PUZZLER
by Patrick Bass


PUZZLER will show you some interesting things to do with your Atari that you've
never seen before.  PUZZLER will take you on a twisted trip through the GTIA
chip.  The program itself is so unusual that you may not even be compelled to
put the puzzles back together again.  

PUZZLER is a bizzare extension of a common child's toy.  Remember the 3"x3"
plastic picture made up of a grid of little panels that you had to slide
around? (To "return them to normalcy", but they were insane, right?)  With
PUZZLER, your TV is the little plastic toy, and you will forget all about
normalcy.  PUZZLER WAS DESIGNED FOR YOU TO EXPERIMENT WITH EVERYTHING!  WITH
PUZZLER, INSANITY RULES!

And now, all the details:

EASY LOADING INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Turn on your Atari-compatible disk drive and monitor.

2.  Put side 1 of the PUZZLER disk in the disk drive.  

3.  Turn on your computer.  PUZZLER will disable BASIC automatically
    for those of you who have the modern XL and XE computers.

4.  Press <RETURN> from the title screen, and you will enter the 
    world of PUZZLER.


PART I:  GTIA MODE

The first image you see will be a picture of a famous musician.  The first
puzzle is to guess who it is (hehe).  

Press START once.  The image is in 4x4 mode and will split up into 16 parts and
scramble 128 times.  The clock will start now.  Each time you press START,
it'll scramble 128 more times.  Hold down the START key for a few seconds and
you'll get the hang of it. Press the "P" key to toggle the clock off and on.
While you're in Pause Mode, the sound will turn off. 

Press OPTION.  The picture will return to normal instantly (it'll reassure
you).  Press OPTION again.  The square in the upper left-hand corner will cycle
through its three modes (4x4-easy, 8x8-hard, and 10x10-insane).

Press SELECT.  You'll switch from graphics mode 9 (1 color, 16 luminances) to
mode 10 (9 colors of varying luminances).  Press SELECT again and you'll switch
to mode 11 (16 color in one luminance).

The SELECT key is only active while you are in GTIA mode.  Since all of the
other pictures on this disk are in Micropainter or Microillustrator format
(ANTIC mode E, graphics 15), you won't be using this key much.  The following
numeric keys control color cycling in the various modes.  Just hold them down
to cycle through all 128 variations:

mode 9  -  number 8 key











mode 10 -  keys 0 through 8

mode 11 -  number 8 key


PART II:  MICROSCREEN MODE

The "M" key will toggle you from GTIA mode into ANTIC mode E (medium-high
resolution, 4-color mode).  The GTIA image will become striped when you hit M
and display it in mode E.  Mode E is what makes PUZZLER compatible with any
picture created by Micropainter, Microillustrator, Atari Artist and other
common picture file formats. 

There are seventeen pictures on the PUZZLER disk.  Some were created with
Microillustrator and are compressed.  These have .PIC extenders.  Others were
created with Micropainter.  If there is no .PIC extender, PUZZLER will assume
the file is a 62-sector uncompressed picture file.  If there is a .PIC
extender, PUZZLER will un-compress it automatically.

Press the "L" key to Load a picture from a disk.  You'll see a prompt that
looks like this:

    Picture FileSpec? D1:DIRECTORY

If you press <RETURN>, you'll get a directory of the disk.  The following is a
list of picture files on the disk:

OPUS   .PIC
MERMAID.PIC
FOG    .PIC
LOCKUP .PIC
SMOKEY .PIC
COVER  .PIC
FAYE   .PIC
HULK   .PIC
HELP   .PIC
GHOST  .PIC
GRIFFIN.PIC
BOAT   .PIC
GIRL   .PIC
SNOWMAN.PIC
DINO   .PIC
HORNET .MIC
COBRA  .MIC

All of the above pictures are in .PIC (compressed) format except for HORNET.MIC
and COBRA.MIC (these are standard 62 sector format).

Press <RETURN> again to get back to the input prompt.  Type D:GHOST.PIC (you
can use * wildcards only BEFORE the extender -- legal example:  D:GH*.PIC;
illegal example: D:GH*.*).  You don't need to type spaces over any letters of
the word DIRECTORY that are left after the extender.  PUZZLER will ignore them
for you.

(note:  PUZZLER is well error-trapped.  If your file is not a compatible
picture file, or if you haven't typed in the filename.extender correctly,










you'll get a clear error message.  However, you may try to load a file that
PUZZLER cannot recognize.  It will try to display the picture (give it some
time), but if you want to abort the loading process, hold down the BREAK key
until loading is aborted.)

Press <RETURN> after typing the filename and a familiar logo will load.  The
START and OPTION keys function as previously described.  The following keys
control color cycling through the four playfields:

playfield #1 - number 4 key

playfield #2 - number 5 key

playfield #3 - number 6 key

playfield #4 - number 8 key

PART III:  PUTTING IT BACK TOGETHER

Once the clock has started (tick, tick, tick) the object of PUZZLER is to put
the picture back together again.  (It is rumoured that Russian scientists have
been experimenting with using this type of activity to enhance right-brain
function.)  Use the joystick to move frames through the square window.  Pushing
the joystick down will move the frame above it into the window.  Likewise,
pushing it to the right will move the frame to the left of it into the window
(and visa versa).  You'll get used to its logic after a minute or two. The
computer will buzz at you if you try an illegal move, and the screen will turn
red for a moment.

PART IV:  APPENDIX

You're now familiar with all of PUZZLER's commands.  Draw some of your own
pictures with a compatible graphics program.  Try loading a GTIA picture drawn
with the GTIA paint program in Antic's August, 1983 Graphics issue.  If you
don't have one of the commercial Micopainter-like utilities, we recommend an
inexpensive one called PD MICROPAINT ARTIST ($10) in the Creativity section of
the Antic Arcade Public Domain Library. It is an EXACT machine language
duplicate of the real thing, with a few extra features thrown in.

And above all...

                       EXPERIMENT!!!


copyright 1985 Patrick Bass and Antic Publishing, Inc.

WARNING:  The programs contained on this disk are protected by International
Copyright laws.  Duplication of these programs for other than personal use is
strictly forbidden and a violation of copyright laws.  This disk is not
copy-protected because we respect your rights to back it up.  We thank you for
your support -- we still have jobs because of it.