Bulls and Cows vs. MASTERMIND

General

You can play Bulls and Cows (= Cows and Bulls, MASTERMIND, SuperHirn) as browser-game (HTML5-game) or as download for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD / PC-BSD / TrueOS / GhostBSD / NomadBSD, Apple Mac OS X / OS X / macOS, Solaris, Android (only experimental) and DOS / DOSBox (and thus BeOS, OS/2 and RISC OS) within a physical or a virtual computer, as 32-bit-version or as 64-bit-version.
See comparison of operating systems.    DOSBox-simulation.

'Bulls and Cows' has a version number in the format 'Year-Month-Day' of the last change.
The actual version is: 2020-07-31
Thursday, 29th October 2020
You can run the program (except the DOS/DOSBox-version) immediately after download without any unzipping or installation. Bulls and Cows needs no other progams or DLLs.
You only have to set the permission flag 'Executable':
Windows: Please click warnings from the operating system away.
Other operating systems: change the properties or use the command 'chmod 755 ...'.
If you have started the program, you can configure it with choice 8 in the main menu.
The presentation of graphics characters could cause problems: the encoding/codepage is not available, the presentation of graphics characters is wrong or the characters are much to small.
In this case there exists a second version of the program for each operating system without graphics characters, only with the ASCII charcter set. Using Windows this version will solve these problems and you need not to use the Legacyconsole and can use a font and a codepage/encoding, that you want.
If the line breaks are wrong the window of the terminal is too small. Stop the program, increase the window of the terminal and restart the program to solve the problem respectively choose the profilesettings of the terminal and set the terminalsize 80 coloums and 25 lines.

Bulls and Cows or Cows and Bulls is a logic-game for two players.
Bulls and Cows on Wikipedia.
MASTERMIND or SuperHirn is the commercially marketed version of the game as board game.
MASTERMIND on Wikipedia. ---- MASTERMIND from a scientific view.

The program is not only able to ask a riddle but also to solve a riddle and is therefore a real opponent.

Bulls and Cows as browser-game: Start

You can play two or more games (e.g. match and rematch) in different browsertabs/windows at the same time.
Using Internetexplorer/Microsoft Edge: Please donot click into the window of the game to ensure the keyboard working correct.

The online-game uses the DOS-emulation JsDOSBox.
The online-version of Bulls and Cows is a modified version: BCONLINE.zip.
Start your own DOS-application.

The online-version of Bulls and Cows was programed and compiled with Borland Pascal 7.01.

Bulls and Cows for Windows: Download:

Please click warnings from the operating system away with 'Allow'
respectively 'More informations' 'Still execute'.
Please configure after starting (choice 8 in the main menu).

Please choose 'Use Legacyconsole' and the 'Raster Font'
only with the programversion with graphics characters.
To enjoy the game really you need also suitable
Fonts from Uwe Sieber, OEM Codepage 850.

The Windows-versions of Bulls and Cows were compiled with Free Pascal.

Important!
You can play Bulls and Cows also within DOSBox or a virtual computer with another operating system.
The difference in performance, presentation, colours, font and fontsize are considerable.
See also comparison of operating systems.

 Configuration Windows

Properties of 'bc-windows64': Options         Properties of 'bc-windows64': Fonts

Properties of 'bc-windows64': Layout         Properties of 'bc-windows64': Colours

Bulls and Cows for Linux + FreeBSD: Download:

After download please set the permission flag 'Executable'.
Please start your terminal, increase it to maximum size of the window,
respectively choose the profilesettings of the terminal and set the terminalsize 80 coloums and 25 lines,
start the program and choose choice 8 in the main menu for configuration.
The Linux- and FreeBSD-versions of Bulls and Cows were compiled with Free Pascal.

Configuration Linux

Bulls and Cows for Apple Mac OS X / OS X / macOS: Download:

After download please set the permission flag of bc-macos(64) respectively bc-macos(64)-ascii 'Executable'.
Please start bc-macos(64) respectively bc-macos(64)-ascii and choose choice 8 in the main menu for configuration.
The macOS-versions of Bulls and Cows were compiled with Free Pascal.

Configuration macOS

Bulls and Cows for Solaris: Download:

After download please set the permission flag of bc-solaris respectively bc-solaris-ascii 'Executable'.
Please start your terminal, increase it to maximum size of the window,
start bc-solaris respectively bc-solaris-ascii and choose choice 8 in the main menu for configuration.
The Solaris-versions of Bulls and Cows were compiled with Free Pascal.

Configuration Solaris

Bulls and Cows for Android: Download and Installation:

Attention!
The Android-versions of Bulls and Cows are experimental.
You need a filemanager and a terminal/console or an emulator (you get both apps free of charge in the app-store)
and also knowledge of the operating system Android.
Then you can try to install and start Bulls and Cows without guarantee.
You also need a keyboard or a screen keyboard for input (also within the online-version of Bulls and Cows ).

