IT-HE Software projects
Featuring Javelin, Avios, the Strange Utilities and the ITG graphics library
Contents:
NOTE - a lot of the links are now dead. I'll try and add local downloads from my own archives. -JPM, 2022-05-20
IT-HE Roleplaying Engine
Javelin ("Director's Cut" now available)
Strange Utilities
ITHE graphics library
ITHE Sound Daemon
Blackout
Under Development:
Click on this link to go to the new IRE page!
Current version is 0.92.
For more information, visit the website: HERE
For more details, click on the screenshot and go to the RotJ website.
Experimental.
IBM competition edition, VGA required. Like Version 2, but vastly inferior. Runs in real-mode, so will work on an XT.
Protected mode version. Needs 286 with 2Mb at least. (Extra music with a 486 or above)
Javelin is a platform game in the style of the original Jet Set Willy but with 10 years of improvement.
A 486 or later is needed for music and sound. Shouldn't be any problem today.
It feaures 256 colour graphics, digital music and sound, 10 slot save and load.
Older version
A collection of odds and ends, useful and/or bizarre...
Blurb:
NB: PWD is Patch Wad Directory, not the UN1X command!.
The ITG is an MCGA graphics library for C++. It forms the basis of many of our programs. It offers the following features:
The latest version of the ITG library, 7.5 is part of the IRE project.
Version 1.5 [Historical]
Version 2.0 [Useful]
DPMI-16 Version [Useful for BC 4.5]
The ISD is a C++ library for playing up to four sound effects
simultaneously through a soundblaster card.
All playing takes place in the background, allowing the main
program to carry on while the sounds are being played.
This is for historical interest only and is not recommended for general use.
OpenDOS does not, so here is a little kit that allows you to correct this.
Aimed at OpenDOS, this should work on other DOSes, but it hasn't been tested on them.
In May 1994, while the members of IT-HE software were walking back to college,
they decided that DOS did not really fulfil our requirements as much
as they would have liked. We began to speculate on what our ideal operating system would be, and before you knew it, we'd drawn up our plans.
I suggested at one point that it should be called Aquarius:
Unfortunately, it never really reached critical mass, and the project fell over when we left college to go to separate universities.
What we did do:
In memory of this project, I have decided to release the source code that I have, in the remote chance it is of any use to anyone. :-)
Almost as soon as we got hold of ID's popular game, DOOM, we started
to hack it. Unfortunately we were not on the internet, and therefore
we missed out on the doom specs, later versions of DEU (we had v4!!) and many other things that would have made it possible.
By inspecting the WADfile, we deciphered the main file format independently of all help such as the Matt Fell specs.
Next, we set to work on the individual sections.
We had floors and sounds in under a day.
Then, Martyn sat down and reverse-engineered the sprite formats by hand. I began to write a wad editor.
It was crude, and of course, we did not know about PWADS in those days. After about three days, Martyn had written decoding routines
which would handle about 99% of all the raw graphics in the WAD.
And just as we were about to create the ultimate, the be-all and end-all editor, DOOMstick, James dropped the bombshell which sunk the project.
He had found and downloaded the Matt Fell doom specs, Deu 5 (with source code) and all kinds of stuff.
In the mean time, everyone else's editor was better. We had lost the race and gracefully retired from it.
Although I do have some of Martyn's routines, there is no point in releasing them because they went up a technological cul-de-sac. Use NWT or DEUTEX instead.
However, we did make some amazing DOOM add-ons.
ATTN:
AViOS needs a P200 and runs quite slowly on that. 39fps on that kind of hardware is not good enough for me.
Therefore, I have decided to shelve the project indefinitely and use the techniques from this engine in an RPG, which is less fps-intensive.
I might make the source code available later on. Sooner if I get any emails asking for it :-)
AViOS is my jump onto the bandwagon of user-programmable games,
although I had got it running before I even saw Duke 3D or Quake.
AViOS is a 2d scrolling game engine that runs under CWSDPMI.
Currently working are the following:
AViOS-16 2.0.450 16-bit DPMI AViOS
AViOS-32 experimental 32-bit DPMI AViOS
IRE - ITHE Roleplaying Engine
Reign of the Just
Reign of the Just is my Ultima-6 clone, which uses IRE as its engine.
It is currently in Demo 2, which makes it roughly 66% complete. There
are versions available for Windows and Linux, but it can be made to work
on any platform that IRE supports.
Completed Projects:
U9 Encoder 0.9
Fed up with 'Rule Britannia' over and over again when you want to see Lord
British in Ultima 9?
Here's a cure. This program will allow you to replace any of the songs in
the game with a new song of your choice.Download
u9encode.zipJavelin V1.0:
Download
Javelin 1.00 (400k) (currenly MIA)Javelin V2.32 - The Director's Cut
Includes full introduction flics, digitized artwork. Level editor and other tools are supplied.
In order to escape, you must journey through Heaven and Hell to find the clothes of Great Evil and deliver them to Arthur, king of the Natives.
Download
Director's Cut (both disks)
The IT-HE Strange Utilities Volume 1:
Includes POISON for WINDOWS 3.1, a useful utility to guarantee no more Windows crashes for the rest of your session.
"Poison For Windows is different." - Brendan Cracknell
"This protected mode isn't very well protected, is it?" - Joseph Morris
"It will always be possible to crash the system." - Paul Brown
Volume one consists of:
Download
Strange Utilities Volume 1
The IT-HE Graphics library:
It is pretty well optimised (we tried to beat other libraries!)
It runs in large memory model, and a separate version is availible for 286 protected mode.
From the .DIZ: 256 colours, screen flipping, fast box draw. The ITG can handle GIF, PCX, FLI, CEL, COL and its own RSD files.
If you want a full-featured, cross-platform library, best wait for Allegro version 4 by Shawn Hargreaves.
Download
Version 1.1B [Historical]
The IT-HE Sound Daemon:
Download
ISD 1.0
Blackout
Although Windows/95 has many bugs and other undesirables, one thing it does have is a loading screen.Download
blackout.zipDead Projects:
ITHEos:
This is the Dawning Of The Age Of Aquarius.. ..not as Paul said 'because it's wet'.
However, we eventually setted on ITHEOS, which of course stands for IT-HE Operating System.Download
source code
DOOMstick:
The level format was way beyond our understanding (We didn't know what linked-lists were, let alone BSP) and we didn't know that DOOM did texture overlaying.AViOS:
Actually I got the idea from Repton Infinity on the BBC micro. :-)
It is highly programmable.
Avios demos
Click here to see the successor to AViOS This link is to another site.
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![[Click for JPG picture]](avios000.jpg){kind=link}