ToonTalk Enhancements and Bug Fixes

History of ToonTalk Enhancements and Bug Fixes - 1997

Here is the list of bugs and enhancements in 1997. Similar lists for 1996, 1998, and 1999 are available as well.

1/7/97

Fixed spelling of twelfth. (Thanks to Jay Schmoll and Kelly Johnson for pointing this out.)
Fixed spelling of CAPITAL in a puzzle. (Thanks to Jay Schmoll and Kelly Johnson for pointing this out.)
Numbers with commas (or in other languages periods) are no longer broken between lines with Marty is talking.
Sometimes Marty broken sentences between talk balloons unnecessarily.
While doing puzzles if you haven't used a bomb then Marty now suggests it much earlier than he used to.
If while doing puzzles you asked Marty to repeat himself and then left before he finished he no longer tries to finish when you come back.
While doing puzzles sometimes if you left while Marty was talking even if he didn't have more to say he tried to repeat himself when you came back.

1/8

Can no longer resize the Start ToonTalk application. (Thanks to Jay Schmoll for suggesting this.)

1/9

While running ToonTalk in full screen mode if you type a Window's command like Alt-Tab or Ctrl-Esc confusion used to result. ToonTalk is now paused and minimized in this situation. (Thanks to Jay Schmoll and Kelly Johnson for pointing this out.)

1/14

Fixed problems with newly introduced sound data type. They can now be placed in boxes and appropriate help is given by Marty.

1/15

Adjusted the size of buttons in the Start ToonTalk program to accommodate languages that need more space.
Fixed a bug that caused the system to crash when Marty was talking about a robot that uses the new built in sound type.
Fixed a bug in puzzle mode which sometimes caused a crash when leaving the house.

1/16

If a puzzle required robots trained in the previous puzzle then if you quit and started again then the robots previously trained were lost.
Fixed the geometry of pictures of the goal for a few puzzles.
Titles no longer trigger the teleport in sound.

1/17

Sometimes copying a nest with things on it led to unpredictable behavior.
If you erased something (made it blank) with Dusty and then put it on the back of a picture or in another house and then put Dusty in reverse it would be restored. Now Dusty only restores blank things that are on the screen.

1/19

If ToonTalk's speed is changed it no longer affects the speed that Marty talks or that subtitles are shown.
Redid part 2 and 3 of the Ping Pong demo and the factorial demo.

1/20

Fixed a recent problem with training robots on boxes that contain covered nests.
Fixed some problems in how Marty gives help in using bombs.

1/23

Marty can talk!!!! (But only in the 32 bit version and currently I'm using a speech engine that I don't have the right to redistribute.) -speak 1 will turn it on -balloon 0 will turn off talk balloons
Scales can now be changed by typing ' ', '+', or '-' if they are tottering or have blanks on both sides of them. (Thanks to Leo Burd for noticing that this feature was broken.)
F1 quickly following F1 was ignored works now. (Thanks to Jay Kahn for reporting this.)
If running with text-to-speech you can shift-click a text pad and it'll be spoken.
You can now have subtitles to demos spoken.

1/26

Some puzzles (like #6) depend upon the previous puzzle. If you set off the bomb in such a puzzle you were left with an empty floor. All you could do is restart ToonTalk and the puzzle would be restored properly. Fixed now.
If you copy Dusty the vacuum you now also copy what's in his stomach.
If a nest is copied or saved and it has 100s of things on top then the system crashed. This happened frequently solving puzzle p42.pzl. (Thanks to Phil Mercurio for reporting this.)

1/28

If -language <name> is missing or misspelled then Versions entry for "Language" in toontalk.ini is used. If that is missing then American English is chosen.
If a DLL is missing for a language the system now tries to get it off the CDROM if possible.

1/28

If -language <name> is missing or misspelled then Versions entry for "Language" in toontalk.ini is used. If that is missing then American English is chosen.
If a DLL is missing for a language the system now tries to get it off the CDROM if possible.

1/30

Fixed various installation problems including one that prevented installing a new version on top of an old one.

1/31

Fixed a problem with the display of subtitles for demos.
Fixed a problem that caused the subtitles to stop half way through the Introductory Tour.

2/7

Sometimes dropping a negative number on a text pad produced odd results.

2/12

Trucks will no longer start to drive if power is off (F8).
F8 won't stop them if they are already running.
You can put a text pad in a truck and it'll end up in the new house.
Fixed a bug when doing puzzles that sometimes crashed when blowing up the house or entering the rocket. (introduced on 1/26)
If you use -puzzle to specify which puzzle and that puzzle depends upon the previous puzzle for the items on the floor of the house then there is nothing there now. Used to be you'd seen the stuff from the last puzzle you did.
If you run demos with narration on a machine without a sound card the system could crash.

2/16

Fixed a bug where when Marty is describing a robot whose thought bubble includes blank boxes it could crash.
If you dropped a truck with stuff inside on the notebook it lost the stuff inside. (Also if you dropped a loaded truck on the stack of trucks in Tooly it was returned.)
When you copied a truck some of the stuff inside wasn't copied.
Robot's now have serial numbers visible on their chests.

2/17

Puzzles that required the saving of very large amount of state behaved erratically. For example, in p42.pzl if the nest contains more than 1000 numbers it used to cause problems.

2/18

Beta 6B released.

3/1

If you copied a picture with a wand in "original" mode then the things on the back were also restored. For example, the Ping Pong ball so it would not bounce.
Adjusted the way mouse movements are mapped to ToonTalk movements to increase sensitivity when window is small and screen is big.

3/6

If a robot was trained holding a magic wand (as is the case for many puzzles) and the wand was set down and later picked up and used then sometimes robots got mixed up.
Robots sometimes held magic wands behind them looked stupid.
You can now put trucks, notebooks, robots, and bombs in boxes. Robots can be trained to use these things.
You can now drop a notebook in a truck and that will be the notebook used by the robots in the new house.
ToonTalk to Java translator now works for everything except pictures, sounds, and remote controls. If you pause ToonTalk while holding a robot or truck, then a corresponding Java applet will be created and displayed.
You can also drop a text pad in a truck and it'll end up in the new house.
If you put a text pad in a truck and then generate a Java applet it will get its name from the text pad rather than generating one.

