Battlefield 1942 FAQ

This is a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page for this game, for hitting the main problems people first have in playing. Write me at erich@acm.org if you have additions and corrections. There is also a good Server FAQ available. If you do run a server, you'll want to get the BlackBagOps Server Management Utilities. How does this game compare to other multiplayer FPS games? Check the GameSpy stats page - last I looked this game was #2.

If you just bought the game, here's the one-minute guide to getting going: Get a joystick and set it up if you want to fly. Use the All-Seeing Eye to find multiplayer games to play. When playing, left-click the mouse to fire, right-click to zoom the view or use alternate ability. WASD moves, R reloads, Z goes prone, Ctrl crouches, E to enter/exit vehicles, 1-6 to change positions in a vehicle, 9 to open your parachute, hold down Up-Arrow to open the landing craft door, G to change kits with a dead guy, "Enter" to choose a new class or to change sides, N to change the zoom on the minimap, M for the map, Tab to see current scores, L for team chat, K for chat to everyone, and Escape to go to the main menu. T for tooltips (help). You can remap most of these keys, of course. F1-F8 are the radio buttons which send messages to your team; each radio message is sent by pressing a sequence of two of these. Manners: don't shoot at teammates, don't drive artillery away if someone is in the gunner's seat, don't drive a tank to get to a plane, and do respond to requests for a ride.

I have also made a page of popular links. For official support information, first check EA's support site. There is also a Prima Strategy Guide, which has a free chapter on Monte Cassino available for download.

1. - Patches, expansions, and troubleshooting
1.01 - The game doesn't work/doesn't connect!
1.02 - The game crashes to the desktop!
1.03 - How many frames per second am I running at?
1.04 - The game is really slow!
1.05 - There is static, there are echoes, etc.
1.06 - I get "CD KEY IN USE" when I try to attach to a server.
1.07 - I cannot connect to a server, or quickly lose my connection.
1.08 - This server stinks!

2. - Game setup
2.01 - Can I use a joystick to fly?
2.02 - How do I turn off the movies at the start of the game?
2.03 - How do I use the in-game GameSpy filters?
2.04 - What's the All-Seeing Eye (ASE) about?
2.05 - What are mods, and how do I use them?
2.06 - Can I set up macros for keyboard commands?
2.07 - How do I disable the Tooltips "T" key?

3. - Game Mechanics
3.01 - How do I open the landing craft's door?
3.02 - How do I change positions when in a vehicle?
3.03 - Where are the submarines/the bombers?
3.04 - How do I use my parachute?
3.05 - How do I use artillery?
3.06 - How do I use the submarine?
3.07 - How do I change sides?
3.08 - What do the ratings mean at the end of a battle?
3.09 - Quick, what are the radio buttons?
3.10 - How do I vote to kick a player out of a game?
3.11 - Where are the jetpacks?

4. - Tactics
4.01 - Why did I get run over?
4.02 - How do I hit anything with my gun?
4.03 - How do I harm a tank while I'm an infantryman?
4.04 - How do I hit something with my bombs?
4.05 - How do I hit something with an anti-aircraft gun?
4.06 - Are there maps of the battlefields that I can study?

5. - Miscellaneous
5.01 - How do I make a screenshot during a BF 1942 session?
5.02 - How do I make a movie of a BF 1942 session?

6. - Glossary


1. - Patches, expansions, and troubleshooting

Here's the latest patch: the full 1.6.19 patch, and the incremental 1.5 to 1.6.19 patch. The EA website has a full set of patches on it. Patches can also be downloaded from 3D Gamers and Fileplanet. This patch also includes a considerable number of new, free battles (hence its size): Coral Sea, Operation Aberdeen, Battle of Britain, Invasion of the Philippines, Liberation of Caen, and Raid on Agheila.

Koroush Ghazi has a thorough Tweak Guide which talks about patches, mods, troubleshooting, and performance tweaking your system. It is definitely worth a read.

Occasionally things get hosed when you install a patch. If you do have to reinstall the whole game, I recommend doing it in this order:

The multiplayer demo is on patch 1.1. The single-player demo (which now plays considerably different than the full game) has no patch.

The first official expansion to the game is "Battlefield 1942: The Road to Rome". IGN has an excellent in-depth look of this expansion.

The second official expansion is called "Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII", which adds 8 new maps and plenty of new weapons. You can download a free demo of one battle of this expansion. You can also download movies of this expansion in action.

The related game Battlefield Vietnam is to come out in 2004, and you'll never guess what it will be about.

For information on mods, which are free, new battles made by fans of the game, see question 2.05. Two of the most popular mods are Desert Combat and Eve of Destruction. To see what's currently popular and what's available, look at Fileplanet.

There is a Prima Strategy Guide for the game and expansion. You can read my full review of it at the Amazon site.

For problems, the ultimate place to check is EA's support site. They have detailed answers to most of the questions below. What follows is just a quick guide; EA is the real authority. Another good place is BF42.com's Help Forum, read the sticky notes and also definitely try to search. A few more common questions are answered in BFNation's Troubleshooting FAQ.

In single player, only, there are some cheat codes for invincibility, etc. Why are you playing single player, though?

1.01 - The game doesn't work/doesn't connect!

Sources for information: EA's support site, BF42.com's Help Forum (look at the sticky notes at the top first), and EA's BF 1942 Help Message Board.

