+ X-NEWS: spcvxb alt.folklore.computers: 1386 M Relay-Version: VMS News - V5.9C-01 30/04/90 VAX/VMS V5.3; site spcvxb.spc.edu K Path: spcvxb!njin!rutgers!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!lll-winken!uunet!sco!rosso " Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers$ Subject: Here it is: The Paging Game  Message-ID: <5238@scorn.sco.COM>! From: rosso@sco.COM (Ross Oliver)  Date: 3 May 90 21:02:40 GMT % Reply-To: rosso@sco.com (Ross Oliver)  Sender: news@sco.COM& References: <10769@shlump.nac.dec.com>	 Lines: 95    Being a pack rat comes in handy  once in a while.  Enjoy. --------------    "                    The Paging Game                           RULES   - 1.   Each player gets several million things.   : 2.   Things are kept in crates that hold 4096 things each.5      Things in the same crate are called crate-mates.   ? 3.   Crates are stored either in the workshop or the warehouse. 8      The workshop is almost always too small to hold all      the crates.  8 4.   There is only one workshop but there may be several(      warehouses.  Everybody shares them.  ) 5.   Each thing has its own thing number.   7 6.   What you do with a thing is to zark it.  Everybody       takes turns zarking.   7 7.   You can only zark your things, not anybody else's.   3 8.   Things can only be zarked when they are in the       workshop.  8 9.   Only the Thing King knows whether a thing is in the       workshop or in a warehouse.  6 10.  The longer a thing goes without being zarked, the#      grubbier it is said to become.   5 11.  The way you get things is to ask the Thing King. 4      He only gives out things in multiples of eight.-      This is to keep the royal overhead down.   2 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 a workshop it gets zarked right away.  If it6      is in a 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 somebody ;      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 3      know that it wasn't in the workshop all along.   ; 13.  Each player's stock of things have the same numbers as <      everybody else's.  The Thing King always knows who owns7      what thing and whose turn it is, so you can't ever ?      accidentally zark somebody 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 who they belong to.   9 2.   One consequence of Rule 13 is that everybody's thing :      numbers will be similar from game to game, regardless      of the number of players.  8 3.   The Thing King has a few things of his own, some of=      which move back and forth between workshop and warehouse 9      just like anybody else's, but some of which are just +      too heavy to move out of the workshop.   ; 4.   With the given set of rules, oft-zarked things tend to 8      get kept mostly in the workshop while little-zarked:      things stay mostly in a warehouse.  This is efficient      stock control.   8 5.   Sometimes even 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 allow9      the Thing King to select the grubbiest things in the <      warehouses and send them to the dump in his spare time,7      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 9      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