3/7

Fixed a bug with trucks that are stopped (F8) and fully loaded and animations are finished instantly.
ToonTalk to Java translator can now handle the random number remote.

3/10

Fixed a bug where a robot had a remote control in its thought bubble that has been erased (by Dusty). Sometimes system would crash when blowing up a house with such a robot in it.

3/14

The Toontalk to Java translator now generates comments as well.

3/19

Marty can talk! Only in the 32 bit version though.

3/20

Fixed recently introduced bug where Marty would reject many correct puzzle solutions.

3/21

Can no longer break boxes apart by dropping them on a number while doing puzzles.
When Marty tries to repeat what he was saying before you left the rocket (in puzzles) he now doesn't repeat as much.
Text to speech now works with sound on (though sound is turned off when Marty is around). (Waiting for Microsoft SAPI 3.0 to deal with this well.)

3/22

Marty doesn't repeat himself as much now.
colour palette changed to leave Windows the 20 colors it wants.

3/24

Got Marty's talk balloon and speech synchronized.

3/25

Reduced volume of sound effects when narration is in effect.
Redid the Swedish version of puzzle #41.
Narrations now are in the language ToonTalk is running in unless overridden in toontalk.ini by specifying a value for SubtitlesSuffix. (UST for English and SET for Swedish now.)

3/26

Redid Ping Pong demo part 3.
Robot on the back of pictures no longer run unless the picture is dropped on the floor.

3/27

Pause dialog no longer gives confusing warning about losing stuff not in Notebook.
Speech to text now has an option in the notebook on page 10 for controlling it.
Narration of demos in the 32 bit version sometimes would interrupt itself.

3/30

Fixed bugs in various puzzles.

3/31

Beta Release 7 (and Swedish pre-release 2.0).

4/2

Changed the Java stuff to Java packages.

4/3

Fixed a problem with speech where commas or periods were inside of expressions (like 1,000).
Redid the autostart application (CDROM only) to offer an installation choice on the first screen.
When you leave the rocket speech now stops (and sound effects are restored regardless).
PageDown now works with speech as well. Current sentence is interrupted and Marty skips to the next.

4/7

Greatly improved the synchrnoization between Marty's talk balloons and spoken speech.
While training a robot the robot can now move offscreen a bit used to be you sometimes couldn't pick up something you dropped near the edge.
A robot trained to pick up and drop the whole toolbox got mixed up.
Sometimes a special message from Marty after solving a puzzle was lost. (E.g. sometimes after p16.pzl).
Fixed a bug in the way Marty said Swedish numbers between 1000000 and 2000000.

4/8

Robot serial numbers over 1000 now look better.
Sometimes sound effects were lost if left a room while Marty was talking (out loud).
Sometimes if you start with a particular puzzle (using -puzzle on the command line) then the things you make were placed at the wrong place in the rocket.
Sometimes if you start with a particular puzzle (using -puzzle on the command line) then you would reach a puzzle that depends upon stuff made earlier. Now a warning and advice is given.
If you have a nest in your pocket and a robot is repeatedly giving the bird something then you'll now see the bird deliver the stuff to you and return.
Fixed a problem saving the state of puzzles after puzzle 40.
City is now smaller when running puzzles.
Can no longer cheat during puzzles by "stealing" the magic wand from a robot who has been trained to set it down.

4/11

If you train a robot to drop something in a hole, and then vacuum away (or erase) the whole box from his thought bubble and give him a box with fewer holes you now get a reasonable error message.

4/13

Improved the way ToonTalk internally keeps track of what scene an object is currently part of.
Fixed a bug when blowing up the house in puzzle p53.pzl
Marty now describes boxes with many short sentences rather than one long one.
Fixed a bug that happened when you stood up holding a box while a robot was working on the box.
Fixed a problem displaying large boxes (100s or 1000s of holes).
Set a maximum number of holes for a box since the system slows down terribly as they get to be several 1000 long. 2048 is the max now.

4/14

If you used Dusty in reverse while over a stack (in the toolbox or a notebook) then copies of the stack item were made.
If you dropped the wand and then mouse clicked without moving the mouse sometimes you got the thing last pointed to by the tip of the wand.
In high resolution (-v 25) with a hat sometimes the hat was wrapped around so that the edge of it was behind his head.
If the programmer has the nest in his/her pocket and flies the helicopter the bird now flies there if needed.

4/15

Sometimes the arm wasn't quite attached to the hand properly.
Redid bank account demo.
Changed 32bit implementation so that EXE files are about 1M smaller. (They share the file "resind" with the 16 bit version.)
Text to speech (32 bit only) sometimes turned off sound effects even though Marty didn't appear.
Fixed bugs with text-to-speech and sound effects switching.

4/16

A bird on the floor when given something didn't quite return to where she started but drifted. No longer.
The user profile USR and LOG files now on Win 95 can be over 200 characters long. Previously (and still in Win 3.1) if 2 users shared the first 8 letters they were considered the same user.
If training a robot in a puzzle with a training counter it no longer counts if you just drop or pick up the magic wand.

4/19

Used to be if you dropped something into a truck that was in a box it would crash. Thanks to Katherine Nelson for reporting this.
Sometimes things inside of a box that was on a notebook page didn't display right.
Fixed a new problem where Marty (with speech off) would put several sentences in a talk balloon with a small font.

4/21

Fixed a bug in the 32 bit version where on some machines if you paused and returned some images were clobbered.
On some machines the first Ping Pong demo took a very long time in the titles.
If puzzle files are not installed on the hard disk but are on the CDROM, it now reads them from the CDROM.

4/22

If you are running off the CDROM and your drive is fast enough you can now remove the TempDir entry from toontalk.ini and ToonTalk will no longer load files from the CDROM to temporary hard drive files.
It used to be that if you put the Toolbox down offscreen that you couldn't pick him up again. Now a little bit is always visible and it is graspable.
Marty no longer mentions that text objects that spell a sound can be used to make the sound since this is this way of making sounds is being phased out.
Fixed a problem with puzzle p51 where the number became exactly 3000 rather than larger.
Marty now does a better job of describing the clipboard remote control.
Once again if you change the size or position of the toolbox or the tools that live inside him (Dusty, Pumpy, etc.) then when you restart ToonTalk the tools will be the size and position you indicated.
Sometimes the 32 bit version would lose sound effects if the text-to-speech engine couldn't initialize properly.
If you start up ToonTalk, pause it, click on come back later and then start up ToonTalk again with the same user name then the old ToonTalk is activated.

