Connect-Four for Presentation-Manager 
Version 1.24, 1993/8/19
(c) 1993 by Andreas Bergen 

Object of the game
------------------
  The object of the game is (for each player) to place four pieces of his
color in a horizontal, vertical or diagonal row. The first one to reach this 
goal wins the game. If no one does so, but each position on the board has been
filled, the game is a draw.
The computer's color is red, your color is blue.

Legal moves
-----------
  You can only put a stone on top of another stone or in the bottom row of the
board. Legal moves are indicated by a cross shaped mouse-pointer.

About the programming of the game
---------------------------------
  Connect-Four for PM is my first attempt in writing an application in C++ and
for PM. The "think-procedure" runs in its own thread to avoid the wait-pointer
from being shown outside the application and therefore preventing the user from
for example resizing the window or quitting the game while computing the next
move.
  I hope that there are not so many remaining bugs and that you enjoy playing
the game.   

Installation
------------
Connect-Four for PM is comprised of the following:

FourPM.EXE                  the executable
EMX.DLL and EMXLIBC.DLL     Dynamic link-libraries (c) by Eberhard Mattes. 
                            They are needed, because FourPM.EXE has been
                            compiled using GNU-CC and EMX.
FourPM.DOC                  you are reading it.

  To install the game, simply verify, that the DLL's are in a directory that is
in your LIBPATH. The current directory is ok, if a simple '.' is one of the
entries in your LIBPATH.

License
-------
  Connect-Four for PM is copyrighted material. Permission is hereby granted to
distribute and copy Connect-Four for PM, provided that:
All four files (FourPM.EXE, EMX.DLL, EMXLIBC.DLL, FourPM.DOC) are distributed
unmodified and as a group, and that no charge be made for copying and/or
distribution, except a minimal fee covering media or handling expenses.
  In version 1.00 I stated that only if you wanted you could send me some cash
or an E-Mail. I think that was a little bit naive. I didn't get any money and 
only two people sent me an E-Mail: One wanted to know how the program works and
what algorithms I used.
  The other one (yes, I mean you, Michael K.) pointed my attention to two
grammar and expression errors in this document and the game. (Thanx for that,
but you know that already.)
  But now this is for all others out there in the net-/shareware-world:
If you use this program for more than 30 days you have now two possibilities:
Either you send me a mail (E-Mail or letter) wherein you tell me your opinion
about this program, its documentation, the weather, the MHz's of your computer's
cpu or anything else you think I might find it interesting enough to strike out
your name from the list of people I ever have got to be angry about because 
they are part of those that don't pay for things they use. (Wow, long sentence,
isn't it?)
  But as I said at the beginning of the previous sentence there is another
possibility to pay for this program: You can pay for it. For only 30 DM that is
about $18 you can get registered and will receive a free copy of the next
release (if you want to and have no free access to any shareware sources
(Internet etc.) where it will be available, too).
  Additionally you can also get the complete source code of the program
for $150.
  If you think that's your way to honour my work you should know that german
banks take a high fee of $8-$10 for discharging foreign cheques, so sending me
cash is much cheaper.

History
-------
  The history of the program is quite short until now. Once I have been asked by
a friend of mine how one could program some kind of strategy for a game like
for example connect-four. I said to him that I thought it wouldn't be that
difficult but the longer I thought about it the more problems I discovered.
  But after reading an article about game-strategies and alpha-/beta-cutting
of game-trees and after understanding the special connect-four-problems
it was quite simple to create the first version of this program.
The second available release now (V1.24) is a bit faster and plays more
randomly.

Future Enhancements
-------------------
  I have some ideas to increase the program's strength and speed. Further ideas
are to include some kind of problem-mode and the possibility to take back moves. 


And now here is my address
--------------------------
Andreas Bergen
Danziger Strae 35
71737 Kirchberg an der Murr
Germany

or

E-Mail:andreas.bergen@online.de
(subject to change)




OpenSource
-------------------
If you are interest on the source code if this game you can contact the Author at andreas.bergen@online.de
He is planning to realease the code as GPL.

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