POWBALL

Copyright © 1995-2000 by Anthony Hamilton

Contents

- Introduction
- Minimum Requirements
- Recommended Set-up
- Command-Line Options
- Trouble-Shooting
- License and Legal Information
- Contacting POW Productions

Introduction

Powball is based on an old game concept which has been re-created many times before. You'll find this incarnation to have much better playability, action, strategy, sound and graphics than any other.

The basic idea is to hit a ball with your paddle and knock away bricks until the screen is cleared, whilst trying to keep at least one ball on the screen. But what better introduction can there be other than to dive right in and start playing. So, whadya waitin' for?

Minimum Requirements

- 80386.
- DOS 5.
- 640K RAM (with about 523K free).
- VGA adaptor with minimum 256K RAM.
- 3 Megabytes of free disk space.

Recommended Set-up

Powball works best when running in pure DOS mode. This means when it is running without windows in the background. To do this you have to shut down windows and choose the "Restart in MS-DOS mode" option.

Command-line Options

The following options may be used when you run this game from the DOS prompt:

- -setSound
  Executes the set-up menu. Same as running SETUP.BAT.

- -nopause
  Doesn't wait for a key at initialisation if no errors occur.

- -config FILESPEC
  Specifies an alternate path and filename for the configuration file. Use the -setSound option with this option to change the sound settings. This is useful if you wanted to run Powball from CD-ROM. Example: POWBALL -config C:\POWCFG\POWBALL.CFG -setSound

Trouble-shooting

Before you do anything else, read the initialisation screen carefully. Then read the following points. It is most likely that a problem you are having is a result of your computer being incorrectly configured. Contact us only if you think there is a problem with this game and supply as much information as you can.

- Not enough memory:
  Insert a blank floppy disk into your floppy disk drive and run MAKEBOOT.BAT. This utility will create a boot disk that will free up memory so that you can run Powball properly.

- No sound under Windows:
  In order for Powball to run smoothly under Windows, run POWBALL.PIF.

- Some keys don't work when others are pressed:
  This is a hardware problem with some keyboards that can only handle a limited number of keys at the same time. Either redefine the keys (use shift, ctrl and alt preferably) or use a keyboard that doesn't have this limitation.

- Poor sound quality:
  The Gravis Ultrasound is by far the best quality sound card for this game. If you don't have this hardware and experience poor quality sound, try using the high quality sound options and reducing the number of sound fx channels within the set-up.

- Erratic animation and disk access:
  If you're not using disk caching software, it is highly recommended that you DO! Without it, your system is not taking advantage of advanced software that will improve the performance of your machine and will improve the life of your hard-drive.

License and Legal Information

Powball was originally released to the public as shareware on the 22nd of August 1996, and subsequently re-released by Spectrum Pacific Publishing and Webfoot Games on the the 3rd of June 1997. Now on the 5th of July 2000 Powball is released as Freeware; this means it is free to play and distribute at your leisure but the license agreements remain. Please do not buy this game from any publisher because the authors no longer get any royalties. If you see this game on sale please inform me.

To keep things nice and simple, this product remains the copyright of Anthony Hamilton. It may not be sold for profit. There is no warranty, which means if you break your leg while playing this game, the author is not responsible or liable for any damages. So you play the game at your own risk. So do take great care when whacking them balls!

Contacting POW Productions

- Post:
  POW Productions
  43 Holcombe Crescent
  Ipswich
  IP2 9QL
  United Kingdom

- e-mail:
  powball@w3.to

- Please visit the official Powball web site for patches and other great stuff:
  http://powball.w3.to"