
                                  SPIN.EXE
                   Copyright 1995,1996 Ground Up Software
                             SPIN is freeware!
                                  01/06/96

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  What is SPIN?

     SPIN is a single player shoot-em-up game. Your mission is to protect
     the freighters from the pirates, to clear the freighter lanes of
     the pirates and to arrest as many pirates as possible.

  Freeware:

     SPIN is freeware!!! You may distribute it freely as long as all 
     the original files are included. You may NOT distribute it if
     you make any changes to any of the files.

     You do not have permission to sell SPIN for profit.  However, we
     do grant permission for SPIN to be bundled with Public Domain software 
     collections.
  
  Running SPIN:

     CD to the directory with SPIN.EXE
     Type SPIN to start the game

  Playing SPIN:

     Upon starting SPIN, you will be presented with a series of 
     title and information screens.  Pressing the spacebar will take you
     past each one of the screens and into the game.

     Pay attention to the information screen that shows you each of the 
     items you will encounter in the SPIN universe. You will see
     a picture of the item and a brief description of the item.

     Also pay attention to the Control screen. It will identify the
     keys used to play SPIN.

        [SPACE]      Fire Weapon
        [ALT]        Fire Weapon Backwards - Only on Advanced Weapons
        <-- and -->  Spin Left or Right
        <W>          Toggle WARP drive On or Off
        ^ and v      Accelerate / Deaccelerate          
     
     Other Keys

       [+][-]        Set the music volume
       [F1]          Change to the next song
       [F10]         Clear stuck keys
       [ESC]         Quit playing SPIN

     Items found in the SPIN universe can be collected by touching them
     with your ship.

   SCANNERS:

        Long Range Scanner:
   
          You are in the center (The purple crosshair). Objects appear
          as colored dots in the scanners. Pirates are RED and they blink!
          To fly towards an object point the nose of the ship in the
          general direction of the object from the crosshair. Use the
          <W>arp drive to quickly move towards the object.

          When a freighter is being attacked by a pirate you will see a
          little blue crosshair at the location of the freighter.

        Short Range Scanner:

          Again you are in the center. Watch for the object you are closing
          on to appear in the short range scanner. Once it does press <W>arp
          again to shut down the WARP drive. Steer the ship towards the item.
          Fly over the item to collect and/or activate it.

   BAR Indicators:

      Energy Indicator:

          Along the LEFT edge of the screen is the energy indicator.
          Your ship can initially store 2000 energy units, indicated
          by the WHITE bar. The colored bar on top of the WHITE bar
          indicates the energy remaining. When it turns ORANGE or RED
          your energy reserve is critical!!!

          By adding addition storage tanks you can increase you capacity
          to 6000 units. Look for objects in the SPIN universe that add
          storage capacity.

          There is also an alpha-numneric indicator of your energy status.

      Speed Indicator:

          Next to the energy indicator is a speed indicator. It shows your
          speed from 0.0 to 9.90. It turns blue when you are in warp.

          There is also an alpha-numneric indicator of your speed.

   Other Indicators:

       Weapon Indicator:

          You will see an alpha-numneric indicator of your current weapon
          type and the shots remaining on it.

       Shield Indicator:

          When you first start you have no shield, the indicator will
          show an OFF status. Collect shield objects to increase your
          shields effectiveness. Higher values are better here!

   Run-Time Options:

      SPIN will load up to 10 MOD music files for background music. 
      These can be any MOD's you like. Copy your favorite MOD's to your
      SPIN directory. Remember that <F1> will change to the next song.

      STATIC: On some sound cards there is an annoying static with
              the music. Pressing <F4> should clear this static up!

      Several Options can be specified at run time.

          spin -s       no sound at all
          spin -m       no music but spill play sound effects
          spin -q       for slow PC's, will make it run quicker.
          spin -?       get quick help on these options

    Multiple options can be specified.  IE:  spin -m -q
    
     Now go at it!!! Type SPIN and enjoy our little demo!!!!

-Neil

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  Why SPIN?

     SPIN was written to demonstrate the capabilities of VAT and GUG.

     The SPIN source code and graphics are available for $50.00 US.

     What is VAT?

        VAT is Varmint's Audio Tool's, a Sound Blaster library for playing 
        music and sound effects in the background.  VAT supports MOD, S3M,
        MID, and WAV files.

        Both 16-bit and 32-bit versions are available.

           For more info:
              smeagol@rt66.com
              http://www.rt66.com/smeagol/html/vat.html
              Registered version with source code: $50.00 US

     What is GUG?
      
        GUG is Ground Up Graphics. A library for mode 13x (320x200x256)
        graphics. It is designed for Watcom 10.x 32-bit. It supports
        compiled sprites, keyboard handling, joysticks and fixed point
        math.

           GUG has been tested against the CauseWay and DOS4GW extenders.

           For more info:
              nbreeden@groundup.com
              ftp.groundup.com  /pub/groundup/
              http://www.groundup.com/~nbreeden
              Registered Version with Source code: $50.00 US

  CauseWay DOS Extender

      SPIN uses the CauseWay DOS Extender from Devore Software & Consulting.

      Why CauseWay?

        CauseWay offers several advantages over the extender that ships
        with Watcom c++, a few advantages are:

           Robust Error Handling
           All hardware Int's supported
           Binds directly to your application - No extra files to ship
           EXE file compression

      For more information contact:

      Devore Software & Consulting
      PO Box 4283
      Naperville, IL  60567-4283

      1-708-717-6369 (Voice)
      1-708-717-9679 (BBS)

      71540.62@compuserve.com (EMail)

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