FrobTADS - A portable TADS toolkit.
Maintained by Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@gmail.com>.

For the newest version, visit:

    http://www.tads.org/frobtads.htm

By default, the FrobTADS source-package only contains the interpreter.
See the file COMPILERS on where to obtain and how to install the TADS 2
and TADS 3 development tools, and on where to look for documentation in
order to get started with developing your own games.

For more information about TADS, visit its home page:

    http://www.tads.org


Platforms
=========

FrobTADS is known to compile and run on various platforms, including:

Linux (all flavors), Mac OS X, and various BSDs.

Microsoft Windows when building with mingw might work; it's not actively
tested.


About TADS and FrobTADS
=======================

TADS stands for "Text Adventure Development System".  It's a set of
tools that allow easy implementation of text adventures, or "Interactive
Fiction".  The tools include a compiler along with supporting libraries,
a debugger and an interpreter.  An interpreter is needed to run the
compiler's output, as it generates "byte code" programs (much like
Java).

The primary target of TADS nowadays is Microsoft Windows (although
MS-DOS is still supported).  FrobTADS is a "portable port" of the TADS
toolkit.  The term "portable port" sure sounds funny, but it's a quite
accurate description; although the main target of FrobTADS is Unix, it
compiles and runs even in MS Windows.  Therefore, it's a portable
port :-)  The main development takes place on a Linux PC.

Not everything is included in FrobTADS yet; for now, there are no
debuggers available.  On the other hand, the compilers and interpreters
are (I hope) feature-complete.

FrobTADS is not written from scratch; it uses Mike Roberts' portable
reference implementations of the two TADS virtual machines; the T2 VM
(written in C) and T3 VM (written in C++).  FrobTADS hooks-in into that
code by providing a portable implementation of the TADS I/O API.


Goals
=====

FrobTADS has been written as a replacement for the "traditional"
Unix-port of TADS, which has many problems and limitations, and is
difficult to maintain and change.  The FrobTADS interpreter also
provides some features that the traditional Unix-port lacks, the most
important of them being:

  - Automatic configuration prior to building; no need to edit
    makefiles.

  - TADS 3 color support and configurable default colors.

  - Correct timing with timed operations (millisecond-precision).

  - Input like in Frotz; cursor keys, insert, delete, etc., instead
    of Emacs-like input.

  - TADS 3 banners look as they should.

  - You are not required to install the package prior to running the
    TADS 3 test suite.

  - File I/O initiated by the game will happen in the game's directory.
    This means that you don't have to change to the game's directory
    prior to starting the interpreter.

  - Less source code (and also less complex), more comments.

  - More portable.

The ultimate goal is to make FrobTADS compile and run out-of-the-box on
every system that has a curses library and a Unix-like shell available.


What is Multimedia TADS?
========================

Multimedia TADS (also known as "HTML TADS") is an extension of TADS that
uses HTML to provide multimedia capabilities.  Multimedia TADS is not an
extension of the two TADS languages (TADS 2 and 3), but rather of their
output system.  Although FrobTADS, being a character-mode interpreter,
doesn't support most of the HTML extensions, it *can* run games that use
HTML; on the binary level, Multimedia TADS and "plain" TADS executables
are actually the same thing.  You won't see any graphics nor hear sounds
and music, but the game will play just fine.  In TADS 2 games, you also
won't see any banners that the game would otherwise display (TADS 3
games don't use HTML for banners; FrobTADS provides full support for
TADS 3 banners).  The vast majority of games don't use the multimedia
extensions though, or use only the subset supported by FrobTADS.


What's Interactive Fiction?
===========================

Well, this is just a poor README file and therefore not the appropriate
place for an introduction to Interactive Fiction.  For more information
about Interactive Fiction (or "IF" for short), just go to the TADS page
(http://www.tads.org) and follow some links.  Or go to the Google search
engine (http://www.google.com) and search for "interactive fiction";
you'll be amazed about how many results you'll get.  And you'll be even
more amazed about how active the IF community is.

There are two Usenet newsgroups for IF related things.  The first is
RGIF, which is short for:

    rec.games.int-fiction

where people are talking about IF games in general; things they like in
games, things they don't like, things they hope to see in future games,
requests for hints and solutions, reviews of games, announcements of new
games/software or happenings...  Stuff like that.

The other newsgroup is RAIF, which stands for:

    rec.arts.int-fiction

This newsgroup is for everyone who is interested in creating games.
Most IF authors use to hang around there, so this newsgroup is an
excellent place to post questions about IF theory, authorship and
programming.

Your ISP should usually provide a newsserver which you can use to
access Usenet.  If not, you can use Google's web-based Usenet
interface:

    http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.int-fiction
    http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.int-fiction


Where do I find games for FrobTADS?
===================================

There's a large repository for IF-related stuff (with *lots* of games!)
called "The Interactive Fiction Archive"; people usually just refer to
it as "the Archive".  You can access it by HTTP:

    http://www.ifarchive.org (very slow)

or by FTP:

    ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org (also very slow)

The archive has mirrors that are usually much faster.  You should always
access it through:

    http://mirror.ifarchive.org

Please use this mirror instead of the main archive!  You'll save
yourself (and others) quite a few headaches.  (The full list of mirrors
is displayed in the main archive's title-page.)

Since the archive is actually just a (huge) bunch of data thrown
together (more or less), a nice fellow has created a site that will
guide you through the archive.  The site is called "Baf's Guide to the
IF Archive" and is located at:

    http://wurb.com/if

It contains many cool things, like a "Genre Map" for the games located
in the archive along with descriptions, reviews and ratings, as well as
many useful links.
