This is the README file for the BIGBANG utility. What is BIGBANG: BIGBANG is a utility for a VGA Planets host. It can be used to generate various types of galaxies like disks and spiral-arms divided into sectors to use instead of the standard xyplan.dat and planet.nm. Files included: The binary bb_exe.tgz distribution consists of the executable bigbang.exe, this README file and the file COPYING which contains the license to use this software. It also contains the BGI driver vor VGA graphics. The source bb_src.tgz enlarges the exe distribution by the TURBO PASCAL source files bigbang.pas, fdesk.pas, fdesk.inc, files.pas, files.inc, graphx.pas, graphx.inc, math.pas, math.inc, strings.pas, strings.inc, param.pas which are needed to compile bigbang.exe on your own machine. How to compile: BIGBANG has been compiled with Turbo Pascal 7.0. The author's platform was Caldera OpenDOS 7.0 Aditionally to the units (TPU) enclosed in this package you need the graph.tpu and crt that should come with your compiler. How/where to install: The packages bb_exe.tgz and bb_src.tgz are gzipped tar archives. This means you have to use the programs gzip.exe and tar.exe. Theese are free software and can be downloaded from ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu. Once you downloaded all that stuff you can unpack a tgz file by typing: > gzip -d any.tgz (this will generate a .tar file) and > tar -xvf any.tar (this will generate a lump of new files in your current directory) Copy the executable wherever you like. It does not need any global configuration files. Why not copy it to c:\usr\local\bin or something like c:\planets\tools :-) ? How to run the program: Just type bigbang if you installed it to a directory in your PATH or type in the full name, like c:\planets\tools\bigbang from the example above. bigbang accepts the parameters /BGI: /PN: and /VERBOSE . There is also the /DEBUG. option which you shouldn't use ... If the file egavga.bgi is not in your current directory you HAVE to specify the bgipath. If, for example, egavga.bgi resides in c:\opt\turbo\bgi on your system you must call bigbang /BGI:c:\opt\turbo\bgi . Otherwise you can not look at the map after you generated it. Contact the author: You can contact me by eMail: Frederik Arbeiter the BIGBANG homepage is http://www.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/~ualy/software/bigbang License: BIGBANG , Copyright 1999 by Frederik Arbeiter. The BIGBANG sources are free software as described in the file COPYING which contains the General Public License (GPL) published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). However, the BGI drivers are copyrighted proprietary software owned by Borland Inc. VGA Planets is copyrighted by Tim Wisseman