Author:

• Name: John Tromp
  Location: US - United States of America (United States)

To build:

    make all

To use:

    ./tromp [drops_per_sec  [cmd_string]]

Try:

    ./tromp 5

    ./tromp 10 "hkl jq"

The second command, ./tromp 10 "hkl jq", will set up the keys kind of like vim:

• h - left (left)
• k - rotate (up)
• l - right (right)
• j - drop (down)
• space - pause (space)
• q - quit (:q)

NOTE: after the game ends a file called HI will be in the directory with the high scores (up to 20 runs saved) so one can see who has the highest score. The file might look like:

    330 by luser
    136 by loser
    100 by winner

… or so, where in this case the luser is the winner, the loser is in second place and the winner is the loser :-)

Alternate code:

The author provided an alternate version of the code with some improvements. See the judges’ additional remarks in the author’s remarks, for more details.

Alternate build:

    make alt

Alternate use:

Use tromp.alt as you would tromp above.

NOTE: testing more than one user updating the high score file, one of the benefits of the alt version, has not been done.

The original unmodified alternate code, which will no longer work right if it even compiles, is provided later in the author’s remarks.

Judges’ remarks:

This is a character terminal version of the TETRIS game. It runs on a VT100 compatible terminal or emulator. It is best used at 4800 baud or more.

By default, drops_per_sec, the number of times a tetrimino will drop in a second, is 2. The default cmd_string is jkl pq. The first 6 characters of cmd_string relate to the following 6 game commands:

• j - left
• k - rotate
• l - right
• space - drop
• p - pause
• q - quit

Specifying cmd_string allows one to redefine the commands. The pause command pauses the game, clears the screen and prints the current score. To resume, type the pause character again, which by default is p.

As was stated last year, we are likely to be more strict about portability in the future. [ We mean it this time :-) ]

Author’s remarks:

This program plays the familiar game of TETRIS with the following features:

• outputs vt100-like escape-sequences for cursor positioning and normal/reverse video in curses like fashion (minimal output for screen updates)

• continuously increasing speed (except in pause)

• start speed selectable by giving n as first argument, where n is the number of drops per second (default=2).

• controls also selectable by giving as the second argument a string of 6 characters. By default they are jkl pq.

• screen is blanked during the pause and the score is shown

• maintains a high-score table

Giving a full path name for the table will result in a system-wide high-score allowing a competition between users.

Additional remarks from the judges:

The author provided us with the following notes and new version of the program:

Here is a somewhat improved version of my tetris entry. All the changes are in the popen(3) at the end. Formerly a move was done to the HI score file which is not permitted for other users. Now other users can change the HI score file. The extra option -m is passed to sort, so that it knows that its input files are already sorted. The -o output option of sort is used instead of a temporary file.

You may also want to consider giving just the raw option to stty at the start and -raw at the end. This further reduces the size of the program, but has the possible disadvantage that the program can only by stopped by ‘q’ or by the kill -9 command.

    long h[4];t(){h[3]-=h[3]/3000;setitimer(0,h,0);}c,d,l,v[]={(int)t,0,2},w,s,I,K
    =0,i=276,j,k,q[276],Q[276],*n=q,*m,x=17,f[]={7,-13,-12,1,8,-11,-12,-1,9,-1,1,
    12,3,-13,-12,-1,12,-1,11,1,15,-1,13,1,18,-1,1,2,0,-12,-1,11,1,-12,1,13,10,-12,
    1,12,11,-12,-1,1,2,-12,-1,12,13,-12,12,13,14,-11,-1,1,4,-13,-12,12,16,-11,-12,
    12,17,-13,1,-1,5,-12,12,11,6,-12,12,24};u(){for(i=11;++i<264;)if((k=q[i])-Q[i]
    ){Q[i]=k;if(i-++I||i%12<1)printf("\033[%d;%dH",(I=i)/12,i%12*2+28);printf(
    "\033[%dm  "+(K-k?0:5),k);K=k;}Q[263]=c=getchar();}G(b){for(i=4;i--;)if(q[i?b+
    n[i]:b])return 0;return 1;}g(b){for(i=4;i--;q[i?x+n[i]:x]=b);}main(C,V,a)char*
    *V,*a;{h[3]=1000000/(l=C>1?atoi(V[1]):2);for(a=C>2?V[2]:"jkl pq";i;i--)*n++=i<
    25||i%12<2?7:0;srand(getpid());system("stty cbreak -echo stop u");sigvec(14,v,
    0);t();puts("\033[H\033[J");for(n=f+rand()%7*4;;g(7),u(),g(0)){if(c<0){if(G(x+
    12))x+=12;else{g(7);++w;for(j=0;j<252;j=12*(j/12+1))for(;q[++j];)if(j%12==10){
    for(;j%12;q[j--]=0);u();for(;--j;q[j+12]=q[j]);u();}n=f+rand()%7*4;G(x=17)||(c
    =a[5]);}}if(c==*a)G(--x)||++x;if(c==a[1])n=f+4**(m=n),G(x)||(n=m);if(c==a[2])G
    (++x)||--x;if(c==a[3])for(;G(x+12);++w)x+=12;if(c==a[4]||c==a[5]){s=sigblock(
    8192);printf("\033[H\033[J\033[0m%d\n",w);if(c==a[5])break;for(j=264;j--;Q[j]=
    0);while(getchar()-a[4]);puts("\033[H\033[J\033[7m");sigsetmask(s);}}d=popen(
    "stty -cbreak echo stop \023;sort -mnr -o HI - HI;cat HI","w");fprintf(d,
    "%4d from level %1d by %s\n",w,l,getlogin());pclose(d);}

NOTE: the alternate version was fixed for modern systems in 2023.

Primary files

• tromp.c - entry source code
• Makefile - entry Makefile
• tromp.alt.c - alternate source code
• tromp.orig.c - original source code

Secondary files

• 1989_tromp.tar.bz2 - download entry tarball
• README.md - markdown source for this web page
• .entry.json - entry summary and manifest in JSON
• .gitignore - list of files that should not be committed under git
• .path - directory path from top level directory
• index.html - this web page

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