Re: Spreadsheets

Richard Johnson writes:

>Finally - although it's a little different from a spreadsheet, you might
>grab the "sd" program by Paul Dale while you're there.  It's a ship
>design program that works pretty well (unless you're me).

I've finally done it.  I uploaded the sd files to sunbane.  People ought to
be able to get their hands on it real soon now.  It is known to work on Sun
workstations, Apollo workstations and DecStations.  I have also compilied it
on a Macintosh using the MPW system.  It doesn't as yet work with Think C on
the Macintosh or on the Amiga.  It is also supposed to run on a PC but I know
few details about that.  Sorry, but it uses a text only interface even on
graphic machines.

Usage of the program is pretty simple and it does have a few restrictions
upon what you are allowed and are not allowed to do.  It doesn't produce a
pretty printed ship listing but it does keep track of the important bits of
information necessary when designing a ship (e.g. control points and agility).
And it does include enough information to eval the design by hand rapidly.

I am not planning on improving the program to any extent (because TNE is due
out soon) but I will help out with problems porting as much as I can.


To run the program:

sd <tl> dat.tbl <outfile>

Where sd is the name of the program. <tl> is the tech level being used for this
design.  dat.tbl is the (large) data table that defines the design process and
<outfile> is the file you want the output written to.

e.g. The command:
	sd 15 dat.tbl crap
will design a ship at TL=15 using the items database from the file dat.tbl and
when you quit/save it will write to the file crap.


Currently, there is only one database which is the standard MT one as in the
ref's guide.  I started work on a TDR database but that never progressed very
far.  Although the database includes lots of the info from the ref's guide,
you still need the guide to eval the design and it helps to have the guide
next to you while you design since the actual values cannot be accessed directly
using the program (and the table is quite difficult to read unless you know
what's going on).  People who have done lots of designs (or who entered huge
quantities of data) should know the tables well enough to work mostly
unaided.

I really should have released this ages ago but I never got around to it.



        						Pauli

Paul Dale                       | [email removed]
Department of Computer Science  | [phone removed]
University of Queensland        |
Australia, 4072                 | Did you know that there are 41 two letter
                                |     words containing the letter 'a'?