Illgol: Grand Mal
=================

**Illgol: Grand Mal** is the super-uber-mega-meta-mecca-distribution of the
groundbreaking-historic-hey-yowza *ILLGOL* family of programming
languages:

* **ILLGOL**, the first programming language EVER to be, in actuality, a
  communicable disease cleverly disguised as a programming language;
* **Illgola-2**, the first programming language EVER to have its release
  notes introduced, in prose, by a superheroine (later revealed to be
  Release Notes Girl);
* **Illberon (ILLGOL 3)**, the first programming language EVER to have
  its release notes in the form of a comic strip; and
* **Open Sores Illgol##**, the first programming language EVER to be
  Open Sores Illgol##.

*Illgol: Grand Mal* is also rumoured to be the *hyperincubator* for the next
generation of ILLGOL technology, **Illglr**.

LICE-NSE
--------

The contents of the *Illgol: Grand Mal* distribution are octuply-licensed.
See the file COPING for details.

Our Commitment to Sensible Organization and Historical Accuracy...
------------------------------------------------------------------

...is epic.  Expect certain revisions in this repo to be tagged, because
repos often contain tags, you know.

Building
--------

*n. a structure that has a roof and walls and stands more or less permanently
in one place*

*Illgol: Grand Mal* does not have a building, but it does have a wiki -- it's
a disused marquee standing outside what was once a Chi Chi's, in Livonia, MI.
If you happen to have something to say about *Illgol: Grand Mal*, feel free
to go there and move the plastic letters around.

### But seriously, folks ###

The various incarnations of Illgol were originally built with [Borland C++
3.1][], but there is nothing Borland-specific in the code, and should be
buildable by just about any modern C compiler, with only a few dozen warnings
being thrown.  The sources are not compiled seperately; just do like

    gcc illgol.c -o illgol

(or whatever) and there you go, instant Illgol compiler.

Running
-------

The various Illgol compilers produce `.COM` files.  They won't run on a
modern Windows system, so you'll need something like [DOSBox][], or
[Bochs][] plus [FreeDOS][], to maximize your enjoyment of Illgol: Grand Mal.

As a bonus, with a one of these PC emulators, you won't even need to build
ILLGOL or Illgola-2, as they come with pre-compiled binaries.  And since
you'd be running them in an emulator, you won't even have to worry so much
about the dangers of running executable programs that you stumble across in
strange software distributions on the Internet.

[Borland C++ 3.1]: http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/Home/News.asp?id=3878
[DOSBox]:          http://www.dosbox.com/
[Bochs]:           http://bochs.sourceforge.net/
[FreeDOS]:         http://www.freedos.org/