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Projects
I plan to reorganise this page so that all of the projects are described on individual Project Feature pages. This has already been done with HatStand and 3-D Marble Maze.
The labelling of projects consists generally of three parts: Type|Complexity|Availability, where Type is usually Util or Game, Complexity is mostly Simple or Complex, and Availability is usually Available, Short-term, Medium-term or Long-term (these are relative descriptions). Available[DB] means that the program is available, but only as a development build - possibly unstable, not fully featured. Some projects are labelled OPEN SOURCE; this means that the source code is actually available on the site. TO BE OPENED means that the source code will be made available in the future (usually this means when the program itself becomes available at alpha or beta test level)
Development - Beta and Available
Every so often, a project migrates to the stage of beta testing and detail development (in terms of games, mostly tweaks to the level of difficulty). These are listed here.
HARRIS is now available (and finally finished!) See the Downloads page. This project is labelled "Game|Complex|Available". I might give out the source code if anyone emails me asking for it. But I'll have to put lots of remarks into the code first... it's not the most human-readable code ever.
KaleidoScope Screensaver (v6.0) is now completed. See the Downloads page. This project is labelled "Util|Simple|Available"
CRYPTY-X, a CLI (Command Line Interface). See the Downloads page. Likely to be included with ONY-X 2. The entire man pages (as of 7 July 2007) can be seen here, in an html format. There are currently 19 commands, with 5 more planned. At the alpha-test (i.e. possibly-unstable, probably-still-has-a-few-bugs) stage. This project is labelled "Util|Complex|Alpha-test|OPEN SOURCE"
MorseBox, a Morse Code practice/tuition program. See the Downloads page. More details can be found below. This project is labelled "Util|Intermediate|Available[DB]"
Projects - Coming Soon
A probably-almost-but-not-quite-comprehensive list of projects which are forthcoming.
αλφα-soft have a great many projects in the pipeline. These include:
Empires of the World, a strategy game. See below for details.
Test Match Special, a game in which you manage a cricket team. See below for details.
SVF 2, a flight simulator.
3-D Marble Maze. Details on a Project Feature page.
BurgerBar Tycoon, a strategy game.
BookMaker, in which you run a bookie, taking bets on horse races.
TypeRight, an open source word processor. Nearly ready for Beta-test demo upload (keep an eye on the News page).
HatStand, a ZX Spectrum 16k emulator. Details on a Project Feature page.
A loose collection of math utilities performing mathematical operations such as matrix arithmetic, polynomial factorisation, etc.
StarStrike III, the sequel to SSII (see downloads page).
File.pak, a compression utility. See below for details.
ONY-X 2, an improved version of the ONY-X GUI. See below for details.
Medieval Village, a strategy game along the lines of the old 'Yellow River' from before my time!
I shan't attempt to predict when these are going to be finished, since it's really a one-man show here; most of these projects haven't progressed for months...
Project: Empires of the World
This turn-based strategy game will involve the running of an empire from 4000BC to 2010AD. It has some points of similarity to such games as Firaxis(tm) Civilization(tm) III; however there are some substantial differences, for example resources are stored and have a numerical amount, many ranged units require ammunition, and production is organised by means of triangular controls. An example of a triangular control appears below.
There is a Development Specification available for this game, and a set of Progress Reports.
Updates will be added as the project progresses.
This project is labelled "Game|Complex|Long-term"
Project: MorseBox
MorseBox is a Morse Code practice/tuition program, useful for anyone who needs to learn to read Morse Code aurally or visually. This might include people whose job involves operating a radio, or some similar occupation. It might also be of use to 'Ham Radio' hobbyists, among others.
The UI is semi-graphical (graphical output, keyboard input), and is already looking quite neat, while a reasonable degree of functionality has already been programmed. MorseBox may go open-source at some point in the future.
Project: Test Match Special
In Test Match Special you take control of a Test Cricket team, guiding it to victory.
The present state of development contains a match simulator engine, and the ability to select the team of 11 players from a squad. However, at present you can only play as England against Australia.
Further details will be forthcoming as progress continues.
This project is labelled "Game|Complex|Long-term"
Project: File.pak
File.pak (pronounced 'File dot pack') is a file/archive compression utility. It's not particularly powerful, but some of my installers use it to inflate the datafiles (like a proper installer...) Current compression ratios are of the order of 15-40%, that is a 100kB file would be reduced to around 60-85kB. Some highly homogenous files such as program logs, or archives of similarly-formatted files such as savegames, may be compressed by up to 50%. Although the compression is slow, the inflation is very quick. The latest build, File.pak 0.4.1, is able to create a .pakfile (compressed archive) containing more than one file, which also helps to improve the compression ratio. When doing so, two percentage counters are displayed: Progress with individual file, and Progress through directory. When compressing a single file, only the Individual file percentage counter is displayed.
The compression is totally lossless - even for files such as .exe and .mp3, the original file can be reproduced, and it still works within the correct file format and is identical to the original.
In one instance, for 'Medieval Village' (under development), an EBM (ECSE Bit Map) Image was compressed by a staggering 80.6%! (More specifically, from 150kB to 29.1kB).
I have also created a 'self-extractor' version, where the data is contained within the executable itself, which is a useful way of making compact installers - better still, the installer can be run from anywhere, and there's no need for a zip full of datafiles; you could even run it from your desktop (which is quite unwieldy to do with my old installers).
The installers for HARRIS and StarStrike II are built on the File.pak engine.
This project is labelled "Util|Simple|Short-term|TO BE OPENED"
Project: ONY-X 2
This will employ VirtualMemory to eliminate (or at least drastically reduce) flicker, a new window engine to improve functionality, and will also be significantly more modular than the original.
A provisional feature list has been prepared, and can be found here, as a plain text file. Suggestions and feedback regarding ONY-X 2 planned features would be welcome; send your feedback here.
Unfortunately, during preliminary work it has become apparent that the current design is extremely slow; ONY-X 2 will probably only become feasible once I have learnt a more modern programming language.
Due to the development work on ONY-X 2, the original ONY-X is now retrospectively named ONY-X [1].
This project is labelled "Util|Complex|Long-term|TO BE OPENED"
THIS PAGE LAST UPDATED: Saturday 3rd May, 2008.
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