README

VMS Tetris for VT terminals

A Pascal Tetris game for VMS and serial VT100-compatible terminals, by Chris R. Guthrey, University of Waikato, New Zealand, dated 3 July 1990.

Original acknowledgements: contributing authors of the Interact library, CCC_REX, CCC_LDO and CCC_SIMON.

Requirements and build order

This is VMS-specific Pascal and MACRO source, not a portable Free Pascal program. You need a compatible VMS Pascal compiler, MACRO assembler, linker and system Pascal environments. The game depends on the supplied Interact library.

Start in the transferred project's root directory on VMS:

$ SET DEFAULT [.LIBRARY]
$ @BUILD
$ SET DEFAULT [-]
$ COPY [.LIBRARY]INTERACT.PEN []
$ COPY [.LIBRARY]INTERACT.OLB []
$ @BUILD
$ RUN TETRIS

The library build generates INTERACT.PEN, INTERACT.OLB and UTIL.OLB. The top-level build expects INTERACT.PEN and INTERACT.OLB in its working directory, so the copies above make that dependency explicit. Both build procedures delete intermediate files in their current directory; run them only in the project directories.

Validation limit: this sequence has been checked against the included command files, but has not been executed on VMS during this documentation review. Compatibility with newer VMS architectures/compiler releases remains to be tested. Keep all three tetintro*.dat files beside TETRIS.EXE: the program locates them through its IMAGE_DIR logical name.

Repository layout

The game/library split is appropriate. Preserve VMS filenames and relative directory relationships; generated .OBJ, .PEN, .OLB and .EXE files belong to a local build rather than the source collection.