About This Contest          Wed Oct 03 23:01:08 EDT 2001


You are expected to carefully read this and all other
contest help files BEFORE you come to the contest (or in
the car, on the bus, etc.).  There will be a pre-contest
meeting that is very short at which we will answer ques-
tions you have after carefully reading this material.

In addition, we promise you at least one dynamic pro-
gramming problem and at least one 2D geometry problem
in this contest, so you may want to read the help files
on these topics to prepare for this contest.

You should use a practice account to familiarize your-
self with the contest software BEFORE you come to the
contest.  Practice accounts will be disabled in the
early morning of the contest day.  Your coach has been
sent practice account names and passwords.

You can also practice after you arrive using your con-
test account, which you will be given when you arrive.

You will NOT be given passwords for contest accounts.
All logging in will be done by the contest management
personnel.  On some terminals, the xcsh command will
let you create new windows, but on other terminals, a
separate login may be required for each window created,
and for these you must ask a contest manager to create
more windows for you.

The flip side of this is you may work anywhere because
you cannot access your account from anywhere but your
terminal.  Of course we assume you will not consult
non-team members about the contest problems.

After the short pre-contest meeting, you will be handed
printouts of the problem descriptions.  Also after
that time the
			hpcm_get

command will be able to setup the contest problem
directories within your contest account.

This contest uses an autojudge and a human judge, and
you are given BOTH scores.  If the autojudge score is
`Completely Correct', it is final.  Otherwise the auto-
judge's score will be reviewed and confirmed or changed
by the human judge, and the human judge's score will
be final.  Scores are delivered by email, though some
summary information about them appears on the score-
board.

This is a `formal' contest.  The command

	help formal_contest

displays more details about formal contests.

The command `hpcm_get' will get a demonstration problem
into your directory ~/demos/count (where ~ denotes your
home directory).  Read ~/demos/count/README and ~/demos/
count/Makefile and practice submitting the demonstra-
tion problem.

Hpcm_get will also get all the contest problems into
your `~/problems' directory AFTER the contest official-
ly starts.  At the contest start time, you will be given
a printout of all the problem descriptions.  The command
`help problems' will display a list of all the problems
AFTER the contest starts.  Also see `help solving'.

The command `scoreboard' will display the scoreboard.
The time of a problem is the time between the start
time of the contest and the time a solution is submit-
ted.

To display a list of the help files available use the
command `help index'.  Note that if something in the
index has the name `help/topic' you use the command
`help topic' to view it.

To send a question to the contest manager edit the
question into a file qqq and use the command:

	hpcm_sendmail < qqq

Output of the print commands (see `help print') will
be brought to you.  Please do NOT try to find the
printer.  For more information see `help print'.

Good hunting!