[PnP] idea (PDA)

[Choinski, Burton]

|| Interesting.  Not sure how I'd approach this to program it.  So basically
|| its a
|| program that clicks time.  You then insert some events into it and it
will
|| then
|| show when they are active.  hmmm...sounds interesting.  Not sure I've
ever
|| tried tht since I've always prefered paper for tht.  I'd have to sleep on
it. 
|| It would be an interesting challenge creative wise.  I could probably do
it
|| but
|| would need to think about it more on how it worked since I'm about 80%
sure of
|| your meaning.  
||
|| How does the time 'click' down?  Do you hit the enter key and it
increments
|| the
|| next amount of time or do you as GM decide say increment it by 3turns or
14
|| phases?  

The way the progam worked was very simple.  When I started with the players
I entered the starting "game time" (say, April 1st, game-year 0, 8:00am in
the morning).  It used the standard US calender back then (not the one I
posted wor Wout's site).

Hitting the "p" (phase) key incremented this timestamp value by 3 seconds.
Hitting "t" (turn) incremented it by 12 seconds.  If I typed "1", then "5"
and then "p" it incremented the timestamp by 45 seconds (15 phases).
Likewise for minutes, hours and strategic turns (12 hours).

Days were a special case. Incrementing by one or more days moved you 24
hours, plus enough extra time to make it 6:00am of that day.  So, if the
timestamp had you at 10:23pm, April 5th and you moved up 3 "days" it would
actually become 6:00am April 9th.  The use of the "day" counter was not for
24 hours specifically (that could be done with "24h"), but to allow the
characters to "lay over" in town for a few days, ready to move out at
"sunup" after the wait.  The week, month and year markers did a similar "day
alignment" so that you started the day at 6:00am.

The program used this single timestamp.  WHen you entered an event and gave
it a duration, the duration was added to the current timestamp (no
day-twiddling, though) and stored in a list.  Every time the internal
timestamp was incremented, even if by a phase, the list was scanned for any
entries whose expiration stamp was less or equal to the main timestamp.  If
they had expired, the text entered by the GM for that event was shown in the
message area.



----------------------------------------
Burton Choinski
Principal Software Engineer, Quality Engineering
email: burton.choinski at matrixone.com

phone: 978-589-4089
fax:      978-589-5903

MatrixOne, Inc.
210 Littleton Rd.
Westford, Ma 01886
www.matrixone.com

The First in Intelligent Collaborative Commerce
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