4/23

Training a robot to put a notebook in a truck caused multiple problems.
Robots got confused if you trained one to put a nest on the floor and then put things in the nest.
If you change the size of the Tool Box then the items inside get a smaller or bigger normal size when retrieved. This is now also true for robots that remove things from the Tool Box.
If you trained a robot to vacuum up the main notebook, or send it off in a truck with a robot that blows up that house then ToonTalk crashed since the main notebook was destroyed. No longer.

4/24

Robot's using magic wands now drop things more accurately.
Marty described scales strangely. Thanks to Lennart and Tobias for pointing this out.

5/7

Fixed a problem where things on top of nests inside of boxes sometimes displayed themselves with the wrong size.
If a robot was contained in something (a box or a truck) which was in a notebook and the robot was trained to get something out of a notebook then he didn't use the notebook he came from. Does now.
Sometimes when the sensor notebook is opened and the keyboard is heavily used then a bit of memory was accessed that shouldn't. Debugging tools caught this but not clear if there are any symptoms.

5/8

The 16 bit version of ToonTalk cannot import pictures that are bigger than 64K and only if they have 256 colors. Marty now gives a warning and nothing is imported.
On a few systems exiting ToonTalk with Alt-F4 caused a Direct Draw error.
If you set off a bomb and then quickly pressed "Esc" to stand up, sometimes the house would not explode until you went back inside. But then Tooly the ToolBox doesn't make it out OK. Fixed now.
Sometimes copying something in the thought bubble of a robot crashes the system. No longer.
A robot trained to drop a box on a number sometimes got confused.
A sensor all by itself on a notebook page was the wrong size.
If you dropped a truck with a robot inside on a notebook sometimes a copy of the robot stayed around until you left the floor.

5/12

Fixed many ToonTalk to Java bugs.
The generated Java code can now be run as an applet or as an application.

5/14

A bird sometimes forgot to deliver something. If it then returned to a house that blew up the item was destroyed improperly. Could lead to a crash.
Fixed various problems associating with shift-clicking text when text-to-speech is available.
Fixed a problem that occurred when more than 128 things were on the screen at once.
Fixed many ToonTalk to Java bugs dealing with trucks.

5/15

When things collided then there was a 50% chance that the sensor would detect it one frame later. So if you wanted them both to react to the collision the delayed one might not still be colliding on the next frame. Thanks to Kevin O'Brien for pointing out this problem.
If 2 objects were moving very quickly relative to their size then they used to be able to pass through each other without a collision detector noticing. No longer.

5/17

Sentence maker demo on the last page of the example notebook on page 6 was enhanced.
Beta 7C released.

5/21

Finished major re-write of Java classes for running translated ToonTalk. No longer heavily uses Java threads. Display of results improved.
5/22
1. Fixed a bug where a robot lost track of stuff when something was put in a box, taken out, and then something was put into it.
After training a robot, the limits on how far your arm can go offscreen were not restored so it was easy to move your arm off screen and "lose" it.
If a robot was working somewhere in the city and sending key strokes to the main notebook (looking for a page), then if you picked up the notebook you stopped the robot. Also the robot running elsewhere messed up the size of the items on the first pages of the notebook temporarily.

5/23

Fixed a bug where a notebook shared by lots of robots in different houses is destroyed. (Demo2 of Sentence Maker example could trigger this after waiting long enough in heliocopter while it is running.)
5/25
1. Fixed a bug with the sensor for detecting if the control button was down.

5/26
Fixed a bug where a text pad was sent off in a truck and then the new house with the pad was visited.
Sometimes while exiting ToonTalk while tools are coming out of Tooly system would crash.

5/27

Fix on 5/22 where robot lost track of stuff broke when a robot dropped things on a number (or text pad) on the floor.
Fixed a few problems with ToonTalk to Java translator when magic wand was used more than once without setting it down.

5/28

If a bird comes back to a box to find it now occupied, she'll fly around and wait. If you then got up (or set off a bomb) the system crashed. Also she flew around in a goofy manner.
If a bird is returning to a box that has been vacuumed she now stops.

5/29

If a notebook page contains something that uses collision detection and you leave that page the system used to crash. Problem introduced on 5/15. (Thanks to dcornell for pointing this out.)
Fixed a bug from 5/22 where while training a robot it can be way off-screen.
Fixed a bug where a robot during training picks up a many-holed box and it gets wider and wider.

5/30

Many small changes to the way Marty describes things, especially remote controls.
6/2
Sometimes Marty when talking about pictures would include a ) when there was no (.

6/8

Translator to Java now supports pictures and sounds. Nearly everything (all the example programs for example) now run fine in a Web browser.
Beta 7D released.

6/11

Java equivalents of ToonTalk programs that use pictures (e.g. Ping Pong) run about twice as fast now.

6/12

Java now supports global sensors for keyboard and mouse.
If a robot was trained with a box with a sensor with a text display (like shift button down sensor) then in the thought bubble it was replaced with the empty string. It is now replaced by a string corresponding to its last state. If this isn't what is desired one can always replace the text in the thought bubble.

6/13

Add new kinds of synthetic images. In addition to rectangles the pictures notebook now contains ovals, lines, rounded rectangles, etc.

6/16

Java now queries the user for values if an empty box hole is matched against something.

6/21

If a picture is a rectangle with pictures on top and its visibility is set to see some then the pictures on top will be visible and the rectangle will not.

6/23

It once again works to drop a flipped picture on top of a flipped picture. The picture underneath will act as if all the robots and boxes have been dropped on it. This is a very useful way of adding or combining behaviors. If you train a robot by giving him boxes containing remote controls they automatically are erased for the thought bubble. This now also works if you remove the box from his thought bubble and replace it. If you flip over a picture with pictures on top then its notebook contains a copy of the pictures on top and a notebook for each one. The copies now have robots and boxes on the back if the original did.

6/27

ToonTalk to Java translator now uses labels on boxes to generate prompts if needed. If a box is empty or contains a nest without a bird and it is matched against some value then the user is asked for a value. The label under that hole is used if there is one. If a bird without nest is given something its nest will be labeled by the label in the hole the bird is in. If there are no labels a generic message is used.

