A while ago, I left a comment on Jimmy’s page on Robot War, about Arena, which is basically* Robot War for the PC. This morning I received an email from Core War fundi John Metcalf, saying that he’s never heard of Arena, and would like to know more.

So I thought about it for about half a cup of coffee, remembered which box it was most likely to be, retrieved the box from behind the Puma, and the disk I was looking for was about the tenth disk down (this was the lucky bit — there are about 200 disks in there I guess).

The key point here is that I last used these disks on my father’s PC (the one before the one before the one he has now — it was a 386 on one of those motherboards that still took a 287 coprocessor) back in the early nineties. Call it twenty years plus tax.

The fact that I can’t find a notebook battery that I had in my hand day before yesterday is not relevant to the story.

So then I had to fire up the third machine on my desktop**, click the KVM over, and copy the files to something my main machine can read.

Now I know for a fact that the vast majority of my readers (both of them) are suffering MEGO with a side of TMI. So here’s a cut line for you. It gets geeky on the other side.

* Bad pun. Should be assemblerly. You don’t get it. Don’t worry. I’ll explain it.

** Primary machine is a Windoze 2K box. #2 is my Linux box, and #3 is a 486 (or maybe an early Pentium) which mostly boots DOS (with Windows 3.1 if I really need to do that) and runs my Expro.

(no, those were footnotes. And only a bit geeky. Here’s the cutline)

The Joint Software Exchange

Back in the late eighties, Jean-Paul van Belle ran the Joint Software Exchange out of Fish Hoek. He had a fairly large collection (as you can see, Arena was #1249 in his catalogue) of shareware disks which he copied to floppies (yours, or supplied by him) for a nominal fee.  The Simtel / CICA / Walnut Creek CDROMs pretty much put an end to this era. But at the time I got maybe thirty or so disks from him. Good old 360k floppies.

So, on to the topic at hand. Arena.

Volume in drive B is JSE # 1249
Directory of B:\

AEDIT    COM        21,383 02-05-86   1:23p
AEDIT    DOC         4,240 08-24-85   8:02p
ALIST    COM        14,499 02-05-86   1:41p
ALIST    DOC         1,069 08-24-85   8:04p
AREAD    ME!           343 08-21-85   6:53p
ARENA    DOC        21,343 10-27-85   9:08p
ARENA    PRO         3,238 10-27-85   9:12p
CARENA   COM        35,043 02-05-86   1:53p
COLOR    BAT           479 08-21-85   6:42p
ERRATA   TXT           803 11-13-85   4:46p
MARENA   COM        35,004 02-05-86   1:48p
MOLE     LST           119 10-27-85   8:47p
MONO     BAT           466 08-21-85   6:43p
PEEKER   LST           335 10-27-85   8:47p
RADAR    LST           385 10-27-85   8:47p
TARGET   LST           190 10-27-85   8:48p
JSE      COM         2,015 02-29-88  12:00a
BROWSE   COM           958 01-02-86   3:54a
JSE      TXT         1,924 02-29-88  12:00a
JSDISK   HLP         4,701 01-14-88   2:15p
ARENA V  2.1             0 12-22-87  12:21a
       21 file(s)        148,537 bytes
                         202,752 bytes free

If you want to download this, look here.

From ARENA.DOC

HISTORY

Arena is a  simultion [sic] of gladiatorial  combat in the  future, where the
combatants are robots programmed  by their “Controllers.”  Fighting  up to
six to  a side,  the winning  robots are  those who  still stand after the
smoke clears.  Robots are given intelligence, weapons, and armor to have a
fighting chance of survival.  Your position, luckily for you, is of one of
the controllers.  You are  given a factory where  you can build up  to six
robots, program them, and send them to the arena to fight the creations of
your opponent.

So far, so good. Sounds like Robot War. However

INTRODUCTION

ARENA is written to be both an enjoyable game and an introduction  into
the  world  of  assembly  language.   The  language  is  based  on Intel’s
Mnemonics, and thus is ideal for learning Z80, 808x, and 80×86.  It is not
a  complete  set  (missing  are  stack  operations,  interrupts,   logical
operators,  and  other  processor  specific  commands).  Version 3 will be
geared after the 8088/8086 processor, to  help all those with IBM PCs  and
compatibles.  This program  is designed to  run on the  above machine, and
any machine that uses MS-DOS.  It  was written on a Leading Edge  FXD, and
should run on IBM, COMPAQ, Sanyo, Corona, etc.

Where the Robot War language is BASIC-like, Arena is based on Intel assembler. Jimmy says that “The [Robot War] programming language you work with is extremely primitive even by the standard of BASIC, with just a bare few commands” — well, here’s RADAR from Arena :

RADAR.CYB
Brain: 3
Cannon: 3
Hull (Armor): 4

1:   GUN   :G
2:   RAD   :G    5  ;scan
3:   CMP   :S   -1  ;enemy?
4:   JEQ    6
5:   JMP    1
6:   MOV   :T
7:   GUN   :T
8:   SUB   :T    1
9:   GUN   :T
10:  ADD   :T    2
11:  GUN   :T
12:  SUB   :T    2
13:  GUN   :T
14:  END

And this is pretty much where I gave up playing with Arena. x86 assembler is a necessary evil, I had to commit some as part of my lectures, but I’m an assembler geek of the 6809 / 68000 school and that’s not going to change.

