Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!reed!nscpdc!cvedc!markh
From: markh@cvedc.UUCP (Mark Holm)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: mahjongg tiles
Message-ID: <579@cvedc.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jun 88 19:48:27 GMT
References: <319@opus.analogy.UUCP> <6328@well.UUCP>
Organization: Computervision, Beaverton, OR
Lines: 49

> Ahem.  Is this 3 megabytes before or after you tar'ed, compressed, and
> uuencoded the icons?
> ---
> Jef

At the request of the moderator, I posted the files to him untouched and he
repackaged them. They occupy ~3 Mbytes in my files system. This doesn't include
the second set of icons that have the numbers on the left that I am building
an icon patch file with.

> This seems extreme.  Why do you not instead post a relatively short
> C program which can be linked with the ".o" file you distributed
> for the tiles, and which will spit the source code for the
> desired set of tiles onto standard output?  
> 
> As for the program itself: it does not play the game that I
> know by the name of Mah-jongg.  It does play the game which is
> sold by Activision under the name "Shanghai".  To the best of
> my knowledge, this game is original to Activision, although
> they have apparently done nothing to protect the game
> from duplication.  You may want to change the name of the
> program to something else to avoid misleading Mah-jongg fans.
> (A networked mah-jongg game would be a nice project for someone,
> by the way).
> -- 
>    Mike Urban

Because the .o file that I distributed did not contain all the icons (386 and 
blanks were lacking). It was not my choice to put out 38 shar files. I posted 
them to the moderator as only 4 shar files (granted they were 800k apeice ;-)
and he broke them down to the ones that have been trickling to you. Besides,
for some reason people seem to have this thing about original source ...

You are right, this is not mahjongg as we know it. I called it that because the
PC game (shareware) that inspired it was called that. While I was developing
this one, one of the other engineers where I work brought in his Mac and
showed me Shanghai. A networked (real) mahjongg has been running around in 
the back of my mind, or at least a computer vs. player version (I have no
network at home). First I need to finish learning how to play the game ...

The shuffling algorithm will be updated soon with a patch file as soon as I
get the solve working. It has been to hot to run the computer at home (no AC)
and for some reason they want me to work when I come to work ;-).

===========================================================================
Mark Holm                                ..tektronix!ogcvax!cvedc!exc!markh
Exceptions                                     ..sun!cvbnet!cvedc!exc!markh
126 NE Grant                                            Phone (503)648-8307
Hillsboro, Oregon 97124                   Messages only until after 6:00 PM