 Choose the suitable program for your CPU (i386+x64 for Intel and AMD, arm+AArch64 for most mobile phones). Please copy the program as superuser (command 'su') to the directory /data/local/tmp and set the permission flag of the program 'Executable' with the command 'chmod 755 ...'.
Please start the program from the terminal and choose choice 8 in the main menu for configuration.
The Android-versions of Bulls and Cows were compiled with Free Pascal.

Configuration Android

Bulls and Cows for DOS and the DOSBox,
Simulation,
Download and Installation:

Without DOS-emulator DOSBox
 In combination with DOSBox suitable for all operating systems, compatible with DOSBox:
 The following simulation explains Bulls and Cows in the DOS/DOSBox-version.
The DOS/DOSBox-version of Bulls and Cows was programed and compiled with Borland Pascal 7.01.

After installing DOSBox configure the configurationfile of DOSBox:
memsize=64, frameskip=0, core=auto, cputype=auto, cycles=auto, xms=true, ems=true, umb=true, keyboardlayout=auto.
Therefore you need not to configure Windows, like the description of BC.EXE or README.EXE.

Please download and unzip one of the files below: If there are problems, here are all original files for download: Then start DOSBox and mount the directory containing BC.EXE with the DOSBox-command mount,
change to this directory and start Bulls and Cows with the command BC.EXE.
All DOSBox-commands e.g. mount are described in the program DOSBox.

Simulation and Instruction of the Game in the DOS / DOSBox-version

Comparison of different operating systems running the game Bulls and Cows

I wrote Bulls and Cows in the 1980's and 1990's with Turbo Pascal/Borland Pascal for the 16-bit-operating-system DOS
(MS-DOS / PC-DOS). Input can be made only with a keyboard.
The Borland-Pascal-DOS-16-bit-version is still maintained and includes 3 subversion: Free Pascal enables porting to present operating systems: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X / OS X / macOS, FreeBSD and Adroid,
each 32 bit and 64 bit, Android only experimantal and Solaris 32 bit.
You can install Bulls and Cows directly on your computer but also on a virtual computer, e.g. on a virtual Linux-PC on your real, physical Windows-PC. In practice this makes a big difference and also sense.

A comparison of the operating systems:

The computer needs memory (RAM) to guess, the more difficult the riddle the more memory is needed. The table shows the efficiency of the operating systems:

Maximum number of allowed signs ('colours'), depending on the operating system
and the length of the code (guessed by the computer !).
Length of the code: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Maximum RAM
Operating system:
Browser- / Online-Version 36 23 12 7 5 4 3 3 12^4 =             20 736 640 KB
DOS - Real Mode 36 23 11 7 5 4 3 3   3^9 =             19 683 640 KB
DOS - Protected Mode (DPMI) 36 36 33 17 11 8 6 5   8^7 =        2 097 152 64 MB
Windows+Solaris - Bulls and Cows 32 Bit 36 36 36 31 17 12 8 7   7^9 =      40 353 607 2 GB
Linux+macOS+BSD - Bulls and Cows 32 Bit 36 36 36 31 18 13 9 7 13^7 =      62 748 517 2 GB
Windows, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD - 64 bit
Bulls and Cows 64 bit

needs much more memory
than Bulls and Cows 32 bit		 36 36 36 29 16 11 8 6 29^5 =      20 511 149 2 GB
36 36 36 33 18 12 9 7   9^8 =      43 046 721 4 GB
36 36 36 35 21 13 9 7 21^6 =      85 766 121 8 GB
36 36 36 36 23 15 10 8 15^7 =    170 859 375 16 GB
36 36 36 36 26 16 11 8 26^6 =    308 915 776 32 GB
36 36 36 36 29 18 12 9 18^7 =    612 220 032 64 GB
36 36 36 36 33 20 13 10 33^6 = 1 291 467 969 128 GB
36 36 36 36 35 21 14 10 35^6 = 1 838 265 625 256 GB
For comparison: Original MASTERMIND Length of code: 4, 6 colours with repetitions   6^4 =               1 296

The same riddle also needs a different period of time to solve. The browsergame is by far the slowest program.
The DOS-Real-Mode-version is faster and the DOS-Protected-Mode-version even faster.
But the fastest programs are the programs compiled with Free Pascal. Here is the Linux-version much faster than the Windows-version, even if Linux is running only as virtual computer.
The differences between the versions are really big.

There are more differences in presentation and operation: Is the presentation of the graphics characters correct? Is the fontsize o.k.?
How can I configure and use the terminal/console? How is the operating? Can I make screen dumps of the games in a simple manner?

Best results I got with this installation:
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