Toss Up Simulator v1.0 for PalmOS
By Brian Apps, July 2002
email: tossup@brianapps.net


Introduction

Toss Up came out in 1980 and was the first in the very successful Game & Watch
series made by Nintendo.  Toss Up was in fact distributed by another company,
Nintendo used the name 'Ball' when released they released the game themselves.
As far as I'm aware Toss Up and Ball are identical.

I have fond memories of this game.  I remember playing it at school around
1981. The game also has some extra significance for me, during the early 90's
I developed a passion for real juggling and in '96 combined by passions for
juggling and programming to produce my first piece of shareware Juggle Saver 
(http://www.jugglesaver.co.uk).


System Requirements

The program runs on Palm devices running PalmOS 3.0 or greater and with at
least a 4 grey level screen (I think this boils to down to a Palm III device
or later.)


Instructions

The principle of the game is mind numbingly simple.  All you have to do is to
catch the falling balls before they smash on the floor.  You do this by moving
the juggler's hands to the left or right.

To move right press one of the 'hard' button on the left hand side (i.e. the
'Date Book' or 'Address' buttons).

To move left press one of the 'hard' button on the right hand side (i.e. the
'To Do list' or 'Memo Pad' buttons).

There are two variants to play, Game A and Game B.  Use the main menu to start
either of these games.  Game A has two balls in the air at any one time, you
score one point for each catch. Game B is slightly trickier, you have three
balls to keep in the air, and score ten points for each catch.


Other Info

The game itself was relatively easy to write, it was written in C/C++, and was
compiled using GCC and prc-tools.  I'll be releasing the source code at some
stage for those that are interested.  The most difficult part was obtaining
accurate timing information, I went to, what I expect most will think are,
pretty extreme measures to get this information.  I describe this process in
some detail on my web site for your information and/or amusement.

The game doesn't run as smoothly as I'd like and it does tend to get a little
'sticky' when you catch two balls quickly after each other.  Please don't send
bug reports for this issue but if you know what's causing it then please let
me know.

I remember from the version I used to play back in 1981 that extra balls
would appear in Game B for a short time once you reached a certain score.
The game I own now doesn't do this, well not that I've seen at least.  I've
watched the game being played to a score close to 40000 points (that's
wrapping the score around almost 4 times) before I got bored.  If anyone
can provide any information about these 'extra balls' I'll be happy to hear
from you.  It may be that my memory is going (I am getting old afterall) or
that there's different versions of the game (aside from the Toss Up/Ball
rebadging).

This program is freeware.  You are welcome to use and distribute the
program.  If you feature the program on your web site, drop me an email and
I'll add you to a mailing list so you'll automatically be kept up to date 
with updates.


