Front Page Sports:  Football

Version 1.02 Update

INTRODUCTION

Thank you for purchasing Front Page Sports: Football. We hope 
that you enjoy the most complete professional football simulation 
ever created for personal computers.

Football has been very well received by our customers, and we 
thank you for all the support and enthusiasm. Some of you have 
even offered suggestions. Just to let you know we are listening, 
we have taken many of your suggestions and incorporated them into 
version 1.02 of the game.

If you own a previous version of Front Page Sports: Football and 
are upgrading to version 1.02,  the Patch Disk Installation 
instructions are in the next section. To find out which areas of 
the game we have altered since version 1.0, see the New Features 
section of this update. For information about additions and 
enhancements to the manual, see Manual Changes and Technical Tips.

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS FOR PATCH DISK VERSION 1.02

These instructions assume that you are installing the Patch disk
from floppy drive A: and you have installed Front Page Sports: 
Football to C:\DYNAMIX\FOOTBALL.  If not, please substitute the 
appropriate drive letters and directory for A: and C:\DYNAMIX\FOOTBALL.

1.  After booting your machine, insert the Patch disk into drive A:.
2.  Type A: <Enter>.
3.  Type INSTALL C:\DYNAMIX\FOOTBALL <Enter>.
4.  Follow the on screen instructions.

NEW FEATURES

Weather:  Prior to playing any game, a dialog box will tell you what 
the weather conditions will be for the game. This will not happen 
for simulated games.

Playcalling screen:  The Ready-Break! button on this screen now 
remains "pushed in" when it is pressed. This lets you know when 
the opposing team has selected their play. If you are playing 
defense, you have eight seconds to select your play after the 
offense has chosen theirs.

Sound support:  PC speaker and AdLib (and compatible cards) now  
play digitized sounds during the action game. All Pro Audio 
Spectrum cards (Classic, Plus and 16) now have enhanced sound support.

Creating new leagues:  When creating new single-season leagues,  
you may now select teams from any existing league. When 
creating new career leagues, you may select teams from any 
existing career league.

NOTE:  We have discovered an error in the schedule creation for 
18-team leagues.  If you have created and played an 18-team 
league, we recommend that you create a new 18-team league and 
copy the teams from your existing league into the new league.

Free Agents:  The number of years each free agent has been in the 
league are now listed on the Free Agent Pool display.

League Leaders:  Two new League Leaders screens have been 
created displaying team field goal statistics and individual and 
team tackle statistics.

Adjustments:  We have made a number of adjustments in artificial 
intelligence, play balancing, and compiling and displaying of 
statistics.

MANUAL CHANGES

Coin Toss (page 13): The keyboard is now active during the Coin 
Toss regardless of the controls selected for the team.

Instant Replay (page 23): During exhibition games or practice, you 
may save up to five plays as highlights, but the computer will not 
save any plays automatically. Any highlights you save are kept 
until you replace them by saving new highlights. A View 
Highlights button has been added to the Exhibition Play screen to 
make it easier to view highlights from exhibition games or 
practice.

Starting League Games (page 29): When simulating games, you 
may now select offensive and defensive game plans for human-
owned teams after completing the password check.

Player Data (page 35): You may now edit the names of players in 
career leagues as well as in single-season leagues, prior to the first 
game of any season.

Injury Status (page 36): Players who receive career ending injuries 
are no longer kept on the roster until the end of the season. These 
players immediately retire. The retirement of the injured player is 
announced on the Team News screen. If the player was in an 
assigned slot, you will need to replace him before your team's 
next game.

Trading (page 36): The Select team to trade with dialog box has 
been modified to show only those teams who are interested in the 
player you are offering.

Play Sources (page 42): Teams no longer have separate league 
and exhibition playbooks. All plays and game plans you create are 
saved in the team playbook and are accessible for that team from 
both the Exhibition Play screen and the Team News screen. In 
addition, any team may use plays/game plans from any other 
team, although they cannot modify them. (You can, however, 
make changes to those files and save them to another filename.) 
League plays and game plans from previous versions of Front Page 
Sports: Football may be loaded but not modified.  Exhibition files 
may be loaded and modified by the team that created them.

TECHNICAL TIPS

Joystick control: Some users have had difficulty using the joystick 
on the Playcalling screen, particularly on computers running at 
50MHz and faster. To correct this problem, we have revised our 
joystick calibration routine, which is available by pressing the J 
key. If you are still having difficulty, we have also activated 
keyboard and mouse control in the Playcalling screen. The 
availability of mouse/keyboard are as follows:

In Joystick 1 (or 2) vs. Computer games, Joystick 1 (or 2) may 
also use Keyboard 1 and Mouse.