Here are the system requirements and recommendations from EA's support pages:

To ensure that you meet all of the game's minimum requirements, use the DirectX Diagnostic Tool. To open this tool, click the Windows "Start" button, select "Run...", type "dxdiag" and press "OK."

Did you get the latest drivers and BIOS update for your machine, and the latest game/demo patch (note that the multiplayer demo needs a patch)? The official game patch list is at the EA Games site. I've found it easiest to download patches from the 3D Gamers site.

Next, try a fresh system reboot. If you're short of memory and start the game up, funky things happen, like you won't be able to select a spawn point, or the colors will be strange, etc.

If you get "Unload the debugger and try again", there are two known problems. If you have a new Audigy 2 card, turn off the welcome screen. If you have an AMD processor and use ULEAD graphics software products, remove or rename amdfix.sys.

1.02 - The game crashes to the desktop!

First, check the minimum requirements and your drivers, as listed above.

It seems that the latest sound driver from VIA (AC'97 Enhanced Audio Controller WDM, v6.14.1.13890 -- WHQL) causes BF1942 to crash to desktop. Downgrade (roll back) to C-Media Inc. v5.12.1.23, provided by Syntax on the accompanying CD, until VIA fixes the problem.

What follows is from the EA support site. Go to: My computer, then C drive, then Program Files, EA GAMES, Battlefield 1942, Mods, bf1942, then the Settings folder. In that folder you will see a file called VideoDefault.con. You will want to double click this file to open it. If it asks you what Program to use (in Windows XP you will first want to choose "Display a list of programs for me to choose from), choose Notepad or Wordpad. In there you will see a line with this command:

renderer.allowAllRefreshRates 0

Change the 0 to a 1 and then Save the file. This will allow refresh rates above 60 Hz in the game.

This will enable a different refresh rate for every resolution in the in-game menu.

Another possibility: look in the BIOS and make sure that the fast write option for the AGP driver is enabled.

One other possibility: shut down MSN Messenger if you have it running.

If you crash to the desktop and have a VIA chipset-based motherboard, look here and here (under "Graphics Glitches").

1.03 - How many frames per second am I running at?

While playing, hit the tilde "~" key (above your "Tab" key; also, you don't have to hit the shift key) to bring up the console. Then type "fps 1" to have the frames per second displayed; type "fps 0" to disable it. Note that "fps" is a shortcut for the full console command "Console.showfps". You'll see the instantaneous rate and average rate in the upper left corner of your screen (turn off the radio buttons to see the whole display better).

Seeing the number of frames per second is useful: you can try all sorts of different video modes, graphics options, and sound options (the sound sampling rate does matter) and see the effect on your FPS. By the way, MSF is milliseconds per frame, essentially 1000/FPS.

This FPS display is difficult to read, however. A better solution is to use FRAPS, a free utility that will show your FPS in any game. FRAPS can also be used to make movies.

There is a cap of 99 FPS normally. You can remove this cap by entering the console command "renderer.lockfps 1000", which raises your maximum FPS to 1000 (way beyond human perception). See the next question for ways to raise your actual frame rate.

See Planet Battlefield and Koroush Ghazi's page for many more console commands. Also, with the console up you can see the various commands listed by typing "console." and hit tab twice. Or just hit tab twice with nothing else on the line to see the higher level classes of commands (try it and see).

1.04 - The game is really slow!

Assuming your PC meets the minimum requirements, then it could be any number of things. First, try rebooting and killing unneeded programs (see the section on how to do this), as the game likes to have lots of memory. If that doesn't help, go to "Options | Audio" and try turning off sound entirely, or turning the sound sampling rate to 11 kHz; the sound files are a known memory hog. Setting the sound quality to medium or low and the channels to 16 is also said to help. Also try going to the "Options | Audio" section on page 2 (look in the lower right corner for page 2) and check "hardware acceleration," (though opinions vary on this one; others recommend turning this option off. Try both!). I have also heard that a better audio card (e.g. an Audigy 2) can improve performance dramatically. Also, you can use the latest unified Sound Blaster drivers, originally only for Audigy 2, on Audigy/Live! cards. Finally, if you use a Creative Labs Audigy card, try killing the program CTHELPER.EXE if it's running, as this occasionally flips out and sucks up all CPU time.

In the graphics area, definitely look at question 1.02 and try setting allowAllRefreshRates to 1. Make sure you have the latest drivers for your graphics card. You could also try lowering the screen resolution and color depth (i.e. going to 16 bits) and turning off the eye candy. If this doesn't help, then it's not the bottleneck (so you might as well restore the defaults). There are other interesting renderer commands to play with in VideoDefault.con (back up this file first!). Some people swear by setting these, though I cannot vouch for them:

If your frame rate is stuttering, i.e. every second or so you seem to slow down, you might try adjusting your sound buffer cache size.

There are a number of other values you can play with, check the tweak guide for more information. You might also try looking at this General Fixes and Help thread and the VGA and Sound Problems thread.

If you're running in single-player, set your 'bot percentage lower. Try loading a local multiplayer game with no bots and see how it feels.

If it takes more than a minute to load a battle, that's abnormally long. One solution is to buy more memory; some people with 256 Mb have this problem, while people with 512 Mb do not. Another solution is to try turning all the graphics options off and turn texture detail as low as possible. For example, on the same system (a 1 GHz Pentium 3), a GeForce4 ti 4400 with 128 Mb meant the game loaded in 20 seconds, vs. forever for a GeForce 2 MX with 32 Mb. Turning the detail down made the GeForce 2 load in a reasonable amount of time (though it played somewhat poorly when flying - get a better graphics card if you can!).

