Old PacWar Utilities and BB Messages

RayM · Post by **RayM** » Fri Mar 30, 2001 7:25 am

To the Pacwar veterans.

I'm new to Pacwar and discovered the old GEnie BB files from 1993-96 as well as two utilities: PWREPORT and InsidePW. Are these utilities still useful and usable after all these years? I was wondering if they would work with the Matrix Pacwar 2.2.

To all new Pacwar players:

I would recommend that new players take a look at these old BB files. The hints, ideas, and descriptions of how things work within Pacwar makes them very valuble sources of information and insight into Pacwar (even though the versions covered are not the Matrix version).

I found this information via the Naval Warfare Simulation site and clicked the _Pacific War_ link,that then shows links to three Pacwar web sites. Highly recommended.

Does anyone know if these sites are still active? Or has the Pacwar community moved over to this site? Just wondering.

Mike Wood · Post by **Mike Wood** » Fri Mar 30, 2001 10:33 am

Hello...

Any of the older editors or report generators should work fine with the latest version of Pacific War. When we reworked the executable, we intentionally left the data structures the same, so as to maintain downward compatability with older third party software and existing OBC variants.

Originally posted by RayM:
To the Pacwar veterans.
I'm new to Pacwar and discovered the old GEnie BB files from 1993-96 as well as two utilities: PWREPORT and InsidePW. Are these utilities still useful and usable after all these years? I was wondering if they would work with the Matrix Pacwar 2.2.
To all new Pacwar players:
I would recommend that new players take a look at these old BB files. The hints, ideas, and descriptions of how things work within Pacwar makes them very valuble sources of information and insight into Pacwar (even though the versions covered are not the Matrix version).
I found this information via the Naval Warfare Simulation site and clicked the _Pacific War_ link,that then shows links to three Pacwar web sites. Highly recommended.
Does anyone know if these sites are still active? Or has the Pacwar community moved over to this site? Just wondering.

The data structures for our new efforts, Uncommon Valor and War in the Pacific use, of course, an entirely new data structure and are not compatible with any of the Pacific War software.

Bye...

Michael Wood
Lead Programmer,
Matrix Games

Major Tom · Post by **Major Tom** » Fri Mar 30, 2001 9:30 pm

The Message List is still up...
http://www.halisp.net/listserv/pacwar/date.html#1053

There are still frequent bursts of activity.

chanman · Post by **chanman** » Sat Mar 31, 2001 11:02 am

I have heard of GEnie, but have never used that service. Anyone got a url to the utilities? I'll give them a spin...

Major Tom · Post by **Major Tom** » Sat Mar 31, 2001 8:03 pm

The Genie Pacwar list spawned the list that I posted up. Genie is no longer being used. Could you post up the URL anyway Ray? Thanks.

RayM · Post by **RayM** » Sat Mar 31, 2001 11:54 pm

I found the files at Rich's Pacific War page: http://home.earthlink.net/~tmflood/page2.html.

It is a download zip file containing a number of files that have the old message traffic. Enjoy.

Major Tom · Post by **Major Tom** » Sun Apr 01, 2001 12:41 am

Thanks a lot!

RayM · Post by **RayM** » Sun Apr 01, 2001 6:13 am

My pleasure, I'm glad someone took the time to archive them.

Returning to the two old Pacwar utilities I found, I have some additional questions.
After unzipping them into the default path of C:\MatrixGames\Pacific War Matrix Project, I was unable to run either of them.

For PWREPORT: After getting a DOS prompt, I cd'ed down to Pacific War Matrix Project and typed PWREPORT. Unfortunately, it didn't execute and I received the following message:

rutime error 200 at 0CCF:0091

I suspect that one problem I have is that the PWREPORT read me mentions that the utility looks for the path C:\PACWAR. I will need to temporarily move PACWAR files into a new directory C:\PACWAR per the readme and give it another try.

I will also try rebooting into DOS and see what happens.

Has anyone else tried using either of these utitlities with the Matrix Game version?

RayM · Post by **RayM** » Sun Apr 01, 2001 6:26 am

I moved PACWAR files into C:\PACWAR and ran PWREPORT after booting up in DOS. Still no go. I got back the same runtime error 200 message.

I then tried InsidePW and received the following message:

Inside PW Version 1.02
Copyright 1994

S. Tinschert (and his old compuserve address)

Opening Files ...
Cannot recognize date !!!

it then throws me back to the c: prompt.

Any ideas?

Rich Dionne · Post by **Rich Dionne** » Sun Apr 01, 2001 7:20 am

RayM,

The problem you're having with PWREPORT is because your computer is too fast for the program. Check out the following site:
http://www.brain.uni-freiburg.de/~klaus/pascal/runerr200/download.html#TpPatch

The site has a tool TPPATCH that you execute on PWREPORT; it adjusts the delay values in the program. I tried it on my copy of PWREPORT, and it worked for me. Of course, there are no guarantees it will work for everyone. Make sure you save a copy of PWREPORT before you try it.

Regards,

Rich Dionne

RayM · Post by **RayM** » Sun Apr 01, 2001 9:10 am

Hello Rich,

Thanks very much. The patch worked like a charm. Now to review the data. BTW, is there any way I can change the PWREPORT default path to the one I am actually using rather than the old default of C:\PACWAR? If not then I'll just continue to change the path when I run it.

Rich Dionne · Post by **Rich Dionne** » Sun Apr 01, 2001 8:41 pm

I think we're stuck with the default path, unless you want to hack into the EXE with a hex editor. It's probably easier just to change the path each time you start the program.

Rich

RayM · Post by **RayM** » Sun Apr 01, 2001 11:44 pm

Agreed. Thanks for the help.

Ray

chanman · Post by **chanman** » Mon Apr 02, 2001 9:12 am

Cool. The patch worked great. Any chance the source code to these utilities has not been lost? I am probably more interested in seeing such useful utilities kept in step with game changes than I am with touring the code.

At this point my only question is, how do you tell what turn # you are on? A lot of the data reported by PWreport seems to use turn number (aircraft availability for one), but the utility doesn't show you the turn number. If I am confused, please point me in the right direction.

My thanks to the gentlemen who created these utilities, and to you gentlemen who
- said they were worth a look
- pointed their locations out
- suggested the proper patch to fix PWreport

This is way cool. Since I don't own Excel 97 or 2000, these are my choices unless I buy Bear's editor. Have to finish my taxes to see if I have any spending money left.

Rich Dionne · Post by **Rich Dionne** » Mon Apr 02, 2001 10:32 pm

Originally posted by chanman:
At this point my only question is, how do you tell what turn # you are on? A lot of the data reported by PWreport seems to use turn number (aircraft availability for one), but the utility doesn't show you the turn number. If I am confused, please point me in the right direction.

Chanman,

For all units (airgroups, ships, LCU's, leaders), turns to arrival is given as the number of weeks (or turns) from the current game turn (i.e. the number decrease as each week goes by). You are never given any particular turn number; everything is given by date or weeks.

Aircraft arrival times are a bit different. In this case, TTA (turns to arrival) is always based on the number of weeks from Dec. 7, 1941. You'll just have to calculate the arrival date by difference.

Regards,

Rich

chanman · Post by **chanman** » Tue Apr 03, 2001 6:04 am

Yep. It is the aircraft "TTA" number that I was talking about. Ok, this will be another "SEIP" (Simple Exercise In Programming) since I am so lazy. Now that I know new aircraft are coming, I can plan for them. Avoid building extra Devastators, that kind of thing. Thanks for the assist, Rich.