In Joystick 1 (or 2) vs. Keyboard games, Joystick 1 (or 2) may 
also use Keyboard 2 and Mouse.

In Joystick 1 vs, Joystick 2 games, the Home team may also use 
Keyboard 1.  The Visiting team may also use Keyboard 2 and 
Mouse.

Keyboard 1 is the standard keyboard layout shown in the Quick 
Reference Card.  In addition, the + key on the numeric keypad 
may be used as Button B.

Keyboard 2 uses the following keys:  
       w = up                  f = Button A
a = left    d = right          g = Button B. 
      x = down

To Remove Front Page Sports: Football from your hard drive:  
Because of the large number of subdirectories used by Front Page 
Sports: Football, some users have asked for a utility to remove it 
from their hard drive. This is included as UNINSTAL.EXE. This 
program is installed in the Football directory on your hard drive. To 
use it, type UNINSTAL at the FOOTBALL prompt.

Hard disk space: During league play, you need to have free space 
available on your hard drive for highlights. The amount of free 
space needed varies with the size of your league. In a 28-team 
league, you will need at least 1.2Mb (and we recommend about 4 
to 5Mb). If you do not have enough space, the program may not be
able to save highlights from all simulated games, save statistics,
etc. The program will warn you if there is not enough memory 
after the introductory sequence is complete.

Game plans for computer teams: Users have asked if the 
computer teams always use the OFF.PLN and DEF.PLN as their 
offensive and defensive game plans. Generally, computer teams 
select their game plan from the Stock game plans in accordance 
to their team personalities. Teams that have a Pass Aggressive 
offensive personality will select one of the Pass Aggressive 
offensive game plans. OFF.PLN and DEF.PLN are only used by the 
computer in QuickStart exhibition games.



I.    INSTALLATION NOTES

   Hard Drive Space Requirement  
    
      Prior to the installation of Front Page Sports: Football, you 
      must have at least 12Mb of free space on your hard disk to 
      enable the decompression of the game files. Once 
      installed, Front Page Sports: Football will take up 8Mb of space 
      on your hard drive, as described in the manual.

      Users of disk compression utilities, such as Stacker or SuperStor,
      will require a minimum of 17Mb of free storage space during the
      installation procedure and possibly as much as 22Mb free, depend-
      ing upon the hardware/software configuration of the system.  After
      installation, the program will occupy  approximately 11Mb of hard
      disk space.

      Each additional league created will increase the amount of hard
      disk storage used by the program.


   Hard Disk Controller Cards with Memory Cache
   Disk Caching Utilities

      If you are using either of the caching systems listed above, you 
      may experience some difficulties in running the program after 
      installation.  If problems do occur,  we suggest you try reinstall-
      ing the program with the caching systems disabled during the 
      installation process. Front Page Sports:Football should run with
      caching active after installation is complete. 

      As an alternative to disabling caching, you may also try using the 
      following Manual Installation Procedure.

   
   Manual Installation Procedure

      If you are experiencing problems with the Front Page Sports:  
      Football INSTALL program, the following instructions will allow 
      you to manually copy the game to your hard disk drive.

      NOTE:  The following instructions should be used only as a last 
      resort.  Try creating a Football Boot Disk first.  Start the 
      INSTALL utility and choose the "Make bootable floppy disk" option.
      After creating the Boot Disk, reboot your computer and run the 
      Football INSTALL program.  If the INSTALL program continues to 
      fail, use these directions to manually copy the game to your com-
      puter's hard disk drive.
    
      1) Check your hard disk drive to confirm that you have at least 
         12Mb of disk space available (12Mb or more if you are using a 
         disk compression utility such as Stacker).  Run the "CHKDSK" 
         utility to verify "bytes available on disk".

      2) Create a DYNAMIX directory on your hard disk's root directory 
         and a FOOTBALL subdirectory under in that DYNAMIX directory.  
         Copy all the files from each disk into the  \DYNAMIX\FOOTBALL 
         subdirectory.

      3) Go to the \DYNAMIX\FOOTBALL directory on your hard drive.

      4) From the \DYNAMIX\FOOTBALL directory, type in the following
         commands:

         MD XTAPES
         MD LTAPES
         MD TEAM
         MD PB

      IMPORTANT:  PLEASE MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE THE "SPACE AND THE 
      PERIOD" AT THE END OF THE NEXT COMMAND.  
      