1.05 - There is static, there are echoes, etc.

The quick answer: look on EA's support site and also at the BF42.com sticky note for common problems.

If you're trying the demo, the README text that comes with it lists many problems and their solutions.

If you have a Soundblaster Live Value, go to the sound menu in the game and enable hardware sound. However, this can kill the frame rate on some configurations. So, another thing to try is to go to the hardware manager and set the audio acceleration to basic (1 notch from the left).

There used to be a problem, introduced with patch 1.3, of sound getting choppy. In 1.31 this was fixed by setting the soundBufferCacheSize to 200 in the Mods\bf1942\settings\default.con file. If you are having problems, you might consider setting this number even higher. See the thread on the East Coast Gaming Network forum.

Another tip is to upgrade from DirectX 8.1 to DirectX 9; this seemed to mostly cure one person's sound problems.

1.06 - I get "CD KEY IN USE" when I try to attach to a server.

Personally, I sometimes get this problem; I find if I just try to connect again, everything's fine.

One thing to try is clearing out your internet temporary files and cookies. In MS Internet Explorer, go to Tools | Internet Options... | General and click on Delete Cookies, then Delete Files. The full step by step explanation of this technique follows, along with what to do if that does not work.

EA Games support writes: This indicates an error in the Windows registry due to a bad or corrupted install. Try uninstalling the game completely, then before reinstalling delete the original game directory. Run Defrag and Scandisk. After you have completed that, reinstall the game and immediately patch it.

They also write: Battlefield 1942 can be played on two systems using the same CD key only on a LAN game. If you would like to run multiple connections of Battlefield 1942 on the Internet you will need to purchase a copy for each system and use the supplied CD key that comes with each copy.

Make sure that you never give anyone your CD key. If you give your key to another person and they log in, you will not be able to play on the Internet.

If you have never given you CD key to anyone and only have one system connected to the internet and are receive the "CD key in use" message, try the following:
1) Click on Tools in on you internet explorer
2) Click on internet options
3) Click on the “delete files” under Temporary internet files.

Also clear your internet history.

1) Click on Tools in on you internet explorer
2) Click on internet options
3) Click on “clear history” under History

Also try uninstalling and reinstalling the game.

If the CD Key for Battlefield 1942 will no longer work when connecting to GameSpy you will need to send the following information to the appropriate support department:

1) Name
2) Phone number
3) Address
4) Email address
5) Serial Number (CD Key that is not working)
6) Attach a photo of the back of the CD-ROM jewel case showing a legible copy of the CD Key

If in the United States or Canada email support20@ea.com or FAX 650-628-5900. This is for U.S and Canadian customers only! If outside of North America please refer to the game's documentation for the correct contact information.

1.07 - I cannot connect to a server, or quickly lose my connection.

First, make sure you have the latest patch (see above). Second, do not use a "No CD" fixed .exe file, you will not connect to any server. Next, reboot and then close down every extra process that you don't need to have running, e.g., either run "msconfig" and turn off everything you don't absolutely need, or manually stop or exit those programs in the right side of the taskbar. If things work now, you definitely need to get more memory. For example, people moving from 256 Mb to 384 Mb or more found things improved. Finally, as unlikely as it sounds, make sure you have the latest drivers: one person found that updating their NVIDIA graphics card driver improved things considerably.

Here's an official reply from EA Games support:

(Box James S.) - 09/23/2002 01:44 PM

We've seen this mostly with cable modems, but it applies to all types of connections. Most dedicated Connections have a firewall, a lot of the time without the user even knowing this. You'll want to talk with your ISP to disable this or find a work-around.

If you know you have a firewall, and know how to administer it, here are the ports you'll need to allow:

Allow UDP Port 14567
Allow UDP 22000 (This is only for LAN games, and used by computers on the same network)
Allow UDP range 23000-23009
# GameSpy Master Server UDP Heartbeat:
Allow UDP Port 27900
# GameSpy Master Server List Request:
Allow TCP Port 28900

In addition you may need to open the ports listed in the "Working Around the Firewall / Proxy" section of the GameSpy page: http://www.gamespyarcade.com/support/firewalls.shtml

Also, it's possible that your in-game internet settings could be set too high. Try changing it one below what you have it set to and see if this helps. For example, on the "Multiplayer" then "Internet" Tab, if you have the "Connection Speed" set to "LAN - T3 > 1M" try changing it to: "ADSL - 256k".

As always, make sure that you have closed any programs or tasks running in the background as sometimes one of the programs can conflict with the game. Background applications such as anti-virus programs are often the cause of conflicts.

WIN 98/ME:
To do this, hold the Ctrl and Alt keys down at the same time and hit the Del key once. This will in turn bring up a window called "close programs". The only two applications that you want listed here before installing or running the game are "explorer" and "systray". Close all other programs by double-clicking on them. You will need to repeat this process after closing each application. Note that some applications may take multiple times before closing. Don't worry that you are permanently changing your system configuration; these applications will return when you restart your system.

