Read Me
readme.txt
Created on: Aug 10, 2015
Author: John Winston Pierce
jwpierce1830@yahoo.com
INTRODUCTION
This is the first release of NCURSES Derby horserace. This program is designed
to be ran in Linux terminals using the command shell. It is a simulation of
a horse race using characters ( ~/^\^ ) to represent the horses on a straight
horizontal track.
This program is released under the Gnu Public License. For license information
see the license.txt file. For installation information see the INSTALL section
of this document.
REQUIREMENTS
This program has been tested on Ubuntu 14.0 and Slackware 14 systems. This
program as you could probably guess needs NCURSES to run. It also needs the
menu library and I have plans to add the form library soon. It should not
be too hard to port to other systems since NCURSES is a fairly standard
library.
INSTALL
On Linux systems you can use the make utility by being in the directory
where you have the source files entering the command make. The make file has
options to make clean which will delete the .o files and make very-clean to
also remove the executable.
RUNNING
To start the program enter the shell command ./horserace in the directory
where the executable file is created or any directory where you move the
executable produced by the make process. If you build the application from
the shell prompt directly (gcc horserace.c -lncurses -lmenu -o <executable>)
then you must enter your own executable name to run the application.
The program is menu driven. Use the up and down arrow keys to make menu
choices and enter to execute your choice. To start you should choose which
horse and what place you expect them to finish under "2. Betting". Then use
the "3. Race" menu choice to watch the race. The "4. Results" will show you
the finish results and payoff. Move the highlight to "Exit" and press enter
to leave the program and return to a shell prompt.
Their is very little error checking currently so wrong choices in the
betting window are not caught. Enter only a horse number then W, P or S
and the C to continue or R to change your "ticket".
You will see your choice of horse and finish position on the lower left
corner of the racing window. If you have picked a not existent horse or
something other the W for win P for place or S for show then you will
always loose.
Horse moves are random with no horse given a higher chance of winning. You
should not notice any constant winners or losers. Currently payoffs are
lower for lower numbered horses and bigger for higher numbered horses and
the odds and payoffs never change.
KNOWN BUGS
CHANGE LOG