conus.txt

You can use these tiles to slip your kids a minor geography
lesson while they think they are having fun; or just enjoy
playing MahJONGG 3.3 or 3.4 with them.

"conus" = states of the Continental US; or more precisely,
CONTIGUOUS Continental US, because of the 42 unique tile
limitation in the system.  Plus, Alaska (including the Aleutians
& Panhandle) would be HARD to fit on a 34x34 pixel drawing
surface.

To conserve tiles, all of New England (6 states = CT, RI, MA, ME,
NH, VT) is shown on a single tile;  and the two perfectly
rectangular states (CO & WY) are represented by one tile.

"conus" is provided in four types of tile-sets for MahJONGG 3.3
or 3.4, as explained below.

Basic ConUS.til = states shown as black silhouettes on a grey
field, with a single yellow pixel to indicate the approx.
location of the capital.  Generally, the standard two-letter P.O.
abbreviation for the state is shown in the upper right hand
corner of the tile; and the name of the capital is shown at the
bottom of the tile.  These tiles are provided in four versions:

     ConUS.til    = "basic", as described above.

     Conus-W.til  = Waterized version of the "basic" tile-set;
                    with significant bodies of water in or
                    bordering on states, frequently shown in
                    blue.

     Conus-C.til  = Colorized version of Conus-W, with states
                    shown in various colors.  Since I thought
                    this version was a little gaudy, I decided to
                    at least tone down the color of the water by
                    changing it from BRIGHT Blue to a Dull Grey-
                    Blue.

     A buddy of mine is pretty color blind.  When I showed him
     the Conus-C tile-set, he said that he couldn't see the
     water!  His name is McCall, hence . . . .

     Mc-Conus.til = Conus-C with the water brightened back up
                    again.

     Actually, I have a bit of a preference for Conus-W if I'm
     not in a rush.  I think it looks better and it makes you
     concentrate more on the SHAPE of the states.  But I'll have
     to admit that the colors sure do help you locate the
     matchable tiles a lot faster.  However, the heavy reliance
     on color for ease of play make it less of a learning tool
     than it can be.  Anyhow, use whichever suits you best.

     I may fine-tune the tile shapes from time to time; if so,
     I'll apply rev. level #'s to the ".til" filenames.

NOTE that the states ARE NOT SHOWN TO SCALE, relative to each
other.  This would have been impossible; compared to California,
Delaware would be about the size of one pixel.

The tiles of the two wildcard suits are shown with color coded
borders, as a clue to which tiles can be matched-up.  (Note that
this also gives a little advantage in that the color strata shows
up when the side of a stack is exposed.)  Also, the state-shapes
are left in Black in the 2 colorized versions.  If there's any
doubt which wildcards can be matched up, just press F8; the 2
wildcard suits are shown in the lower left & lower right of
resulting screen.

As I said before, you can use these tiles to slip your kids a
minor geography lesson while they think they are having fun.  I
know that making and "test driving" them has kind of
unconsciously drilled some of those 2-letter abbreviations into
my head; and refreshed my memory about capitals that I hadn't
thought about since grade school.

HAVE FUN! 


Karl Burkard