WIN XP:
Hold down the Ctrl, Alt, and Delete keys at the same time This will bring up the "Task Manager", follow the steps bellow in order:

1) Click the "Processes"
2) Click on the User Name button to sort by user name
3) Click on anything besides EXPLORER and TASKMGR for this User Name or other user names. Do NOT select anything for SYSTEM, LOCAL SERVICE, or NETWORK SERVICE.
4) Click on END PROCESS
5) Repeat steps 3 and 4 until only explorer.exe and taskmgr.exe are open for this user profile.

Thus ends the official answer. One more tip: if you have ZoneAlarm, disabled it, and you still cannot connect, bring up your Task Manager and kill the process called "VSMON.EXE".

1.08 - This server stinks!

People complain about how such-and-so server is lousy, etc. However, there's a difference between net lag, client-side CPU lag, and server-side CPU lag.

You can play on a server with a ping of 300 (3/10ths of a second) just fine, as long as the server has a CPU that can support the number of players set for the game. Basically, if you see yourself throwing grenades 1 or 2 seconds after you click your mouse button but the game plays smoothly, that's net lag. Pick a server with a lower ping to avoid this effect.

There is also the phenomenon of packet loss, where due to net congestion packets of information never reach your machine. This shows up as jerkiness (people stopping and going) and "Connection problem detected" warnings.

If the game plays smoothly except when there are many players and vehicles in your view, then that is client-side CPU lag. Your computer can't handle the information being sent from the server. I've noticed that when I play on the nVidia servers there are times when it lags out due to the large number of objects on the screen, and I have a AMD xp 2000+, 512mb, and a GeForce Ti 4200 128mb video card running at 800x600! So even a good machine will suffer client-side lag if the number of objects on screen is large enough.

If the game is choppy all the time, regardless of where you are, what you are doing, and your ping, then the server doesn't have a powerful enough CPU to handle the player load.

2. - Game setup

2.01 - Can I use a joystick to fly?

First, the game will only detect a joystick if it's configured with controller ID #1. In the Control Panel, Gaming Options, look at "Controller IDs".

To set up a joystick, in the game go to "Options | Controls" and find the Air command listing. Now click on the right-hand box next to "pitch up", for example, and move your joystick back; "pitch down" will automatically get set to the opposite. Do the same for roll, moving left and right; rudder, rotating the stick (if you have one that supports this); throttle, moving the throttle control in the correct direction; and, finally, set your fire and bomb buttons. After all this, the display should look something like this:

SPEED UP: JOYSTICK AXIS 3- 
SLOW DOWN / REVERSE SPEED: JOYSTICK AXIS 3+ 

RUDDER LEFT: JOYSTICK AXIS 2+ 
RUDDER RIGHT: JOYSTICK AXIS 2- 

PITCH UP: JOYSTICK AXIS 1- 
PITCH DOWN: JOYSTICK AXIS 1+ 

ROLL LEFT: JOYSTICK AXIS 0- 
ROLL RIGHT JOYSTICK AXIS 0+ 

FIRE: JOYSTICK 1 
ALT FIRE: JOYSTICK 3
Another useful thing to do is to set various views for the joystick's hat control (a mini-joystick above the fire button). Go to "Options | Controls | Common" and set (as you wish) such things as the Inside, Chase Rear, Chase Front, and Toggle Camera View (on page 2) alternate keys as hat controls. This is handy for practice and in the game, as you can then quickly switch views to see how your bombing run went. If you want to get rid of the alternate key for a command, select the key's box and then press the Escape key.

Finally, make sure to click on "Save".

Also, if you just bought the joystick, make sure to go to the Control Panel in Windows and calibrate it. If you're buying a joystick just to play this game, don't bother with a force-feedback or other high-end controller, around $20 (after rebate) gets the reasonable Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick . You might look elsewhere for a joystick; I've heard that it's worth avoiding a force-feedback stick for this game. If you need to calibrate the joystick further, consider using the free DXTweak 2 utility.

If you can't set up your joystick using "Options | Controls" you could try setting it up by modifying the Air.con file. The Air.con can be found at "\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 1942\Settings\Profiles\playername\Controls".

While we're on the topic, a little-known command while flying is "mouselook". By holding the left-shift key down, you can move the mouse (with your third hand) and look around while flying.

The single-player demo has bugs that won't allow some joystick bindings; buy the game.

If you want to adjust the dead zone for your joystick, or even want to use the joystick to drive or even walk, try out the free RB-Joy utility.

For more information on control setup (and flying in general), visit the Battlefield 1942 Airforce site.

2.02 - How do I turn off the movies at the start of the game?

Do the following:

  1. Right-Click your BF1942 shortcut and choose "Properties" from the menu.
  2. In the "Target" area (after "...bf1942.exe") add: +restart 1
When done, the line should look like this:
Target:  "C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 1942\BF1942.exe" +restart 1
You could also delete or rename the movies in the "Movies" subdirectory, but the method above is cleaner and easily reversible.

2.03 - How do I use the in-game GameSpy filters?

When looking for multiplayer games, there's a row labelled "FILTER". The empty boxes to the right are where you can type in conditions to see games and servers you want. For the "SERVER" box, if you fill in "EA" you'll then show only servers that start with "EA". Fill in "10" for "PLAYERS" and only games that have 10 or more players currently in them will be shown. Fill in "<150" for "PING" and you'll get games with a ping (round-trip message speed in milliseconds) of 150 or less. Fill in "CON" for "GAME TYPE" and you'll get only Conquest games.

What do all the icons mean to the left of each server? Click on the "?" in the upper right corner of the main window and you'll see what the various icons mean.

