19 What is LDB? (long distance backgammon. bg by email)
Description
This article is from the Backgammon FAQ, by Mark Damish damish@ll.mit.edu with numerous contributions by others.
19 What is LDB? (long distance backgammon. bg by email)
Long Distance Backgammon. Play backgammon by E-mail.
Program written by Perry R. Ross (perry@aap.com)
From the ldb man page:
Ldb allows two people to play backgammon over a network using
electronic mail. It runs on character-oriented terminals, or emulators
thereof, using the curses screen package. It will run on most UNIX
dialects, as well as VAX-C under VMS 5.0 and above. Ldb handles all
aspects of starting, playing, checking, and scoring games. It enforces
all normal game rules, as well as several optional rules, and will not
let you make an illegal move. When you have made your moves, ldb will
automatically package your move and send them to your opponent.
The latest version is 1.3.2. Version 1.3 can be found in directory
volume36. Patches can be found in subsequent volumes at your favorite
comp.sources.misc archive site. Patch 1 is in volume 39. Patch 2 is in
volume 41. Use: 'unix_prompt$ archie ldb' to locate the sources.
[from Perry]
I mentioned in that patch that, for people who can't figure out how to
get ldb or how to apply patches, I'd be happy to send them a complete
copy of the latest version. You might want to put the same offer into
the faq.
[Has anybody written a PC/Mac version using CC-mail via a Novell
network?]
[from Perry...]
Well, I'd always intended to do a PC port, but just never got around
to it. I was a bad boy, 32-bit wise, so there would be a little effort
involved making it 16-bit clean. There's a package that simulates
curses on a PC, I've heard. As far as the particular mail transport,
ldb doesn't really care. It puts outgoing messages into a text file
and executes a user-defined command to send the message. Incoming mail
can be read from a user-defined file (or pattern, to read multiple
files), which ought to be pretty transport-independent. It wouldn't be
that hard to port, I don't think.
[Anybody have a little ambition?]
The ldb 'game starter' operated by leopard@midnight.WPI.edu (Leo
Gestetner) has been shut down. [ Are there others? ...Mark]
LDB may be obtained on the net from:
ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/vms/games/board/ldb.shr and
ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/unix/games/ldb.tar.gz
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