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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: TADS Runtime question
Message-ID: <erkyrathDyyxr5.58F@netcom.com>
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Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 17:54:40 GMT
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One annoying bug in the Mac TADS runtime is that you can't run it from a 
write-protected disk (say, a CD.) It tries to create a swap file in the 
same directory as the interpreter, and dies when it can't.

The Unix version seems to have the same problem -- just tried it on this SGI.

My question is, does the PC TADS runtime have the same problem?

And secondly, is there any way to deal with this problem for the IF CD? 
It would be sad if TADS games had to be dragged to the hard drive before 
you could run them (especially since Inform games don't.) Is it maybe 
possible that a fix could be released in, say, the next three weeks? I'm 
not *real* hopeful on that front :-) but I gotta ask.

(On Unix, the swap file should go to /tmp; on the Mac, to the Temporary 
folder as located by FindFolder(). I don't know about the PC world. 
Anyone?)

(Hm. On Unix, the swap file can be set by a command-line switch, so we 
can easily put in a shell script that will run a TADS game off the CD. 
This doesn't work on the Mac, though -- no command line. You can probably 
set it from the preferences dialog, but you have to run TADS to set the 
preference file and it's way too complicated an operation to take the 
user through. It took me months to *notice* the preferences dialog in Mac 
TADS, and I still don't understand most of it.)

--Z





-- 

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
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