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BACKGAMMON (VERSION 1.1)
Copyright (c) 1996 Ziff Davis Publishing Company by Michael J. Mefford 
First Published November 19, 1996 
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About  BACKGAMMON...
Purpose:  Backgammon is an ancient and fascinating game that is played 
worldwide and is especially popular in eastern Mediterranean countries. 
The game requires a nice balance of luck and skill. 

Backgammon is played on a board with triangular designs called points.
The colored disks are called stones. Each player has 15 stones. The object 
of the game is to move all your stones from point to point around and then 
off the board before your opponent does the same.

Usage:  To install Backgammon, copy the program files Backgamn.exe and
Backgamn.hlp to a subdirectory on your hard disk and create an icon for
Backgammon in your shell. When you first launch Backgammon, you'll see 
a picture of a backgammon board set up for a new game, with program 
option controls along the right edge. You can play Backgammon against the
computer or a human opponent; the Against buttons let you choose. Click on
the button with a picture of a computer to play against the computer; click on
the button with a picture of a person to play against a human opponent. 
When you first run Backgammon, the program defaults to the computer. 
Red makes the first play, and the computer always plays blue.

A player rolls the dice by clicking on the Roll button. You can then use the
mouse to drag a stone to a new location. While you are dragging, the cursor 
changes into a hand that grasps the stone. When the cursor is over a point 
where it can legally land, the grasping hand opens up. If you attempt to drag
a stone that cannot legally be moved, the cursor will not change into a hand.
That is the only clue you will get that you are attempting an illegal move; 
there are no annoying beeps.

Note that you must drag stones in the order in which they are stacked on a 
point, starting with the stone closest to the pointed end and working toward
the base. When a point has more than one layer of stones, you start with the
topmost layer.

The slide bar in the lower-right corner lets you control the speed at which the
computer makes its moves. (When the computer moves too quickly, it can be 
hard to see what it has done.)

Backgammon keeps a running score for red and blue across sessions, adding 
one point for a single-point win, two points for a gammon, and three points for
a backgammon. To reset the scores to 0, click on the Clear button.

Update History:  Version 1.1 fixes stuck on bar, miscounting gammons and 
backgammons scores and phantom stones appearing and disappearing.

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author for you.

Michael J. Mefford is a contributing ediitor of PC Magazine.
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