You can also search for mods, new battles developed by fans. For mods using new maps, simply search for the name of the new battle. For mods that use existing maps, you can go to MULTIPLAY and then INTERNET, then click on SHOW ALL in the CUSTOM FILTER area on the right part of the screen. If you now click on one of the mods listed there and then hit UPDATE, you'll see only games of this sort. The scroll controls of this dialog are mostly broken, i.e. the slider and arrows to the right of the list do not work. You can scroll by putting the mouse in the mod list window and rolling your middle mouse button. More importantly, some of the custom filters do not appear to work, e.g. the one for Desert Combat never shows a game, at least for me. Also, when searching for mods you cannot tell when an UPDATE is actually finished. A better solution is to use the All-Seeing Eye.

2.04 - What's the All-Seeing Eye (ASE) about?

The All-Seeing Eye (a.k.a. ASE, vs. GS for GameSpy) finds servers and pings them more accurately than GameSpy (at least I think so), and has many options for filtering and finding games, finding friends, waiting to get into a game, etc. It is also faster: a full update of the server list on my machine takes 18 seconds using ASE, 50 seconds using the in-game browser. However, unlike the in-game server finder, you cannot switch to another server from inside the game. That is, if you are in a game and want to join a different server, you must quit Battlefield 1942 itself. The quickest way to do this is to quit by hitting "Alt-F4", which immediately kills the program. You can then ping the server list in ASE and join another game.

To get ASE, go to their web site and look at the Download section to the right. Download, install, and run the program (it's free to try). On the left side of the application will be a list of games that you have on your computer that ASE supports. Click on the Battlefield 1942 folder and click the button with red and blue arrows ("Refresh"), next to the stopwatch. You'll now see a ton of games, which you can sort by clicking on the relevant category. If you open the Battlefield 1942 folder you'll see different types of games. You can select one of these subfolders and only that type of game will be shown and refreshed, which is faster. To actually play a game, simply double-click on it. Single-clicking on a game will show who's playing and the settings for the game.

Note: if you find you are not allowed to join a game because you do not have Punkbuster enabled, you need to bring up the in-game GameSpy server searcher once. Bring it up and click the box next to "Punkbuster" at the bottom of the screen. Now you're good to go.

ASE has built-in filters for the more popular mods, and for all mods. Under the "Battlefield 1942" folder in ASE there is a Mods folder, open it up and you can choose which mods to see. This works better than the in-game mod server finder, which has a number of feedback and search problems. You'll need to remember to uncheck these boxes to see all the servers again.

You can also make your own filters to search for modified games to play. The advantage of making your own filter is that you can add other conditions, such as whether a password is needed, the ping rate, etc.

An easy way to start to do this is to download my own custom filters and modify these as you wish. First download this default.fil file and put it in your "Program Files\The All-Seeing Eye" directory. Now when you start ASE you'll see these at the bottom of the left column. Syntax information for filters is available online. If you go to the bottom of the list of folders there's a "My Filters" folder. Right click on it and select "New...". Give a name to this new filter, say "Active Conquest Games". In the text window cut and paste this text in:

1    if version != "v1.6" remove
2    if clients < "5" remove
3    if game != "conquest" remove
4    if needpass > "0" remove
5    if clients == maxclients remove
6    if pl > "40" remove
7    if ping > "250" remove
8    if gameId ~== "desert*" remove
and click "OK". Now you have a filter that, when you do "Refresh", will show you only those games that (1) use the version 1.6 patch, (2) have 5 or more people in them, (3) are Conquest games, (4) don't need a password, (5) are not full, (6) do not have a lot of packet loss to them, (7) have a ping under 250 msec, and (8) are not Desert Combat. These are my defaults - adjust as you see fit.

Here are some other useful lines to add to your scripts:

    if cpu < "1500" remove 
    if soldier_friendly_fire > "0" remove 
    if vehicle_friendly_fire > "0" remove 
    if region !& "2" remove
    if dedicated == "no" remove
The first line checks that the server's CPU speed is 1.5 GHz or higher, second and third that friendly fire is off, fourth that the server is in region 2 (North America), and fifth that the server is dedicated.
1    if version != "v1.6" remove
2    if clients < "5" remove
3    if game != "*conquest*" remove
4    if needpass > "0" remove
5    if clients == maxclients remove
6    if pl > "40" remove
7    if ping > "250" remove
8    if gameId ~!= "desert*" remove
searches servers for the Desert Combat modification. There's an odd glitch that if you cut and paste this filter into ASE, it will ask you "Don't you mean...?" - just click "No".

There are more mods out there, see my mod list for a starting place.

One way to find game mods played on the standard maps is the following filter:

1    if version != "v1.6" remove
2    if needpass > "0" remove
3    if pl > "40" remove
4    if gameId ~== "bf1942" remove
5    if gameId ~== "xpack1" remove
6    if gameId ~== "desert*" remove
The last line filters out Desert Combat, which is a class unto itself.

There's also a FAQ about ASE.

In fairness, GameSpy offers GameSpy 3D, which sounds like it has similar features to ASE, but most serious players seem to prefer ASE. BF42.com did a poll: with 1343 votes in, 16% used GameSpy 3D, 41% All-Seeing Eye, 43% the in-game browser.

Another way to find games is through a website called ServerSpy, which lets you find game servers based on all sorts of different search criteria.

2.05 - What are mods, and how do I use them?