6/30

Fixed a problem with the Ping Pong demos caused by the addition of new pictures.
When text-to-speech is used without talk balloons Marty would sometimes leave before finishing what he was saying.
The remote control for looks now behaves properly when made blank and given a new appearance.
The remote control for looks now becomes a controller of the picture whose back it is dropped on.
Flipped pictures did not always clip the pictures on the back properly so, for example, thought bubbles sometimes stuck out behind the edge of the flipped picture.

7/3

Things on the back of pictures are now automatically laid out in tiling fashion.

7/22

If a robot on the back of a picture loads up a truck with another robot and box then they now end up on the back of the picture as well.
If a robot on the back of a picture loses the box he is working on (e.g. he was vacuumed it up or put it in a truck for another robot to work on) then he also disappears from the back of the picture since he can no longer do anything.
Sometimes if a trained robot picked something up and changed it (e.g. the number of holes of a box) and released it the size would be wrong.

7/23

Redid Ping Pong Demo (part 3).
ToonTalk is now more responsive to mouse movements (maximum speed in various contexts has been reduced).
If Marty needs to say something that he can't speak (an error message from MCI for now) he will switch to using talk balloons for a minute.
Make some error messages more important (so they come through even if Marty's default talk level is increased to 4).

7/29

Beta 8 released

8/1

Fixed a bug with birds and exploding houses (e.g. sentences demo) that crashed system.
Fixed bug in translator to Java when making something empty (e.g. a hole of a box).

8/4

Fixed a bug in translator to Java when a notebook has a truck with a robot in it.
Fixed a bug in translator to Java when a robot uses a notebook.
You can no longer vacuum things out of a remote control notebook of a picture. (Thanks to Katherine Nelson for pointing out this problem.)
On puzzle #49 (blow up the other house) if you blew up the wrong house and went back to the rocket the system would crash. No longer. (Thanks to Katherine Nelson for pointing out this problem.)
When in puzzle #62 you flipped the number, the system crashed. No longer. (Thanks to Katherine Nelson for pointing out this problem.)
Sometimes when a robot picked up a box it gradually grew wider and wider. No longer.
When Windows was running with more than 256 colors, then the 16 bit version showed the subtitles as black on black. (Thanks to Katherine Nelson for pointing out this problem.)
When Windows was running with more than 256 colors, when exiting the 32 bit version full-screen mode then errors would occur and leave Windows with 256 colors.

8/5

Fixed the release information on the opening screen.
Fixed one of the images of Tooly, the toolbox, settling down. Used to have a purple fringe.
Now when ToonTalk is running in full-screen mode and loses the focus (e.g. Alt-Tab or Ctrl-Esc or another application grabbing it), you now get a specialized dialog for the occasion. Also if Windows was running more than 256 colors, it used to be reset to 256 colors when this happened.

8/6

Sometimes when two robots were working together and the programmer wasn't watching either one, then one of them would lose track of things and stop. Fixed.
Java translator had a problem if a notebook containing a truck containing a robot was encountered.
F9 now only hides your hand and arm but not what you are holding.
Beta 8A released.

8/9

If StartTT.exe has problems launching ToonTalk it now describes the problem in the file c:\StartTT.log
StartTT didn't work right if ToonTalk was installed so that the path name contained too many characters.

8/11

If a problem occurred while running a puzzle then starting again sometimes caused the same problem. Fixed at least for some of the special puzzles that depend upon earlier puzzles.
If ToonTalk is started on a puzzle that requires things from an earlier puzzle but they aren't available it now offers to send you back a few puzzles.
Beta 8A introduced a bug where if ToonTalk wanted to put up a message box, then it would first put up the "pause dialog". Fixed now.
Began using Microsoft Speech SDK 3.0. Text-to-speech handles apostrophes differently so needed to change ToonTalk accordingly.

8/13

If any file is missing from the hard disk, ToonTalk now reads it from the CDROM (if it was installed from a CDROM). It now asks the user to insert the CDROM if it is not.
If an argument to the -language switch is unknown then the first 2 letters are taken to be the country code and files named XXttYY.dll and XXsttYY.dll (where XX is the country code and YY is 16 or 32 depending upon which version of ToonTalk is being loaded) are loaded. This permits a released version of ToonTalk to be localized after the fact.

8/19

Fixed a bug when "taking control" of a demo how you can't pause it properly after that.
Fixed a bug where ToonTalk was trying to ask for the CDROM but didn't have the string library loaded yet.

8/22

Finished complete re-write of installation program. Can install and un-install separate components. Should be more robust and flexible than old one. And it looks more "modern".
Fixed a bug where the toolbox didn't make it out of an exploding house when the power was off. (Thanks to Katherine Nelson for pointing out this problem.)
Fixed a recently introduced bug in reading the history of user. May have caused strange behavior on Windows NT 4.0.

8/23

Many small improvements to the wording of what Marty says.
When Marty describes a sensor that has been operated upon (e.g. "\2" was dropped on it) then he interrupted his description with some advice. The sentence order now makes sense.

8/25

Fixed a problem generating Java applets if a robot flipped something over while holding it.
Fixed problems with some of the comments generated for Java.
Fixed problems with some of the comments generated for Java in Swedish.
Even though most puzzles disable typing of text (too easy to cheat) ToonTalk allowed typing anyway. (Thanks to Tobias Zetterlund for pointing this out.)
ToonTalk also allowed pictures to be flipped even if a puzzle switch disabled this.

8/26

Fixed various bugs that interfered with puzzles 63, 64 and 65.
Changed the policy about pictures (or numbers) with robots on the back. They no longer stop when picked up or dropped in a box.
A box with a picture with robots on the back now starts working when taken out of a notebook.
Puzzle 61 allowed players to bring any number back.
Expanded the hints in puzzle 65.
8/27
If the argument to -I on the command line contained an extension (.DMO) then it would only work if it was a fully-qualified path name. No longer.
Added 5 more puzzles.

8/28

If a number was flipped over twice, then put in a notebook and then taken out and dropped on a picture the number and the underlying number pad were added to the picture. Now just the number is added.

8/29

Added 4 more puzzles.
After solving the last puzzle you needed to come back to Marty for him to tell you so. If you solved all the puzzles and start "Play Game" then you are now given the option of starting over again.
The command line now permits file names (e.g. puzzle or demo names) to have spaces in them as many Windows 95 files do. Do not use - in names however as that may confuse things.

