WORLD DISCOVERY FILE FORMAT

Discovery can teach you much more than simply the states and 
capitals of the U.S.  You can create your own data files to teach 
yourself, your children or your students about any place in the 
world.  An upcoming issue of START will feature Discovery 
Construction Set, a program to let you generate Discovery files.  
Also, check Antic Online (our electronic magazine on CompuServe) 
and future issues of START for additional data files.

In the meantime, with a little patience you can generate your own 
ASCII files that Discovery can read.  The main information you 
need is the name and capital (or other secondary identifier) of 
the state, country or province and some trivia information about 
each area (famous residents, chief economic industry, language, 
etc.).  You can get this information from an almanac.

You also need to describe the shape of each area in the map.  Do 
this by specifying the polygon points of each shape.  To make sure 
the shape is recognizable, connect the points and compare the 
result to the original shape.  The map must fit on a low 
resolution screen, so the coordinates must be relative to a 320 by 
200 grid; the upper left corner of the computer screen is 0,0 and 
the lower right is 319,199.  The original state shapes in the 
USA.DSC file were generated by placing grid paper over a map of 
the United States and then marking the points of each state.

RESERVED SCREEN SPACE

Discovery needs parts of the screen to print out messages to the 
user.   A box from coordinates 108,0 to 300,24 shows the quiz 
information, and 170,170 to 230,200 shows the current score.  (Run 
Discovery, load the USA.DSC file and select the Quiz option to 
examine how these areas are used.)  If part of your map is in 
these areas, it will probably get covered up in the course of 
play; however, Discover will not check this, so avoid these areas 
when you first create your map.


Following is the file format Discovery expects.  Make sure you 
follow the format explicitly; otherwise you will get undesired 
results and/or a program crash.  For an example of a Discovery 
file, load USA.DSC into your word processor.  You may wish to edit 
this file, making minor changes, to familiarize yourself with the 
file format.  You must save Discovery files in ASCII format with 
the extender .DSC.  Each line of information ends in a carriage 
return.

To limit the amount of space Discovery needs to print quiz 
questions, the length of strings is limited.  If a string is 
longer than the designated maximum, it will be truncated.


DESCRIPTION                                       MAX LENGTH

Game title (e.g. USA Discovery, Asia Discovery)   15 characters
Type of shape (e.g. State, Province)              10
Second identifier (e.g. Capital)                  10

[Next is a list of category names.  You can have
up to 15 categories; to mark the end of the
list enter LAST CAT on a line (all caps).]

Categories                                        15 chars each

[Next is 16 sets of 3 numbers each of palette
information; the three numbers are the amount
of Red, Green and Blue in each color.]

Palette info                                      numbers must be
                                                  between 0-7

[Following is the information for the individual
areas (states, countries, or whatever).  You
can have a maximum of 100 areas.  Discovery will
read this information until it reaches the end
of the file.]

Area name (e.g. California)                       15 characters
Capital (or secondary reference name)             15 characters
Color of shape on map                             must be a color
                                                  register between
                                                  0-15

[Next are the polygon coordinates of the shape.  
Each number is on its own line.  The maximum 
number of coordinates is 30.  Because the polygons 
will be filled, the last set of X,Y coordinates 
must be the same as the first.  To signify the end 
of the coordinates enter X and Y values of 0.]

X                                                 numeric
Y                                                 numeric

[Next is the trivia information for each
category you specified above.  Each area must
have an entry for each category.]

Trivia info                                       17 characters

SEND US YOUR MAPS

If you're having trouble getting your Discovery files to load, try 
studying the file USA.DSC on this issue's disk.  Once you get your 
files up and running, be sure to send us copies of files you think 
other ST owners would enjoy.  We will credit you with any 
Discovery files we publish, but please note materials will become 
public domain.  If you want your disk returned, include a self-
addressed, stamped mailer.

Send Discovery files to:

START World Discovery
544 Second St.
San Francisco, CA  94107