Brickley's
Words

My LDraw text generator, txt2dat has been updated. The new version can be found here.

Changes in this version:

1. Upgraded to current library versions:
   • Triangle 1.6
   • Freetype 2.3.2 (Require at least 2.1.9)
2. Initial build support for Mac
3. Simplified Makefile
4. Added LDraw header info
5. Added -d, -f, -o, -e options
6. Changed def_font.pl & def_font.h to make default_font unsigned

Enjoy!

Many instructions now have a Europe / Asia version and a North American version. Usually, the only major difference is the last few pages, where they advertise Shop At Home and the LEGO magazine.

Until now, I have simply noted this in the Notes field, but now that it’s become so prevalent, I got sick of typing it in, and added an extra field instead, called Region. Currently it can only contain 2 values: EU = Europe / Asia, NA = North America. If it has neither, it means either the instructions have nothing identifying them to a specific region, or I missed it. Other regions may be added in future as necessary.

See the Instruction cross-reference here.

Well, after finding out that LEGO actually make available many instructions on their website in PDF format, I decided to cross-reference them to Peeron set numbers. The initial page is very basic, you can just enter the set number to search for, and if it’s available all instruction downloads available for it will be listed.

Some sets have several sheets or books, and there are many duplicates on the site. Just pick the one that looks the best. The page usually lists a desciption where there are multiple books/sheets, and also notes anything significant about the download. It also shows whether the PDF is just a scanned copy of the paper instructions, and if not, whether it has “inifinite” resolution for the instructions. It also specifies whether or not there is a warning on the instructions.

This data was collated by hand, so there are probably mistakes. Especially the warning field – I didn’t check exhaustively through all the instructions, just noted it where I happened to see it. Also there are about 70 available that I couldn’t reconcile to a Peeron set number, currently there’s no way to view these, but I will fix that ASAP. Please report any problems you find to instructions@br-eng.info.

[Edit: You can now view all the un-referenced instructions by clicking the link below the search box]

Also be aware that the files LEGO makes available on their site may change without notice – please report any dead links you find to instructions@br-eng.info. I will scan the LEGO site occasionally for updates.

Anyway, I hope someone finds this useful.

Ben Fleskes gave me permission to post my reduced versions of his train wheels, so here they are!

When I was in high school, we had a PDP11 mini-computer which was used in various classes for lots of interesting stuff. Well actually, when I say “we had” I actually mean “we had access to” – the computer itself resided elsewhere, we just had a couple of terminals and a line-printer connected to it.

Anyway, 2 of the games available on it were Super Star Trek (sst), and Colossal Cave Adventure (advent), both of which I used to play quite a lot.

Then, many years later, I decided to teach myself the Perl programming language. And it just happened that I came across the original Fortran source for advent around the same time. So I decided porting advent to Perl would be a way to learn the language while having fun too.

So the result was this Perl program (remove the .txt after downloading). It mostly worked, except for a couple of bits, like the wizard, which works a bit but not fully. But the game itself works fine, and you can save game positions.

However, it must be said that it was ported on a pretty old version of Perl (4 point something I think), so it is unlikely to work with more recent versions without some tweaking.

It also requires the original advent.dat file, which I’ve made available here.

Anyway, here it is, for what it’s worth, and if you get something out of it, well that’s just a bonus!