Mods are free, fan-created scenarios, modified maps, etc. These mods range from making existing maps more realistic or more action oriented to creating battles from entirely different eras (e.g. modern warfare, civil war, science fiction). Mods can put new weapons and classes on the standard maps, can provide you a new map to play, or can change both the weapons and maps. See PlanetBattlefield's mod page for other popular (and unpopular) mods, and their map page for over a hundred free maps.

Once you download a mod, install it. Some are easy as pie to install, others you have to work at a little bit. In general, a mod gets installed in a subdirectory off of C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 1942\Mods, e.g. the directory C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 1942\Mods\DesertCombat is where the Desert Combat mod is installed. New maps typically go in the directory C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 1942\Mods\bf1942\Archives\bf1942\levels.

Once a mod is installed, to play it on-line you can use the in-game browser (which is extremely poor) or the All-Seeing Eye (ASE) to search for servers hosting mods. Notice that ASE has mod filters for the most popular mods and can show which custom maps are in play. Once you find a game you want to join, simply double-click it. To run a mod in a local multiplayer game, do the following: start Battlefield 1942, select MULTIPLAY, then CUSTOM GAME, select the mod, then click ACTIVATE in the lower right corner. Now when you create a multiplayer game it will use this mod. You can choose Coop mode if you want to play alone against computer players (don't expect the computer 'bots to be that good, though).

By far the most popular mod today that is a new game is Desert Combat, which pits the U.S. against Iraq, in uhhhh France (it uses the original maps, plus many of its own). There are over 1200 servers running this game, so try it out! Another popular mod is Eve of Destruction, based on the war in Vietnam.

Right now there are not a lot of people playing other mods, which is mostly due to a lack of knowledge and of critical mass. Now that you know how to use mods, go do it!

2.06 - Can I set up macros for keyboard commands?

Instead of typing "game.votekickteamplayer 28" in the console, you'd like to do this a lot quicker. With the latest patch, now you can! Well, somewhat quicker. In the file Mods\bf1942\Settings\AliasedCommands.con there are a bunch of console commands that now have shortcuts. For example, there's a line:

    alias kt game.votekickteamplayer
So now you can just type "kt 28" and hit Enter in the console and it will do the same thing. The console, by the way, is the thing that comes up if you hit the tilde "~" key (above the Tab key, and you don't need to hit the shift key). Hit the tilde again to turn it off.

Look at AliasedCommands.con for many more shortcuts, or download this Word doc file for a summary. You can also add your own aliases, just add a line in AliasedCommands.con before you start to play. You can avoid typing in command numbers by putting the whole phrase inside double apostrophes, e.g.

    alias mc "chat.setChatHistory 5 2 5"
sets the chat display how you prefer by just typing "mc".

Unfortunately, you can't put multiple commands into a single alias. There's also no way to make this aliasing work for messages you'd like to type quickly to just your team. There is a way to quickly send messages to everyone playing: see this thread.

2.07 - How do I disable the Tooltips "T" key?

In the heat of battle you try to reload ("R") and hit "T" instead, then have to waste some time having to toggle the tool tips off again. Instead, you could just turn off this feature entirely.

Go to Options, Controls, Common (the default page), page 2 (click the arrow in the lower-right corner of this page), click on the "T" to the right of "TOGGLE TOOLTIP", then hit the "Escape" key (or to whatever you want to remap it).

3. - Game Mechanics

An excellent way to test and practice at just about everything is to create a local game with only you (or you and a friend) in it. You can then wander around and try things out. Also, check the Tactics Section for many sites with tips and explanations for new players.

3.01 - How do I open the landing craft's door?

Up-arrow. Hold it down and you'll see it open. You need to be in the craft (type "E") and be the driver (type "1"). You can (and usually should; the door just protects you from gunfire) open the door before landing; the boat will not capsize if you do.

3.02 - How do I change positions when in a vehicle?

Enter the vehicle by facing it and pressing "E". Once you're inside, press the keys 1 through (up to) 6 to see the other locations you can occupy inside the vehicle (and remember this works for ships and planes, too). If someone is there first, you cannot take their position. That said, you can sometimes kick computer players out of the driver's seat by pressing 1 repeatedly when in the vehicle. Note that you cannot fire as a passenger in the jeep, but can if you jump into the jeep but don't "E" enter it (it can be tough to stay inside, though; depends on the driver).

By the way, if someone's in an artillery vehicle in the gunner's position, he's probably shooting, so don't drive the vehicle, please.

3.03 - Where are the submarines/the bombers?

The submarines are on only the Midway and Guadalcanal maps, and only in multiplayer games. The Allies have a bomber in El Alamein, Gazala (NW corner), Bocage, and Operation Market Garden, in any game. To see what weapons are on which maps, check the chart on the Annotated Maps page.

3.04 - How do I use my parachute?

You eject from the plane with "E", then hit "9" to open your chute. Sometimes you have to hit "9" twice - keep hitting "9" rapidly until you see the parachute icon appear on the right side of your screen. You can open the chute as close as a foot above the ground, which saves you the long, vulnerable ride down to the ground. It's even possible to use the chute if you jump from a guard tower, windmill, bridge, etc., if you're extremely fast at hitting "9". While you are dropping, either with the chute closed or open, you can change your facing and use your weapon (and drop mines and expacks, etc.). Changing your facing does affect which direction you go as you drop, though in a not entirely obvious fashion: you tend to have to turn further than the direction you need to go.

