Pascal Towers

Antic proudly presents one of our most unusual disk bonuses. Pascal Towers is a flashy, lightning-fast Personal Pascal version of the 4,000-year-old game that previously appeared in our May 1987 issue as Pratt and Everman's ST BASIC Antic Towers.

The object of the Towers game is diabolically simple. You must transfer all the hoops you start with from the left pole to one of the other two poles--one hoop at a time and in the least number of moves. But you can't place a larger hoop on top of a smaller one! Three hoops shouldn't take much more than seven moves to transfer, Eight hoops, however, won't require less than 255 moves.

Pascal Towers is written in Personal Pascal, the smooth, powerful ST programming language from Optimized Systems Software (reviewed in Antic, May 1986). Pratt and Everman adapted Antic Towers into Personal Pascal as a learning project to teach themselves the language.

Unfortunately, we haven't yet found enough Personal Pascal programmers among Antic's readers to justify using our limited page space to publish listings in this outstanding language. However, this month's $5.95 Antic Disk includes two versions of Pascal Towers. For Pascal programmers who want to see how this game is put together, or to compare the listing with the May 1987 BASIC version, the source code is on disk.

And for those who want to enjoy playing the game, the monthly disk also includes a "runtime" version of Pascal Towers that can be used without the Personal Pascal language. For instructions on operating the game, choose selection 5 on the Main Menu of Side B.

The ST Help File on Side B explains how to transfer Antic ST programs to a 3 1/2 inch ST disk. Or if you use ANTIC ONLINE on CompuServe, we plan to have both versions of Pascal Towers available for no-surcharge downloading from our Software Shelf later this spring.

Phone toll-free to the Antic Disk Desk at (800) 234-7001 for fast shipment of your March 1988 monthly disk-only $5.95 (plus $2 for shipping and handling) on your Visa or MasterCard. Or mail a $5.95 check (plus $2) to Antic Disk Desk, 544 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107.

Programmers: Antic seeks high-quality Disk Bonus programs for Atari ST or 8-bit--even programs too large or complex for printing as a type-in. Submissions in any language with a runtime version are eligible.

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