indicating the height of the play field.
280 The second part of the field description files describes the locations of
282 the exits, the beacons, the airports and the lines. The syntax is as
283 follows:
284 beacon: (x y) ... ;
286 airport: (x y direction) ... ;
287 exit: (x y direction) ... ;
288 line: [ (x1 y1) (x2 y2) ] ... ;
289 For beacons, a simple x, y coordinate pair is used (enclosed in parenthe‐
291 sis). Airports and exits require a third value, which is one of the
292 directions wedcxzaq. For airports, this is the direction that planes
293 must be going to take off and land, and for exits, this is the direction
294 that planes will be going when they enter the arena. This may not seem
295 intuitive, but as there is no restriction on direction of exit, this is
296 appropriate. Lines are slightly different, since they need two coordi‐
297 nate pairs to specify the line endpoints. These endpoints must be
298 enclosed in square brackets.
299 All statements are semi-colon (;) terminated. Multiple item statements
301 accumulate. Each definition must occur exactly once, before any item
302 statements. Comments begin with a hash (#) symbol and terminate with a
303 newline. The coordinates are between zero and width-1 and height-1
304 inclusive. All of the exit coordinates must lie on the borders, and all
305 of the beacons and airports must lie inside of the borders. Line end‐
306 points may be anywhere within the field, so long as the lines are hori‐
307 zontal, vertical or exactly diagonal.
308 FIELD FILE EXAMPLE
310 # This is the default game.
311 update = 5;
313 newplane = 5;
314 width = 30;
315 height = 21;
316 exit: ( 12 0 x ) ( 29 0 z ) ( 29 7 a ) ( 29 17 a )
318 ( 9 20 e ) ( 0 13 d ) ( 0 7 d ) ( 0 0 c ) ;
319 beacon: ( 12 7 ) ( 12 17 ) ;
321 airport: ( 20 15 w ) ( 20 18 d ) ;
323 line: [ ( 1 1 ) ( 6 6 ) ]
325 [ ( 12 1 ) ( 12 6 ) ]
326 [ ( 13 7 ) ( 28 7 ) ]
327 [ ( 28 1 ) ( 13 16 ) ]
328 [ ( 1 13 ) ( 11 13 ) ]
329 [ ( 12 8 ) ( 12 16 ) ]
330 [ ( 11 18 ) ( 10 19 ) ]
331 [ ( 13 17 ) ( 28 17 ) ]
332 [ ( 1 7 ) ( 11 7 ) ] ;
333
336 Files are kept in a special directory. See the OPTIONS section for a way
337 to print this path out. It is normally /usr/share/bsd-games//atc.
338 This directory contains the file Game_List, which holds the list of
340 playable games, as well as the games themselves.
341 The scores are kept in /var/games//atc_score.
343
345 Ed James, UC Berkeley: edjames@ucbvax.berkeley.edu, ucbvax!edjames
346 This game is based on someone's description of the overall flavor of a
348 game written for some unknown PC many years ago, maybe.
349
351 The screen sometimes refreshes after you have quit.
352BSD January 1, 2004 BSD