3.05 - How do I use artillery?

There are a number of excellent, thorough web pages on this topic: Stewart's, Khyron's, and GunMod's.

The short (?) answer is that a scout uses his binoculars on a target, and if you're in an artillery piece (coastal gun, or self-propelled) you'll see a little rocket icon over your defensive strength. The icon will last 120 seconds or until the scout is killed, whichever comes first. Right-click your mouse and you get a circle around the scout's view (the overhead map will show you where the scout is looking from and at). You are the little tank-looking icon on this circle - as you rotate left and right this icon rotates, too. Aim its muzzle at the center of the view (and note how the yellow bar on the horizontal axis moves). If you can't line it up, it means you'll need to get in the driver's seat and rotate the artillery piece a bit. Now give some altitude by going up and down (and note how the yellow bar on the vertical axis moves). Fire with a mouse left-click, and you'll see your shot travel and hit the landscape from the view of the scout. If your shot went short, raise the altitude of your next shot, or vice versa (you'll see a ghost of your previous altitude on the bar).

As a scout, please don't keep spotting new locations every few seconds - this drives artillerymen crazy (it kicks them out of their view of the battlefield) and is pointless. Just spot once and stay alive for two minutes. If you are an artilleryman and need something to shoot at, hit F2 F6, which sends the message "Artillery ready for barrage".

3.06 - How do I use a submarine?

The quick answer: get in the submarine at its conning tower by typing "E". "W/S/A/D" drives the sub. Up-arrow (go figure) submerges the sub, down-arrow raises it to the surface. You set the depth you want on the right gauge in the middle, the left gauge shows your current depth. At 1.0' to 1.5' you are submerged and mostly hidden, but also go slower. Point the submarine at the target (just looking at the target with your periscope won't do it) and launch torpedoes as you wish; best is to lead the target (if moving) and also fire at its side (duh). Go much deeper and you start using up limited oxygen, and won't be able to fire (you get an overhead map display instead). Go very deep, into the red zone, and you get to reenact "the hull kenna take this pressure, captain," seen in every submarine movie ever made. The only difference is that you'll probably die.

3.07 - How do I change sides?

Most people stick it out with the side they start on, but if you want to change after dying, just click on the appropriate "Axis/Allies" text tab that is at the top of the 5 classes selector.

3.08 - What do the ratings mean at the end of a battle?

Remember, statistics are for the losing team. You pegged 12 guys with your sniper rifle and never died, but you never grabbed the control point next to you and so your team lost 30 tickets when the enemy controlled them all. Oops. Anyway, the "trophies" column number is the number of kills, plus two points per control point you convert or flag you capture, minus two points for each team kill or suicide; the "shocked man" is the number you killed; the "skull" is how many times you died. Negative scores mean you killed people on your side. The "ping" column is simply that, what your ping (round-trip message speed in milliseconds) was during the game. The ratings are sorted first by the number of hits, and ties are broken by the number of kills. The gold, silver, and bronze medals are awarded to the top three players overall (based on your "trophies" score). These awards are purely for bragging rights, and within the same battle scenario on the same server these medals are carried over into the next round. This is why you will see someone with more than one medal next to his name. At the end of a game the top ten players have a rating number to the left of their names, the rest have a skull. Note that, during play, if you check the stats (using the Tab key), you'll see to the left of each name either a skull, meaning they're currently dead, or an icon showing what class they are.

If you want to see how you've done over the long term, check out BFSTATS and, for Europe, BF Tracks. There's also CSPORTS.net, which just gives a rating number.

3.09 - Quick, what are the radio buttons?

Someday I'll know all the radio commands by heart. Until that day, I'm putting this here, where I can find it and print it out. Here are some of the critical ones:

Quick commands (hit the key twice):
F1 F1 - Roger
F2 F2 - Requesting reinforcements!
F3 F3 - Unit spotted!
F4 F4 - Defend/Attack closest control point!
F5 F5 - Roger
F6 F6 - Take cover!
F7 F7 - Go! Go! Go!

Other important commands (to me):
F1 F2 - Negative
F2 F1 - Requesting pickup
F2 F6 - Artillery ready for barrage (so wake up, scouts)
F3 F1 - Armor spotted!
F5 F6 - Negative
F6 F5 - Medic! (or, if in a vehicle, Need repairs!)
F7 F5 - if in a vehicle, Get in!

Note that you can use the chat commands ("L" for team-only, "K" for everyone) even when you're dead.

Also note that when a scout uses his binoculars (by right-clicking when he's viewing through them), he sends an "I have a target for artillery" type of message. Scouts: do spotting once and wait two minutes - respotting again and again kicks the artilleryman out of his view of the battlefield.

There are plenty of others, but those are the ones I personally care about. Here's the entire list (F8 cancels any message begun):

CONFIRM
F1 F1 - Roger
F1 F2 - Negative

REQUEST
F2 F1 - Requesting pickup
F2 F2 - Requesting reinforcements
F2 F3 - Requesting anti-tank support
F2 F4 - Requesting naval support
F2 F5 - Requesting air support
F2 F6 - Artillery ready for barrage (so wake up, scouts)
F2 F7 - Requesting armored personnel carrier support

SPOTTED
F3 F1 - Armor spotted!
F3 F2 - Infantry spotted!
F3 F3 - Unit spotted!
F3 F4 - Ship spotted!
F3 F5 - Submarine spotted!
F3 F6 - Airplane spotted!
F3 F7 - Scout spotted!

