JUDGE

A Software Word Judge

'Judge' is a program that adjudicates challenges in club or tournament Scrabble (tm) games. The original 'Judge', DOS text-only version, took its inspiration from Barry Harridge's LOOK program that can be downloaded from: ftp://ftp.break.com.au/user/b/barry/look402.zip.

'Judge' can use as its dictionary any word list in standard UNIX format, one word per line terminated by a LF. Among possible candidates are the list in /usr/dict, the 'ispell' word list (dumped as an ASCII file), or the Public Domain 'Webster's 2' available on the Internet. It is highly recommended, however, that the Public Domain ENABLE list be downloaded from the authors site, at
http://personal.riverusers.com/~thegrendel/enable10.zip. This is a 172,000+ word list compiled specially for word game use.

'Judge' fills a real need in the word gaming community for the following reasons.

'Judge' is distributed under the GPL, and, of course, the source code has been supplied. This makes it possible for the user community to modify 'Judge', as necessary. Moreover, it is cross-platform. The source code can be compiled, with only minor modifications, to run on any generic UNIX system, such as Linux, in both console or X-Windows mode. It could conceivably be compiled for a Mac or Amiga. There is even a DOS version available from the author's Web site. This makes it possible to use 'Judge' at a club or tournament on virtually any computer system.
'Judge' may be used with any word list in standard, unencrypted ASCII format. This enables the user to edit or even substitute the word list used. Using the Public Domain 172,000+ word ENABLE list, downloadable from the author's Web site, makes possible lookups of all legal words in North American play up to 16 or more letters long. It is even possible to put together a "SOWPODS" dictionary from sources on the author's site.
'Judge' has a GUI front end that runs under X, and may also be run in just text mode in the console or an xterm.

'Judge' is freeware released under the GPL, and is freely usable and distributable without payment of fees or licenses. Programmers and tinkerers who modify the code are urged to share their modifications with the author, but, in any case, modified versions of the program package also necessarily fall under the GPL. Users of the program are encouraged to communicate with the author.

Instructions for Using 'Judge'

You may invoke the text mode program in the package, 'Judge' (note the uppercase 'J'), either in console mode or in an xterm. This opening screen pops up immediately. Press a key to get to the query screen. You may now enter words to be checked. Multiple words may be entered separated by a space, or by any other non-alphabetic separator, such as a tab. It is suggested that the same entry format be used always, for consistency in the log file (see below).

Pressing the <p> key prints out a hard copy confirmation of the adjudication for a particular instance. Of course, your printer must be connected and turned on. 'Judge' supports any type of text printer, even of the "ancient" dot matrix variety.

To exit 'Judge', hit <Enter> without entering a word. A session log is saved in the file 'judge.log'. Note that the 'judge.log' file is not erased and started fresh each time 'Judge' is run, rather it is appendedd to. Should you need a fresh log file, erase (and save on a floppy, if desired) the old 'judge.log' file.

Instructions for Using 'judge'

You may invoke the GUI program in the package, 'judge' (note the lowercase 'j'), under X only, either from an xterm or from a menu or task bar (if .fvwmrc has been suitably modified). Operation of the program is highly intuitive, involving click on and filling in the entry space with the challenged word. Click the red, 'Look Up Word' bar to actually perform the lookup, and a red or green 'Accept' or 'Reject' flag pops up to inform you of the result. Pressing the blue, 'Print Last Entry' bar gives you hard copy, and the light green 'View Log' button lets you browse the log file. Repeat as necessary, backspacing to erase the previous challenged word in the entry box. The purple 'Exit' bar ends the session.

IMPORTANT

You must have a word list file named 'word.lst' in the directory from which 'judge' or 'Judge' is invoked. This may be a symbolic link to a word list in another directory, created by the command

ln -s /usr/dict/xxxxx.list word.lst

If 'judge' is invoked from a menu or task bar, the list, or link should reside in your home directory.

You should get the freeware Public Domain ENABLE10.ZIP dictionary package in order to get the optimum word list that this package needs. This may be downloaded directly from the following website:

         http://personal.riverusers.com/~thegrendel/software.html
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The file WORD.LST should then be converted from DOS to UNIX format either by a dos2unix utility, or using the following script:

                             #!/usr/bin/sh
                             tr -d '\015' < $1

The script would be invoked as 'scriptname WORD.LST > word.lst'.

Scrabble and OSPD are trademarks of the Milton Bradley Co., Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc.

Judge is not a trademark.

                                 M\Cooper
                                PO Box 237
                        St. David, AZ 85630-0237
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                          thegrendel@theriver.com
                 http://personal.riverusers.com/~thegrendel/