[PnP] idea (PDA)

[Scott Adams]

At 08:26 AM 3/22/04 -0500, you wrote: 

>
> || 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.



Interesting.  Not a hard thing to program especially using a base dating
system
like the above.  But using the pnp calender would take a bit longer.  Not that
hard to do.  I frankly though not sure how useful I'd get out of it so I'm not
sure if it would be useful to others.  But maybe I could tinker on it one
weekend. :)  There are actually modern programs that sorta do that like
err..can't recall the name now..but Microsoft makes it.  Sorta like a agenda
program.  But I figure paper would beat loading it up.  Course for pda it
would
be usefl.  Something to think about.  Maybe in a few weeks I'll sit one
weekend
and work something out for it.  A Simple program.  Since I personally wouldn't
use it I'd make it as basic as I could since got a busy schedule.  


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