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, various BSDs, old and modern Solaris,

BeOS and Microsoft Windows.

If you manage to run FrobTADS on a system not mentioned above, please

let the maintainer know about it.

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