 ________________________________________________________________________
  
   ZMercury - The ultimate (?) shoot-em-up for the TI-82/83+/84+/85/86!
  
                      Version 0.70 - August 1, 2011

       This program is freely redistributable.  There is no warranty.
  
 E-Mail - pad@ocf.berkeley.edu    Web - http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~pad/
 ________________________________________________________________________

 _____________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS

 1. Introduction ..................................................... 23  
 2. System requirements .............................................. 33
 3. Legal stuff ...................................................... 58
 4. Instructions ..................................................... 84
 5. Contacting the Programmer ....................................... 102 
 6. Acknowledgements ................................................ 132
 7. Version History ................................................. 154
 8. The Future ...................................................... 209

 _____________________________________ INTRODUCTION

ZMercury is a freely redistributable shoot-em-up style game for the TI-82,
TI-83 Plus, TI-84 Plus, TI-85 and TI-86 calculators (Silver Editions
included).  This game was written completely in Z80 assembly language to
fully take advantage of the calculator's capabilities.

If you need more information on how to run the program than the overview
below, please see the FAQ on my web site.

 _____________________________________ SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 

 For TI-82 users:
    * ZMercury must be run from ACE beta 4
    * 7K of memory is needed to store the game

 For TI-83 users:
    * ZMercury must be run from Ion 1.6 (or a compatible shell)
    * 7K of memory is needed to store the game
    * 1.7K of free memory is needed to run the game
                          
 For TI-83 Plus / TI-84 Plus users:
    * ZMercury must be run from Ion 1.6 (or a compatible shell like MirageOS)
    * 7K of memory is needed to store the game
    * 1.7K of free memory is needed to run the game

 For TI-85 users:
    * ZMercury must be run from Usgard 1.5
    * 7K of memory is needed to store the game
    * 2.1K of free memory is needed to run the game

 For TI-86 users:
    * 6K of memory is needed to store the game     
    * No shell is need, simply type "Asm(zmercury" to start the game

 _____________________________________ LEGAL STUFF

Since you did not pay me anything for the right to use this software, there
is no warranty of any kind.  This software has been tested, and at the time
of release the author was not aware of any serious problems with it.
However, there is still a possibility of unforeseen problems.  If you do
encounter any problems with this program, please inform me as soon as
possible (of course, I cannot guarantee that I will fix such problems).

All portions of the program made by me are copyrighted by me, but may be
freely used, copied, and/or modified with no restrictions.

However, I would appreciate if you at least do the following if you are
making a modified version:

 - Don't add any restrictions to its distribution or modification
 - Supply complete source code
 - Give me a reasonable amount of credit

The following parts of the program are copyrighted by others, and to the
best of my knowledge maybe freely included in and distributed with this
program:

- The TI-86 version is compressed by Lite86, and thus uses the Lite86
decompression routine.  Lite86 is copyrighted by Kirk Meyer.

 _____________________________________ INSTRUCTIONS

To play the game, just transfer the program to the calculator and then run
it as you would other assembly programs.  In the case of the TI-85 this
means you must have installed Usgard before transferring ZMercury, and run 
ZMercury from Usgard.  For TI-86 users, you may simply start the program from
the home screen by typing "Asm(zmercury" but you may also start it from a 
shell.  For the TI-82 start it from ACE and for the TI-83 Plus and TI-84 
Plus start it from Ion, MirageOS, or whichever other shell you may use.

The game will start immediately once you press the 2nd key and will continue
until you are destroyed.  Use the arrow keys to move your ship and press 2nd
to shoot.  If for some unimaginable reason you should wish to quit playing,
you can do so by pressing EXIT (or MODE on calculators without an EXIT key).
You can save the game and exit by pressing MORE (or DEL if you don't have a
more key).  The game will automatically resume where you left off the next
time you run the game.

 _____________________________________ CONTACTING THE PROGRAMMER

If you find any bugs in this game or have suggestions or comments about it,
please tell me in E-Mail!  If you are writing to report a bug, please be
sure to tell me exactly what the problem is and describe exactly what you
did before the problem occured.  If you don't do so, it will be very hard
for me to tell what is going wrong!  You should also tell me which version
of Monster you have and which calulator you use in any mail you send me.
My main E-Mail address is:

        pad@ocf.berkeley.edu

I will usually answer my E-Mail within a week.  If you don't get any answer
in two weeks, you can try sending to the following backup addresses:

        eeulplek@hotmail.com

If your E-Mail is set up to block all messages except those from certain
addresses, always be sure that you have un-blocked my address before
sending anything to me (best to un-block all of them, since I might answer
from a different one than you sent to).

You can always get the latest version of this game, as well as other
programs of mine, from my web page.  The address is:

        http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~pad/

You can also find me on IRC.  I use the nick 'PatrickD' or similar variants
and am usually in #ti on EfNet and various other TI calculator channels.

 _____________________________________ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The vast majority of this game is my (Patrick Davidson's) own work.  However,
there are a few others whose assistance was invaluable in producing this
game, and there efforts will be acknowledged here, in no particular order:

David Boozer                All of these people were instrumental in
Magnus Hagander             developing assembly support for the TI-85 and/or
Dan Eble                    the Usgard system.
Rob Taylor
Sam Davies
Jimmy Mardell
Austin Butler
Mel Tsai

Alan Bailey                 The Asm86 TI-86 development tools

Kirk Meyer                  The Lite86 compression system

If you should be here but were left out (or worse, I misspelled your name)
just E-Mail and I'll be sure to fix it for the next release.

 _____________________________________ VERSION HISTORY

Sizes listed here are for the TI-85 version.
Line counts here include all sources for all versions.

 Version  Date       Bytes  Lines  Description

    0.02u 21-Feb-04   3850   2819  First version (unreleased pre-alpha)

    0.03u 23-Feb-04   4577   3120  Added high score table
                                   Added title screen

    0.05a 27-Feb-04   4543   3080  optimized enemy bullet code
                                   optimized enemy entry code
                                   fixed background collision

    0.30u 20-Sep-04   5084   3820  exteneded level
                                   added new enemy types
                                   adjusted player boundaries
                                   added TI-82 ACE version
                                   optimized some things
                                   added TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus version

    0.33u 27-Nov-04   5140   3903  fixed sprite clipping bug
                                   fixed left boundary on 82/83+
                                   implemented final score display on 82/83+
                                   fixed possible 82/83+ memory corruption
                                   fixed garbled screen bottom on 82/83+

    0.34  26-Dec-04   5237   3969  fixed 82/83+ score display
                                   small change to player's ship
                                   scoring improved
                                   added new final enemy

    0.56  13-Aug-05   5828   4332  added save game
                                   fixed TI-86 high scores
                                   added power-ups
                                   fixed 82/83+ star backgrond
                                   added instructions to title screen
                                   optimized various things

    0.57  28-Aug-05   5828   4340  widened 82/83+ movement window
                                   fixed TI-82 high score entry bug

    0.60  21-Jun-11   6101   4400  lengthened the game slightly
                                   difficulty increases upon restarting
                                   
    0.70   1-Aug-11   6251   4567  added score boost to all bonuses
                                   increased scores generally
                                   limited bonus duration
                                   added addresses to the title screen
                                   reduced difficulty of earliest enemies
                                   fixed home screen corruption on TI-83 Plus
                                   added TI-83 version

 ______________________________________ THE FUTURE

I consider the main features to be essentially complete in this version.
Future updates will focus on making the game longer.