This is the 6871W1S113E control board from our LG MG-604W microwave. The transformer primary went open circuit when the supply hit 300V or thereabouts. I know that these things often incorporate some kind of protection circuitry, so I desoldered the transformer.

Sure enough, it’s a 1A 130C fuse.

Fixed (yea, this solution doesn’t have thermal protection. I can live with it).

Of course, now that I know the layout I know that one can add a fuse or a jumper to the PCB without having to desolder the transformer. Again, you’ll lose thermal protection.

The transformer primary is between the left and middle pins, and the fuse runs from the righthand pin to the lefthand pin.

I was not so lucky with the Sakyno SK-1000 clock radio. In this case the transformer primary was the protection device, and the magic smoke leaked out.

The Philips AJ3121 clock radio transformer has a fuse as well, the wire leading down on the right hand side goes over to the other side, where there’s a square  125C thermal fuse wrapped up against the winding.

It’s at the left hand side under the red tape under the plastic.

Unfortunately I stuffed it up, I jiggled the wire too much and the primary winding, which is cat-hair-thin, broke off from the fuse lead. I tried resoldering it but it’s just too finicky.

So we bought two new clock radios. But at least the microwave works.

Having a working knowledge of 3 phase power, I realise that the neutral wire has come adrift*. Check the box, all looks good. Check the outside box, nope, neutral is floating out there too.

So I unplug everything I can, phone City of Capetown, they’ll send a team. All good. We go out Friday night. We go out Saturday morning. Get back, no change.

I get on the roof, check the wire where it comes into the house. No, problem is definitely on the pole. Phone council again.

Well, they eventually pitched at around 1900 Saturday. And after some stuffing around, found the problem (where, according to them, a previous team had taped over a potential problem which then a few years later hecause a real problem).

These teams are amazing. They still had four jobs lined up tonight, fellow says they get to the depot at 2200 and home at 2300, then are back on the job at 0600. But I’m glad to say he says the pay is good.

Casualties: pretty much the little things that are permanently connected but draws little power — the microwave, two clock radios,  computer speakers, the wall wart for the telephone…

* When neutral is not connected to the transformer, a load on one phase pulls neutral towards the line voltage, and in doing so pulls neutral away from the other two phases. The loaded phase falls to say 120V while the other phases go up to 300V or so (relative to neutral).

On Saturday 24 March the first (sighter) shots were fired, in anticipation of the main event starting on Tuesday.

The new ablution block wasn’t quite finished though… but! We have running water!

Unfortunately work prevents me from shooting this year.

(And yes, it is a _World_ shoot. While USA-nians shoot IHMSA whereas we shoot IMSSU, the rifle rules line up, and we have at least two Americans competing. They have to drive a stick. Schadenfreude!)

Edit: I was mistaken. I met two Americans, but only one of them is shooting, one R Bain. Here’s the squadding.

This is a butternut from our garden.

This is my thumb after peeling said butternut.

So now I know that butternut juice strips the skin off your hands if you peel it while it’s fresh. You have to cure the damn thing for a couple of weeks after picking it.

Live and learn.

Johannesburg – More than 27 000 police officers on active duty have failed firearm proficiency tests, the Sunday Times reported.

– From News24

– From Zapiro

Clickey for more.

My favourites?

and

Go to the Tor page for more, and comparison with the originals.

They couldn’t have chosen a nicer day for their drive (through Muizenberg and Kalk Bay via Cape Point to Scarborough for lunch).

1901 Benz Ideal, co-piloted by my colleague Harvey.

Wolseley. Number plate says “1905″ but this website* calls it a 1902.

They tell me this is the only remaining 1905 De Dietrich. Gorgeous big four cylinder engine which barely ticks over at Muizenberg / Fish Hoek Main Road speed.

The only known surviving Nordenfelt car, a 1907 model. Nordenfelt is better known for its multiple-barrel machine gun,  a predecessor of the Maxim.

* Evil website. They have a 1971 Citroen Safari for sale. Don’t tell my father. Hell, don’t tell me, I’m sorely tempted. Oh, and a 1961 Mercedes Ponton. Don’t tell my brother.

I had to go to the range (and quite a number of trips are still required) to get the lights and speaker wiring sorted for the 2012 Silhouette World Championships. The fellow I bought the gun from was also going to be there, and since I don’t have the license yet, I asked him to take the gun so I could play with it (“Gun control”. Hate it or hate it, it’s a pain in the arse. I paid for the gun, it’s mine, but I have to wait six months to a year or whatever before I can legally possess it).

I was shooting a fairly mild 45 Colt load, 255 grain SWC over 10 grains of S221, which is somewhat like HS-6 or HS-7. I think it’s good for around 1100 fps.

Despite the massive front sight, the gun is shooting high. We need to raise the front sight by about four or five millimeters. And it needs a hood to keep the sunlight off.

(Eye protection: yea, I know. I wore glasses for almost forty years, but recently had Lasik, and I still forget I’m not wearing glasses by default. My bad).