      5) Now type:
         UNCHUNK RESOURCE.000 .

         NOTE:  This statement assumes you are installing your game on
         your C drive.  If you are installing on a different drive, then
         substitute the appropriate letter of your drive for the C: in 
         the above statement.

      IMPORTANT:  PLEASE MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE THE "SPACE AND THE 
      PERIOD" AT THE END OF THE NEXT COMMAND.  
      
      6) Use UNCHUNK again on the remaining files by typing the following
         commands:

         UNCHUNK RESOURCE.001 .
         UNCHUNK RESOURCE.002 .
         (And, if you have the 5.25-inch version, also type:)
         UNCHUNK RESOURCE.003 .

         NOTE:  Be sure to UNCHUNK these resource files in numerical 
         order.  If you make a mistake, or if the UNCHUNKed files are in 
         the wrong order, you will need to erase all of the files from
         the \DYNAMIX\FOOTBALL subdirectory and follow steps 2 through 5 
         again.  Each command will take several minutes to complete.  
         Wait until the computer is completed with each operation before
         typing each new line.

      7) After all resource files have been UNCHUNKed, run the INSTALL 
         program from the \DYNAMIX\FOOTBALL subdirectory by typing 
         INSTALL at the FOOTBALL prompt.  Check to confirm that the sound
         and music settings are correct.  Choose "ACCEPT THESE CHOICES"
         from the options in the program.  Follow all other prompts as 
         they appear.

      8) Exit the INSTALL program and try running Football.  If the
         game works correctly, delete all resource files (RESOURCE.000-
         002 for 3.5 inch disk version or RESOURCE.000-003 for 5.25 inch 
         version).  Consult your DOS manual for information on how to 
         accomplish this step if you need further assistance.

      If you continue to experience any problems, or if you have any 
      questions concerning any of the above steps, our technical support 
      team will be more than happy to assist you.

II.   SOUND CARD NOTES

   Sound Blaster Users without Extended Memory
    
      If you are using a SoundBlaster card on a machine that does not 
      have extended memory, you must have 590,000 bytes of free RAM.  To
      check this, use the DOS command MEM, and look for the "Largest
      Executable Program Size:".

   Pro Audio Spectrum Users using Boot Disks

      If you are using the Pro Audio Spectrum card and a Boot Disk 
      created by the INSTALL program, you may need to add the following
      line to the CONFIG.SYS file on the Boot Disk:

      DEVICE (or DEVICEHIGH)=C:\PROAUDIO\MVSOUND.SYS

   Gravis Ultra Sound Users
    
      If you are using the Gravis Ultra Sound card and are experiencing 
      problems with digitized sounds during League Games, Exhibition 
      Games, or in Practice Mode, run the INSTALL program again and 
      select "AdLib" as your sound card choice.

      If you have both the Gravis Ultra Sound card and a Joystick Con-
      troller Card (or "Game Card"), you must plug the joystick into the
      joystick controller card for proper joystick response.

Version 1.00 Release Notes

"Subdirectory" in the following notes refers to the hard drive subdi-
rectory where Front Page Sports: Football is located.  If you followed 
the installation procedure and made no changes, this directory will be 
C:\DYNAMIX\FOOTBALL.  Files that are not specifically identifed as being 
in a subdirectory can be assumed to be in this subdirectory.

I.    GAME PLANS

   Stock Game Plans
    
      We have included 36 offensive and 12 defensive game plans.  You
      may use these during games or as the basis for your own custom
      game plans. These are located in the STOCK\STOCKPLN subdirectory.

      The stock game plans are of six general types, listed down the left
      side of the table.  The numbers in the table complete the filename 
      for that game plan.

      For example, all offensive stock plans are named STKOFF??.PLN.  
      The first Pass - Aggressive plan is 01, so the filename would be 
      STKOFF01.PLN.

                                      Offense:              Defense:
                                    STKOFF??.PLN          STKDEF??.PLN
      Pass - Aggressive        01  07  13  19  25  31        01  07
      Pass - Balanced          02  08  14  20  26  32        02  08
      Pass - Conservative      03  09  15  21  27  33        03  09
      Run  - Aggressive        04  10  16  22  28  34        04  10
      Run  - Balanced          05  11  17  23  29  35        05  11
      Run  - Conservative      06  12  18  24  30  36        06  12

   QuickStart Default Game Plans  
    
      When you start a QuickStart Exhibition game, the program automatic-
      ally selects OFF.PLN as the offensive game plan for both teams,
      and DEF.PLN as the defensive game plan for both teams.  You may, if
      you wish, create a custom game plan and save it as OFF.PLN or
      DEF.PLN in the main FOOTBALL directory.