8/31

Fixed a bug where system crashed sometimes during training a robot during puzzles if the robot picked up the box it was given.
Puzzle #54 now works by waiting for the bird to deliver the message.
Used to be you could make a team of robots some of who haven't been trained yet.
Puzzles that involve results that are dynamic (have robots on the back) are now checked properly. And Marty responds appropriately to different sorts of wrong dynamic answers.
If a robot is starting to work on a box or is waiting for a sensor to change and the box is near the top of the screen the robot would go off the top of the screen.
Flipping a picture back over with robots on the back now starts them up (used to be that you had to drop it first).
Flipping a picture over used to stop the robots on the back for good. Now they are stopped only until it is flipped back.
Sometimes dynamic things posted on the wall of the broken rocket stopped running after a while.

9/1

If successive puzzles left the solution in your hand for the next puzzle and you reset (bombed) the house sometimes you got a previous thing in your hand.
Marty would not jump to the next sentence when really speaking when a player clicked the mouse inside the rocket.
When you solve the last puzzle Marty now says new things and as a present adds your age in seconds to the sensor notebook.
Robots now have generated names (unless the GenerateRobotNames switch in toontalk.ini has been set to 0). Thanks to Jerry Balzano for the suggestion.
Fixed a problem where the system crashed while the Java applet generator tried to generate long comments (describing complex items).
Fixed various bugs when generating a Java applet that has robots on the back of a picture that in turn is in a box on the back of another picture.
Java applets didn't quite do the right thing when scales were used with numbers with robots on the back.

9/2

Fixed various Java applet bugs.
Java applets of numbers or text with robots on the back no longer generate a picture of the number (that didn't look good anyway).
Java applets that didn't generate a picture flickered badly.
Java applets now run (and compile) using archives. This among other things means they can run off the CDROM which doesn't have long file names.

9/3

There is now an internal list of "bad" robot names that are not used.
Fixed bugs in Java applets that used operations on remote controls.
Java applets now work if the robot was trained to use the main notebook (that lives inside Tooly).

9/4

If you dropped a box on a picture and then vacuumed it out it didn't quite behave like a box anymore. You no longer can add a box to a picture. Thanks to Tobias Zetterlund for reporting this.
Fixed a bug in Java applets when a robot was trained to change the pages of a notebook without picking it up.
Fixed a problem with Java applets when a robot was trained to change the colour of a synthetic picture.
Fixed problems with Java applets when a robot changed notebook pages in certain ways.

9/5

The Java pictures and sounds needed for Java applets using them can now reside on either the hard disk or CD-ROM.
If after copying something (e.g. a number) a robot was trained to use the keyboard while still holding the wand with the attached item, then the corresponding Java applet didn't work. Also Marty described the robot incorrectly.
In both ToonTalk and Java applets if a random number had some operations performed (e.g. adding 1000) and it was copied then the copy did not have the operations performed until the next cycle.
Java applets that use pictures can now run either in a separate window or inside the browser. The Switch "RunAppletInNewWindow" in ToonTalk.ini controls this.
Java applets now by default receive their name from the first robot involved.

9/8

Fixed a recently introduced bug that prevented Start ToonTalk from starting demos because the names had a space added at the end. Preceeding and trailing spaces in file names are now ignored.
The compilation of Java applets can now occur with the needed files on the CDROM.

9/9

Fixed a problem with training robots to drop pictures on pictures.
Fixed a problem with trained robots flipping a picture over and using the remote controls in the picture's notebook.
The compilation of the Java applet can now use a compiler on the CD-ROM if one has not been installed on the hard disk.
Made minor improvements to the installation script.
Made minor improvements to the wording of puzzles #61 and #62.
The command line -puzzle <file_name> has been extended to allow -puzzle <puzzle_number> as well.
Revised puzzle #51 so that the second number can be greater than OR EQUAL TO 3000 now.
Revised puzzle #68 so it differs from #67 only in the use of the keyboard to initialize the numbers.
On puzzle #64 the robot had an invisible wand (actually it was 0 units tall).

9/10

Blank pages added to the end of notebooks are now ignored. It used to be that you could not return a notebook to a stack if you had flipped past the last non-blank page.
Java applets did not work if a robot was trained to add things to a remote control for the looks of something.
Java applets did not work if a robot was trained to get a notebook from a picture and use the remote controls.
When Dusty is turned on to reverse to restore things that he erased he did too many all at once. He now waits a second between each restoration.
Changed the way power off (F8) is displayed so that it still is obvious but it looks better. (Permutes colors rather than draw a black mask on top.)

9/11

Recovers better from errors while generating Java applets.
Deals better with missing media when generating Java applets.
If a user closed the box asking his or her name then the string library was left open. This wasted resources and interferes with installation.
Beta 8B released.

9/15

Fixed a misspelling in puzzle #62 and ran a spell checker on puzzles 61 to 74.
Changed "dottled" to "dotted" in Pictures notebook.
Fixed the wording of puzzle #67. ("minute" to "minutes timer")
Updated the text-to-speech engine with new things Marty says.
If you haven't used ToonTalk for a while, you now get a dialog box asking you if you want to Marty to suggest things that you once did but might have forgotten.
Marty when speaking would occasionally get stuck -- fixed.

9/16

If you shrank the magic wand and then copied things that were inside of other things the copies ended up floating off the bottom of the screen. Thanks to Magnus Knutsson for reporting this.
If you broke a blank box (either by keyboarding a smaller number of holes or dropping it on a small number) then only one piece was blank and the other not.
If you copied a blank box and then changed the number of holes in the copy an error occurred.

9/17

You can now control your persona by using a joystick (as well as a mouse or the arrow keys). 32-bit version only.
9/19
If ToonTalk had troubles loading something that was in a truck it looped.
ToonTalk had troubles loading blank notebooks inside of other things.
The internal workings of sensors and remote controls was re-worked to be more extensible and faster.
If you have one or more joysticks connected to your PC and you are running the 32-bit version of ToonTalk then at the end of your sensor notebook you'll find a sensor notebook for the state and buttons of the joystick.

