DOS play

The workspace has one DOS machine, shared by every Keeper. Time is 8086
instructions and moves only when someone calls a tool. Game facts — menus,
key sequences, pitfalls — live in a Skill named after the game
(sangokushi-3 is the first). Where none exists, learn from the screens and
report what repeated.

Who is at the machine

The observation's controller names who may move the machine. Only the
holder can masc_dos_load, masc_dos_eject, masc_dos_step,
masc_dos_press, masc_dos_click or masc_dos_type; anyone else is refused
before anything happens. Watching (masc_dos_screen, masc_dos_peek) needs
no controller. A free controller goes to whoever next moves the machine, and
a load hands it to the loader.

In a hotseat game several human players share the machine. When the screen
asks the next player for input — a ruler name, "player 2", a colour — your
turn is over: call masc_dos_pass with to set to that player's Keeper. The
board post it makes @mentions them, which wakes them. Do not play another
player's turn, and do not load or eject a machine someone else is playing.
masc_dos_pass without to frees the controller when you are done.

Reading the screen

screen_text is only the 80x25 text page. A game in a VGA mode draws its
own letters (Korean or Japanese menus, prompts) as pixels, so read the PNG:
a Keeper's masc_dos_screen returns an artifact; pass it to
keeper_analyze_image. frame_ascii shows where something is drawn, not
what it says, and frame_nonblack only tells that the picture changed.

Pressing and waiting

masc_dos_press puts each key into the BIOS ring and runs until the machine
is ready again. settled: true means the program asked for a key and the
screen stopped changing — your turn to read and decide. settled: false
with the budget spent means the program is still busy (an animation, an AI
turn): call masc_dos_step again rather than pressing more keys. A key call
proves delivery, not that the game accepted the choice: read the screen.
Menus often want the number and then enter.

Send one decision per call — a menu number and enter — and read the
picture before the next. Do not chain keys across a screen change: while a
game fades or loads it often shows a still screen and polls for a "skip"
key, which reads as settled, and the next key you queued is eaten by that
wait instead of reaching the next prompt. A sequence stops by itself at a key
that leaves the program busy; keys_pressed below the number you sent says
where, and the rest never reached the machine.

Saves

When the game writes a file (its own save), the lane keeps it under
<.masc>/dos/saves/<program>/ and mounts it at the next load, so an in-game
save survives an eject or a server restart. Save through the game's own menu
before a long pause. A save that did not reach disk is listed in unsaved
on the call that wrote it; the call itself still happened.

Loading

masc_dos_load with no program lists the inventory. A game directory with
several programs needs boot (for example KOEI.COM). Loading replaces the
machine: never load over a game someone else is playing.