Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    I splurged and bought a copy of Puppy Love from Abel.  It's a
    good game, but it has one fatal flaw. 

    The story begins with a homeless dog in a junkyard whom you save
    and take home to train.  The dog runs around in your back yard
    and sometimes jumps, sits, rolls over, etc.  If the dog does
    something you like, you reward him with bones, which increases
    the probability that he'll do it again.  After a few bones, you
    can associate the behavior with a verbal command of your
    choosing.  After you've taught the dog a few tricks you can take
    him to the dog show. 

    At the dog show the judge asks you to have your dog do certain
    tricks.  If he succeeds he gets a ribbon, and the judge tells
    you what tricks the dog will have to do at the next level.  The
    tricks get harder and may involve doing a series of tricks in
    response to a single voice command or doing a trick only under
    certain circumstances, eg if the dog sees a squirrel.  You
    create these complex tricks by inserting the basic tricks into a
    script.  What you're doing, of course, is programming the dog. 

    My 2nd and 5th grade kids both liked the game.  The dog is
    friendly and playful and makes comments about how much he likes
    being trained and how he hopes to do well at the show.  It's
    easy for younger kids to get carried away by the story.  A dog
    can be trained over several sessions by saving him on disk at
    the end of each session.  Best of all, even though you feed the
    dog a ton of bones, he never does anything annoying on your
    carpets. 

    Now for the fatal flaw:  Puppy Love won't run on a machine with
    more than 512K.  I've got an A500 with a meg, and when the
    program didn't work I called Addison-Wesley's support group in
    Reading.  They said that the game was developed on an A1000 with
    half a meg and that it won't run on larger machines.  Sho nuff,
    when I pulled my A501 expansion board the game worked fine. 

    - Cliff

    Did you try running NOFASTMEM?  Or wasn't that possible?  If the
    game is a DOS disk and not copy protected, then make a copy and
    edit the startup sequence to run NOFASTMEM.  Also if it is not
    copy protected, I believe there is software to modify the program
    itself to use only fast mem...
    
    -steve

Well I just got a copy of PuppyLove and tried to copy it from the workbench -
no dice. Then I tried to copy it with Maurader brain 10, it didn't work so well
either. I'll try some of the various options of Maurader and report back.
I also tried to boot with Workbench and run it from the CLI after running
NOFASTMEM. I could spend hours playing dectective because they haven't updated 
the program since 1986. A directory of the disk files show 1985-1986. I won 
PuppyLove at a computer fair, but so far I have no love for Addison-Wesley.  
How hard could it be to update it to be sold in 1989? The copyright is 1987, 
but did anyone see this sold for the Amiga before late 1988? 

ps.
Thanks for the confirmation, Cliff. You saved me a call to Addison-Wesley,
although I might call them to complain.
Dave

    NoFastMem fixes the problem.  You copy system/nofastmem and c/run to 
    the PuppyLove c directory, and change the s/startup-sequence file to:

	run nofastmem
	puppylove
	endcli

    Works great.  Thanks, Steve!

    - Cliff

    re .3:
    
    You can use Marauder to copy PuppyLove.  Just use the default modes.  
    Don't try verbatim -- it doesn't work.
    
    I agree that A-W hasn't done right by this game.  I could only find 
    two places that sold it.  The packaging is nondescript -- no pictures 
    or anything that would attract people.  And then there's the 512k 
    problem that A-W's support people don't know how to fix.  (I sent 
    A-W a note describing how to get around the problem.)  It's not 
    surprising that you won the game, Dave.  That's probably the only way 
    dealers can get rid of it.
    
    It's really unfortunate that PuppyLove has been so poorly marketed.
    There is very little Amiga software for kids in the 5 to 10 year age
    group.  There are a few packages for pre-literate children - first
    colors, first letters, first numbers - and some packages for older
    children that have a heavy and obvious educational intent, such as
    thinly disguised spelling and math drills.  These programs are like
    nutritional cereals: parents buy them because they're good for the
    kids, but the kids avoid them.  PuppyLove is different because it's a 
    game first.  The educational content is hidden inside and sneaks up 
    on the kid.  Tom Snyder Productions is a company that specializes in 
    this type of entertaining yet educational software.  I hope the 
    PuppyLove misadventure hasn't discouraged them from producing 
    for the Amiga.
    
    - Cliff

     Yep, Marauder and nofastmem together worked. Hooray! Actually,
     PuppyLove has received good reviews (I saw 4 1/2 stars on a mini
     listing in one MAC magazine. I think the problem is A-W doesn't really
     know/care about Amigas. I was pretty excited when I won "the software
     package of your choice from Addison-Wesley"... the only title they
     have for the Amiga is PuppyLove though. Hindsight says I should have
     told them I have a MAC and taken the most expensive thing they sell.
     Anyway, I am proud of owning the superior Amiga, so pride of ownership
     overrode basic economics. Please don't tell me Addison Wesley sells
     a $400 software package :-}. 
                           
     Thanks to the support services of a major software company
     (DEC, VAXnotes, the AMIGA conference, Cliff, Steve, others)
     my son and I can use PuppyLove.
     Dave
     

    re: .6
    
    isn't Addison-Wesley the company that publishes the Amiga ROM KERNEL 
    Manuals?
    
    Look on the bright side, at least they had an Amiga title available.
    Many of those types of offers assume you have an ibmpc clone.
    
    -Dave

    I tried to order Puppy Love from Abel, and was told that it has
    been discontinued.

    Abel probably got sick of people calling up and saying that their 
    program didn't work.  You could call Addison-Wesley's software 
    hotline, (617)944-3700, and ask them what the story is.
    
    - Cliff

    I called Addison-Wesley at the number suggested in .9.  They said
    that Puppy Love was NOT discontinued and wondered who in the world
    would say such a thing.  I will try another mail order firm
    for Puppy Love.
    
    Mike