9/20

Fixed a bug when StartTT is running in auto demo mode when a demo finished it might violate memory.
Fixed another problem running auto demo mode where at the end of each demo a dialog box appeared saying ToonTalk was stopped by another program (it was the StartTT program).

9/22

Extra joystick buttons (and middle and right mouse buttons) are now user customizable by adding entries in toontalk.ini.
9/23
Sometimes ToonTalk would be interrupted by another problem, put up an appropriate dialog box but then crash when resumed.
Joystick sensors are now natural language sensitive ("yes" and "no" are localized).
If a connected joystick isn't calibrated then when the 32-bit version is started the helicopter drifts off to an edge. This is now detected and a dialog explaining what to do about this is started.
Improved the way in which ToonTalk put up a message box and restored things afterwards.

9/26

The sensor File to Sound was enhanced so that you can remove a sound from it and use it (by pressing the space bar) to make sounds.
2 new sensors were added to the sensor notebook (on page 4). Text to Speech works on the 32-bit version of ToonTalk and will speak the text (or spell it if the words aren't known). Text to MCI sends the text on the pad to Microsoft's Media Controller Interface. For both of these you can vacuum off the sound (or other media) and just use it.
Unless overridden by -new_input 0 on the command line, when you type while holding or pointing to a sound, then the sound is made. You can no longer make text be spoken or send it to MCI -- instead you should use the sensors described above.

9/28

Fixed a memory leak in the 32-bit version.
The second mouse button (or second joystick button) now flips over pictures, text, and numbers (if -b 2).
If you change the Which Picture number from a notebook on the back of a flipped over number or text pad then the number (like with geometric objects) changes the colour of the text.

9/30

Fixed several memory leaks

10/2

Fixed a problem with reading narration files from a CDROM.
Fixed a problem with the colour of text and sound pads when too small to have text.
Fixed a problem where if a team of robots was on the back of a picture that all but the first robot was very narrow.
Fixed a problem where Marty would say "the a picture of" or "the a movie of".

10/3

Fixed a recently introduced but where robots lost track of things when trained to change the size of a box using the keyboard.
If a team of more than 2 robots stopped, then when you picked up one they didn't form a line again until dropped.
Fixed a recently introduced but in the global mouse speed sensors that showed much too small a value.

10/5

Fixed a recently introduced bug in generating a Java applet from a ToonTalk program that uses remote controls.
Discovered that the optimized version of TT32 had a bug that showed up on the first puzzle. Changed the optimization settings and problem is gone.
Fixed a bug where if you grabbed Dusty while he was morphing to inert then he was inert in your hand.

10/7

Fixed a bug in new input scheme for how to use Pumpy with the right mouse button.
Fixed a problem with running user added demos that lack narration and subtitles.
If a user is asked to insert the CDROM and agrees but clicks on "retry" before the disk has spun up they now get another chance.
Fixed various bugs in the new input scheme (using the right mouse button).
Beta 8C released.

10/8

Fixed a recently introduced bug where a robot trained to use Dusty didn't behave right.
Fixed a bug where Marty would repeatedly say why a robot stopped if many were stopping for the same reason.
When Marty says a robot stopped he now gives the robot's name.
When Marty is speaking (text-to-speech) sometimes he would get stuck with a blank talk balloon or break a word across balloons.
Robots got mixed up sometimes when they were trained to drop a text pad on a notebook (other than the main one).
If a robot was being trained and was holding another robot or the like and
ToonTalk was paused then a Java applet was generated -- should only work when the programmer is holding it.
If you took control from a demo then the old input scheme was in effect. No longer.
While training a robot if a notebook other than the main was picked up then its size was made too small.

10/10

Sounds some times were not made by robots on the back of pictures.
Sounds were sometimes stopped prematurely by robots.
Updated the robot across from the "Say" page of the Sentences notebook in the Examples notebook to work with the new sound primitives.

10/13

Fixed a problem pausing on the opening screen.
The 32-bit version didn't release a library resource.
Fixed a variety of memory leaks.
You can now sit down outside and whatever you leave on the ground will be add to the city. (To call the helicopter you can no longer click a mouse button since that is for sitting. 'H' and 'h' still call it.)
Robots on the back of pictures kept working even when the flipping the picture over. Caused confusion.

10/14

If you add to the "User" section of toontalk.ini an entry DefaultUser=<name> then the user profile and notebooks of name will be available to new users. This is a good way to customize ToonTalk for a group.
You can now use left and right mouse buttons together to act like "escape" to stand up or leave a thought bubble. Works only if -b <n> where n is greater than 1.

10/15

If a bomb was set off doing puzzle #6 then the floor of the re-built house was empty.
If a user quit just after solving puzzle #5 then when ToonTalk is restarted puzzle #5 used to have to be re-solved.
Made various improvements is what Marty says during the first puzzle.
You can now get a new hint each time you walk over to Marty if he isn't talking just then.
If you use Pumpy on a bird she will go back to the size you give her after flying or being removed from a box. (Favored size is currently lost when a bird is put in a notebook and taken out.)
Pictures started to run when taken out of a notebook even if the power was off.
Improved the warning Marty gives if a robot doesn't accept a box.
First time a user generates a Java applet a message box appears explaining what is happening.
Fixed a bug where a bird is returning to a box (perhaps on the back of a picture) and the box has in the meanwhile been dropped on a blank page of the notebook.
Text and numbers can now be used to decorate the city (as well as pictures).
Pictures now wait a few seconds before running (if robots are on the back) after being taken out of a notebook.
Robot's trained to use tools where the right button was used rather than the space bar got confused.
A robot trained to use Pumpy got confused.
Backspace now behaves just like '-' when flipping pages in a notebook. Old scheme confused many.

10/16

Pictures have been changed. If the image on the picture is non-rectangular you only see the image now and not the background and frame. When pointing to and holding a picture you now see the image and the border. The meaning of remote control for visibility has changed so that "SEE SOME" now means if a picture has pictures on top you see them but not the underlying picture.
Collision detectors now do not sense invisible objects.
Collision detectors on the back of pictures that are on a picture whose visibility is "SEE SOME" now detect objects at the "level" of the picture they are on.
StartTT -autodemo <n> now works even if the application is not active (but not if it has been iconized). This is mostly useful for a "kiosk" demo mode.
The programmer when walking around the city can walk through pictures (decoration) but except for rectangles (which may be invisible).
This gives flexibility in deciding now solid decorations should be. If power is off (via F8) then programmer can walk through fine.
The remote control for "Picture #" (which controls the colour for synthetic pictures like ovals and rounded rectangles) used to display numbers greater than 255.

