🚀 go-pugleaf

"A mysterious force ... " message happens when HACK cannot create
a level file.  There can be several causes for it, but for the
case of PC HACK there is usually only 1.  Many people use a RAMdisk
by specifying the RAMdisk=d: [d being some drive letter] line in the
HACK103.CNF file.  The ':' is not optional!!  If you don't put in the
':', PC HACK tries to create level files in the 'd' subdirectory of
your current directory.  This is because everything after the RAMdisk=
is considered a DOS pathname.  Pathnames are relative to the current
subdirectory unless they have a [drive name]: and/or they
start with a '\' (although a '/' will also suffice) which specifies
a path relative to the root directory.

The only other possible cause is not having enough file descriptors.
Besides the 5 (I think that's the number) default file descriptors that
DOS uses (stdout, stdin, stderr, aux, prn), PC HACK has at most 2 files
open simultaneously.  You might have to increase the number of files DOS
can have open simultaneously.  Try putting a FILES=10 line your config.sys
file.

I'm sorry about the cryptic "mysterious force" message in PC HACK.  It
should have been changed to tell you simply that the level file could
not be created.

-- 
	Don Kneller
UUCP:	...ucbvax!ucsfcgl!kneller
ARPA:	kneller@ucsf-cgl.ARPA
BITNET:	kneller@ucsfcgl.BITNET