Conference kernel::csguk_systems

101.0. "For those doing TCD ....." by KERNEL::WRIGHTON (No , it's meant to work like that !) Fri Jun 01 1990 07:43

             
    
THE PAGING GAME

 -- Jeff Berryman, University of British Columbia


Rules:

1.  Each player gets several million *things*.

2.  Things are kept in *crates* that hold 4096 things each.  Things in the 
    same crate are called *crate-mates*.

3.  Crates are stored either in the *workshop* or in a *warehouse*.  The 
    workshop is almost always too small to hold all the crates.

4.  There is only one workshop, but there may be several warehouses.  
    Everyone shares them.

5.  Each thing has its own *thing-number*.

6.  What you do with a thing is to *zark* it.  Everyone takes turns 
    zarking.

7.  You can only zark your things, not anyone else's.

8.  Things can only be zarked when they are in the workshop.

9.  Only the *Thing King* know whether a thing is in the workshop or in a 
    warehouse.

10. The longer a thing goes without being zarked, the *grubbier* it is said 
    to become.


11. The way you get things is to ask the Thing King.  He only gives out 
    things in multiples of eight.  This is to keep the royal overhead down.

12. The way you zark a thing is to give its thing-number.  If you give the 
    number of a thing that happens to be in the workshop it gets zarked
    right away.  If it is in the warehouse, the Thing King packs the crate
    containing your thing back into the workshop.  If there is no room in
    the workshop, he first finds the grubbiest crate in the workshop,
    whether it be yours or someone else's, and packs it off with all its
    crate-mates to a warehouse.  In its place he puts the crate containing
    your thing.  Your thing then gets zarked and you never knew it wasn't
    in the workshop all along.

13. Each player's stock of things have the same numbers as everyone else's.
    The Thing King always knows who owns what thing and whose turn it is,
    so you can't ever accidentally zark someone else's thing even if it has
    the same thing-number as one of yours. 


Notes:

1.  Traditionally, the Thing King sits at a large, segmented table and is 
    attended to by pages (the so-called "table pages") whose job it is to
    help the king remember where all the things are and to whom they
    belong. 

2.  One consequence of Rule 13 is that everyone's thing-numbers will be 
    similar from game to game, regardless of the number of players.

3.  The Thing King has a few things of his own, some of which move back and 
    forth between workshop and warehouse just like anyone else's, but some
    of which are just too heavy to move out of the workshop. 

4.  Within the given set of rules, oft-zarked things tend to get kept 
    mostly in the workshop while seldom-zarked things stay mostly in a
    warehouse.  This is efficient stock control. 

5.  Sometimes even the warehouses get full.  The Thing King then has to 
    start piling things on the dump out back.  This makes the game slower
    because it takes a long time to get things off the dump when they are
    needed in the workshop.  A forthcoming change in the rules will allow
    the Thing King to select the grubbiest things in the warehouse and send
    them to the dump in his spare time, thus keeping the warehouses from
    getting too full.  This means that the most infrequently-zarked things
    will end up in the dump so the Thing King won't have to get things from
    the dump so often.  This should speed up the game when there are a lot
    of players and the warehouses are getting full. 


LONG LIVE THE THING KING!