10/17

Some things (like dizzy.tt in the Doc directory and puzzles 44 and 45) were saved from the ToonTalk clipboard and couldn't be restored by version 8C or later (due to a format change).

10/18

You can now see things on the floor when you stand up!
And you can move around while on the floor by moving your arm off screen!

10/19

If ToonTalk tried to put up a message box before everything was initialized then a different message box came up about a problem with DirectDraw.
Fixed various new bugs with moving around in the room.

10/20

If the command line contains -m 0 then no memory is devoted to caching files. Used to be as a result sounds (like the helicopter) kept repeating. Also some memory leaked when the cache got too full.
Fixed a problem that sometimes occurred when a bird flew outside.

10/21

Fixed a DirectDraw bug that caused ToonTalk to crash on start up in high-resolution on some video cards. (Thanks to Julian Pixton for his help.)
Fixed a problem moving around on the ground (Tooly didn't behave right.)
While training a robot things are now restored and you can no longer move around.
Speech used to go off while Marty was around but now only when Marty is talking.
If -tts_uses_ds 1 is used then both speaking and sounds work but on most test machines there are long delays and a bad hiss. The default is 0.
The speech engine is now initialized during the credits so there isn't a long pause before you can enter Marty's rocket when starting up the puzzle game.

10/22

Fixed a bug in the Swedish version that caused all demos to terminate immediately.
10/23
Fixed a bug where the browser was launched before the Java applet was completed.
(Still can happen on Windows 3.1 or NT 3.51 -- you'll need to do shift-reload of Netscape if applet doesn't start.)
Grass is now green when you sit.
Improved the animation of the tree decoration.
Flower decoration now comes in 3 colors and also includes animation of it browning and recovering.
Changed the way "the z ordering" that determines which object is in front of others. Works better in the room and with the tool box following you.

10/24

Bike pump used to be hard to pick up from the top.
Bike pump would sometimes not settle down when released.
When training a robot his hand is nearly immobile.
When training a robot he picks things up and holds them in his hand now.
When training a robot it used to be that if he picked up the tool box or the notebook he would leave them looking very small.
When moving around on the floor you now see the front wall if you move forward far enough.
If you move around on the ground then when you stand up you have moved appropriately.
Made minor improvements to the animation of Marty.
When getting up from the ground only pictures, text, and numbers stay behind.
Everything else disappears (except of course Tooly and his contents).
Fixed a bug where if you quickly grab something before Bammer smashes it then he'll smash it in your hand and the system crashes.
Camera doesn't move when hand is hidden now. No interference with Ping Pong, for example.

10/26

Sometimes ToonTalk gave up on speech engine and turned it off unnecessarily.
If you dropped certain things (like a bird) near a wall of the room while on the floor it would jump towards the center.
When holding a bird she now is animated -- used to freeze.

10/27

You can now add a picture to a bird's tee shirt. Because when you give a bird a picture she takes it to her nest, the picture must completely fit on top of the tee shirt. Using Pumpy to expand the bird and then dropping a picture is recommended.
10/28
There is now a remote control for adding decoration to the wall of the room. It looks like a picture of the wall and you drop stuff on it (or vacuum them off) and they like voodoo appear on the wall of the house you are in.
Fixed a bug where sound sometimes stopped (if text-to-speech was on).
Fixed a bug where programmer sometimes stepped on things on the floor and sometimes he went in front and behind them. Now always stuff is flat on the floor.

10/29

Fixed a bug displaying blank pictures where sometimes they became invisible.
When a robot is flipping over pictures the sizes of pictures and notebooks was wrong when viewed while standing in the room.
Fixed a problem that caused wall decoration to flicker and only sometimes be clipped to the right area.

10/30

Fixed another bug where stuff on the wall of the room sometimes flickered.
Fixed more problems with puzzles and wall decoration.
The draw order (the "z ordering") of things that have been added to things (like objects in a truck) was not always correct. Meant that sometimes things were in front of other things and some times behind.

11/2

There are now 2 new remote controls. One for decorating the front of a house and the other for decorating the roof of a house.
Some pictures acted as if they were much bigger than they appeared (since they can change to that). Also meant that when picked up they sometimes floated to the left of your hand.

11/4

You can now save birds with tee-shirts in notebooks.
Some items in notebooks didn't fill the page very well.

11/5

With -b 2 or more (mouse buttons shortcuts enabled), used to be that if you pointed to the stack of bombs in the toolbox and clicked the right button the stack of bombs would go off and crash ToonTalk.
You can now save and restore whole cities!

11/6

Fixed a recently introduced bug with houses blowing up when viewed from outside.
Fixed a bug with puzzle #9 (1,000,000,000) in the 16-bit version. Thanks to Steve Newman for reporting it.
Fixed a bug where if you vacuumed up a truck or box or the like just before a robot was to drop something into it the system crashed. Thanks to Steve Newman for reporting it.

11/7

ToonTalk now offers trouble-shooting advice when things go wrong.
Fixed a problem when watching a robot drop things on top of other things where they were displayed sometimes as one on top of another and sometimes the other way around.

11/12

Saving cities now works even if trucks are driving around, birds flying, etc.
The pause dialog box now gives you the option of saving your city. Except during puzzle game or while training a robot.
Saving a city now saves the programmer's location as well.
Fixed the geometry of things in the notebook (some were too small -- teams of robots were too big).

11/13

Restored the default for -b to 1. In other words, by default any mouse button can be used to pick up and drop. Space bar is available for using what you've picked up.
11/14
Fixed some memory leaks. Especially bad when running the sentences demo.
Internals are now more careful about stray references -- e.g. a bird returning to the box she left from does not crash if the box has been destroyed in the meanwhile.
Fixed a recent problem with some robot puzzles where the robot won't work the first time.
Fixed a problem with clicking the close dialog when asked your name. Only if NoName is an old user.

11/15

Fixed a display bug that didn't clip some things right on the wall.
Puzzles with large boxes for solutions in particular partly flickered.
The sensor showing the number of milliseconds since the last cycle now shows the truth even if the system was interrupted and resumed. Also used to be maximum value of 1000.
Fixed a bug where Bammer the mouse hit his hammer half way between where the remote control for the looks of a number was and where the number was.
Fixed a bug where sometimes you couldn't train a robot to drop something from a magic wand onto something else.

