Othecko is by Jack Freelander (jack@cs.miami.edu) 
and Steven Matuszek (matuszek@cs.unc.edu).

This is the README for version 1.1 of this code.

--------

First of all, please remember that this is a proof-of-concept system.
It is hard-coded as a specific game, not a set of classes that an
arbitrary game could extend and implement. This is most true of
GameState, Vote, and OtheckoApplet. GameServer is fairly removed from
the game specifics. MiddleMan and MessageObject are even more so.

Any of them could be converted to such interfaces with a little elbow
grease, though.

--------

If you'd like to try running this code yourself, please look
at http://www.cs.unc.edu/~matuszek/othecko/ for a sample setup.

--------

Known issues:

The game does not end. The GameState knows one way to test for
ending (all spots are filled), but does not know when one player 
has won. The GameServer has a stub to test for the end of the 
game, but does not use it. What would be needed to implement this
would simply be for the GameState to set the appropriate flags,
and for the GameServer and OtheckoApplet to test for them.

We did not implement the "genealogy server". MiddleMen must be
set up by hand. It's not difficult.

The OtheckoApplet is not threaded, and therefore the only time
it waits for a new state is on startup and on voting. Therefore,
if a quorum is reached without the user's vote, he may be
surprised at the game state which is returned when he does get
around to voting!

Finally, note that version 1.1 of this code has not been tested 
as extensively as the previous version.

--------

Steven Matuszek, December 20, 2000