      
II.   TRADING FILES

There are some types of files you might like to trade with others who
have purchased Front Page Sports: Football -- Highlights, Leagues, and
Exhibition Plays or Game Plans.

  
   Highlights 
    
      Highlights are kept in the XTAPES and LTAPES subdirectories.  
      XTAPES contains highlights that you have saved in Practice or 
      Exhibition games. LTAPES holds highlights from League games. The 
      Highlights files are named VCR.1, VCR.2, VCR.3, VCR.4, and VCR.5, 
      corresponding to the slot they are saved into on the Save High-
      lights dialog box.

      If you want to copy highlights of a League game,  go to the Box
      Score for that game and Show Highlights first. This puts the high-
      lights for that game into the VCR.* files.
    
      To give highlights to a friend, copy the VCR.? file for the
      highlight into your friend's XTAPES directory. You may view them by
      going to Practice from the Play Editor.

      EXAMPLE:  To copy the third highlight in your Exhibition highlights 
      directory to a floppy disk, change to the XTAPES directory and 
      type:
                             COPY VCR.3 A:  <Enter>

                               
   Leagues
    
      All files associated with a league are automatically created with
      the same eight-character filename that you typed in when you orig-
      inally created the league, so to copy all the files you need, just
      type COPY <filename>.*.

      EXAMPLE:  To copy a league named MYLEAGUE to a floppy disk, change
      to the directory that contains the league and type:
                           COPY MYLEAGUE.* A:  <Enter>

      NOTE:  This copies only league and team data and all players and 
      statistics, not plays or game plans.  


   Exhibition Plays/Game Plans
    
      When you save a play, it is normally saved to the TEAM subdirec-
      tory.  If you want to give a play or plan you've designed to a
      friend, you can use the normal DOS command to copy it.  
        
      You can also use the COPY command to copy game plans. Inside each
      game plan, the plays are listed by their filename, including the
      path relative to where the game plan is saved.  If you copy a game
      plan to a friend's hard drive, make sure that you put it into the
      same subdirectory that it appeared on your hard drive, AND make
      sure to copy any custom plays in the game plan to the same subdi-
      rectory in which they appeared on your hard drive.


III.  ADDITIONAL COMMAND KEYS

Two command keys have been added for use during games.  <O> forces the
camera to stay behind the offense.  <D> forces the camera to stay be-
hind the defense.


If you continue to experience any problems, or if you have any questions
concerning any of the above steps, our Technical Support Team will be
more than happy to assist you.  Please call (206) 644-4343 between 8:15 a.m.
and 4:45 p.m., Pacific Standard Time, Monday through Friday.  We can be
reached by Fax at (206) 644-7697, or by mail at the following address:

Sierra On-Line
P.O. BOX 85006 
Bellevue, WA 98015-8506
Attention: Technical Support

You can also reach our Technical Support Team on one of the following
services:

Sierra BBS          (206) 644-0112 or telnet bbs.sierra.com  
Compuserve          GO SIERRA
America Online      Keyword: Sierra
Internet            support@sierra.com or http://www.sierra.com

Please outline the problems along with the specific information about your 
computer system, and we will gladly respond to your letter, fax, or BBS 
message as soon as possible.  When contacting us by fax or BBS please 
allow 24-48 hours for turnaround.  During weekends or holidays, there may 
be some delays.

To better serve our European customers with technical problems and disk 
replacements, Sierra U.K Customer Support or Coktel Customer Support can 
be reached at the following address:

Sierra On-Line Limited                  Coktel Vision
Unit 2, Theale Technology Centre,       Parc Tertiaire de Meudon
Station Road                            Immeuble "Le Newton"
Theale, Berkshire RG7 4AA               25 rue Jeanne Braconnier
United Kingdom                          92366 Meudon La Fort Cedex
Main: (44) 1-734-303171                 France
Fax : (44) 1-734-303201                 Main: (33) 1-46-01-4650
BBS : (44) 1-734-304227                 Fax : (33) 1-46-31-7172

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Sierra customers using Sierra software products.  Sierra Technical 
Support makes reasonable efforts to ensure that the information 
contained in this documentation is accurate.  However, Sierra makes no 
warranty, either express or implied, as to the accuracy, 
effectiveness, or completeness of the information contained in this 
documentation.
     
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