11/17

If you save in the notebook a box that contains pictures and remote controls then they are saved so that when retrieved from the notebook the same relationships hold. Also when you copy a box like that then the copy has remote controls for the copy not the original.

11/18

Fixed a recently introduced problem where numbers and text didn't display well on the walls during puzzle play.

11/19

If you trained a robot to set off a bomb by pointing to a bomb (not holding it) and typing space (or right mouse button if enabled) then the robot was confused when run. You now once again must be holding a bomb to set it off. Thanks to Patrick J. Holmes for reporting this.
11/20
Start ToonTalk now has a "Set Options" button which provides a much easier than earlier schemes for customizing ToonTalk.
Fixed a bug where Marty was sometimes invisible when you were on the ground.
Fixed a bug where if you held something in your hand when you got up from the ground that it became invisible.
Fixed a bug so that you can now save the city when you are on the ground.
Fixed a bug where after you got up from the ground you looked as if you were floating on top of other things.

11/21

You can now double-click on a ToonTalk city file and it will launch ToonTalk with that city. You can also specify which city with -city <file name> on the command line.
11/22
Fixed various bugs with saving and describing pictures with remote controls on the back. (E.g. the Ping Pong example.)
Fixed a recent problem where if you hide your hand, the arm is still visible.
If options were set indicating they should apply to old users as well then they only had an affect the first time an older user ran ToonTalk.
If you were holding something big and tried to move your hand to see the other end then the "camera" would move and follow your hand.
Marty was getting confused describing robots.
A bug prevented you from returning a robot to the notebook it came from.
Fixed a bug the prevented you from double clicking on a puzzle file to start up that puzzle.
Fixed a bug where sometimes a robot that starts off with a wand and the wand became very big.

11/23

Fixed problems with the size of things the robot releases when watched while standing in the room.
Robots sometimes carried things underneath themselves.
Robots sometimes dropped things a bit far from what they were being dropped on.
Sometimes things ended up underneath the magic wand while still attached to it.
F3 now works during puzzles 25 and 26.
When Marty is speaking something that contains a parenthetical remark he some times skipped part of it. Now he skips the whole thing.
A warning that the beta version was soon to expire interfered with running demos.

Beta 9 released.

11/24

16-bit version was confused about command line when options were set and an old user name used.
16-bit version could try to start in high-resolution but many things looked wrong.
Object on the ground disappeared when you moved your hand enough so that the camera moved.

11/25

If you leave while Marty is talking during "Play Game" and come back he explains that he had more to say last time but didn't say it.
Occasionally Marty tried to say " " and put up a little empty talk balloon.
When you resumed playing the game, then numbers and text pads on the wall of the rocket were lacking the pad part -- just the characters showed.
Marty used to give hints when you walked over to him during puzzle play even if it was the start of the puzzle and you haven't left the rocket since hearing the puzzle.
Standing up while holding the toolbox in your hand led to confusion. Now it is dropped automatically when standing.
If you turn off sound then ToonTalk no longer wastes time initializing the text-to-speech engine.

Beta 9A released

11/30

Fixed a problem where some default settings (e.g. high resolution) interfered with command line arguments to starttt.exe.
Fixed problems with Start ToonTalk working with other languages.
Fixed a couple of minor memory leaks.

12/1

Fixed a problem where changes to options didn't affect old users due to the fact that the 16-bit and 32-bit versions believed they were in different time zones!
Patch from Beta 9 to 9A released. (Yes, it does have 4 additional changes from the released version 9A.)
12/8
Fixed a minor memory leak.
Fixed a new Beta 9 bug where pictures didn't clip pictures on top right.
Fixed a bug where robots that stopped during a puzzle while you were outside sometimes ended up stuck on the wall and couldn't be grabbed. (Thanks to Shelly C. Wallace for reporting this.)
Fixed a bug in the saving of shared items (e.g. robots and their notebook or birds and nests). Showed up by crashing restoring some cities or puzzle player states. (Thanks to Shelly C. Wallace for reporting this.)

12/9

Fixed a couple more minor memory leaks.
Fixed a bug with generating a Java applet from ToonTalk object that contains user pictures (made with the "File to Picture" remote control). There are still security problems running it as an applet rather than an application.

12/10

If you used a user picture to decorate the roof of a house it was the wrong size.
If you saved a city while flying above the city and then came back the helicopter didn't work right.
If you left certain kinds of remote controls on the floor (like the decoration remote, or clipboard or file to X kind) then they ended up very very narrow.

12/11

Puzzles where a robot starts off holding a magic wand had the problem that if the robot was trained to set down the wand he couldn't pick it up again. (Thanks to Shelly C. Wallace for reporting this.)
If more than one natural language (e.g. English and Swedish) have been installed on the same system then "Set Options" now gives the language choice where the name of the language is translated appropriately.
Many remote controls that show pictures (like the "File to Picture") now show a black background with a white frame.
The implementation of selection feedback was completely re-written. Should avoid cases where thin white or black horizontal or vertical lines appeared when pointing to something with certain things on top of it.

12/12

If while your notebook is starting to fly out of Tooly the Toolbox you call for a tool (or press F7 to hurry things up) then sometimes the stuff on the first 2 pages of the notebook were too small.
Fixed problems with roof remote controls where the sizes and locations of things were off.

12/15

Improved the geometry of houses when viewed from above.
Fixed a bug in loading in some puzzles (at least #39). (Thanks to Shelly C. Wallace for reporting this.)
"File to Picture" and "File to Sound" have been changed how they handle partial file names. If there is no extension they'll add "BMP" for pictures and "WAV" for sounds. If the file name doesn't indicate which directory then the "Users" directory of the ToonTalk installation is used.
When training a robot (or when one is waiting) they aren't quite as frantic now.
When a truck was driving outside and seen from the side there was a pixel that flew over the truck sometimes.

12/16

Fixed a problem replaying certain demos (re-ordered some events in Queue::begin_run).

12/17

Fixed a bug with Marty describing a robot that can cause crashes.
Released Beta 9B

12/31

Fixed more bugs replaying certain demos.