DEFEND/ATTACK
F4 xx - Defend/Attack specific control point (game dependent)
F4 F4 - Defend/Attack closest control point!

CONFIRM
F5 F3 - Defending
F5 F4 - Attacking
F5 F5 - Roger
F5 F6 - Negative

ALARMS
F6 F1 - Wait
F6 F2 - Fire
F6 F3 - Hold fire
F6 F4 - Fire in the hole
F6 F5 - Medic! (or, if in a vehicle: Need repairs!)
F6 F6 - Take cover! (or, if in a plane: Watch your six!)
F6 F7 - Bail out!

TACTICS
F7 F1 - Cover me
F7 F2 - Hold this position
F7 F3 - Go for the enemy flag
F7 F4 - Fall back
F7 F5 - Stick together (or, if in a vehicle: Get in!)
F7 F6 - Follow me
F7 F7 - Go! Go! Go!

The last three sets (F5 through F7) of phrases are vocal, the rest go over the radio. Vocal phrases are heard only by nearby combatants; if close enough, enemies can hear them, too, unlike radio phrases.

Note that if you go into the game's sound options, page 2, you can make all announcements be in English. Also, if you miss an announcement or want to see previous kills, you can bring up the console with the tilde "~" key, and use the "Page Up" and "Page Down" keys to scroll through the messages.

There is currently no way in the game to define your own key combinations to send a text message. However, there are some possible solutions: see question 2.06.

If you want to actually talk with other players, get Ventrilo, Teamspeak 2 (which are free), or Roger Wilco (which is not). Right now there are few servers explicitly supporting voice communication. ECGN is one that supports Teamspeak. Just connect Teamspeak to 205.177.13.42 and set your sound settings to "push to talk" (or else they'll kick you off) and set a key to activate your microphone. Join the right game on the right team by right-clicking it and there you go.

Finally, occasionally some dangfool player will repeat some message again and again. To filter out such chatter, type in the console command "ignore 21" (or whatever his player number is, which you can find by holding down the Tab key) and you will turn him off.

3.10 - How do I vote to kick a player out of a game?

EA/DICE has finally answered our prayers and in version 1.6 added a reasonable kick player interface to the scoreboard page, which also allows you to vote for a different map (or to restart the current map) and to add buddies. To take a quick look at the scoreboard, hit "Tab". If you want to vote on a player, etc., click your right mouse button - this gives you a cursor. Now click on "Lock" in the lower right corner. The scoreboard will now not disappear when you let go of the Tab key. Another way to bring up the scoreboard is to go to the spawn screen by hitting "Enter", then click on the "Scoreboard" button.

Some servers punish teamkills when they happen. That is, if someone does a teamkill, they'll be punished by having their respawn time increased. As a victim of a teamkill, you can decide whether the teamkill was deliberate and should be punished.

As a player, checking the console "admin.TKPunishMode" setting will let you know if a game is set up to punish or forgive a team-kill by default. That is, if this is set to "1", it means that when someone on your team kills you, they are punished for it by default. You can forgive them by typing the console command ftk. Alternately, if the punish mode is off, you can punish a player with ptk. To be honest, I doubt anyone in the world actually uses "forgive" or "punish", but I think it is at least worth documenting how to do it.

3.11 - Where are the jetpacks?

In the Secret Weapons expansion you'll find the jetpacks on three maps: two jetpacks in Hellendoorn (top floor of the building north of the center flag), three in Essen, and three in Kbely Airfield. For exact locations, see the annotated maps. They appear when the flag nearby is turned Axis or Allies. The new free Raid on Agheila map also has jetpacks in some houses.

Things to know about jetpacks: you become a different class, sort of a medic without a medical kit, when you put on a jetpack. Hit the spacebar a number of times to gain altitude; note your fuel is limited, but replenishes. You can fall from a great height, even parachute without the chute, and (usually) take only a tiny bit of damage. You can swim with a jetpack on. The only way to get out of a jetpack is to switch kits ("G") with a dead soldier.

4. - Tactics

There are many myths out there, here are some facts: machine guns and aircraft guns do not damage tanks at all (though they do damage halftracks and self-propelled artillery). The air vents on the rear of the Tiger are not more vulnerable than any other spot on its rear. Vehicles take the same amount of damage from weapons whether or not there's an enemy inside them. Machine guns and soldier's weapons do no damage to ships and subs. The less angled a shot is to the surface it hits, the more damage it does.

For many more tips, start with my own tips and tactics page (that'll keep you busy a minute or two), my weapons effects page, Trevor Larkum's tank guide, Planet Battlefield's strategy guides, BF1942 UK's tips, and SniperKillerMD's tips, IGN's tips, BF1942 Airforce. Or just learn by dying, I mean, doing.

4.01 - Why did I get run over?

Because people drive like maniacs when they get in jeeps. Roads are for vehicles, you should stay off the roads if you're on foot; use the nearby cover off the road (if any), it's safer and you move just as fast.

4.02 - How do I hit anything with my gun?

You shoot your opponent with 20 shots, he turns around and kills you with one. What happened? It could be lag, or maybe he's just lucky. More likely it's one of a few things: he's not moving, he's prone or crouching, he waits a second before firing, he leads his target and aims well, or he squeezes off single shots instead of a burst. These are a few factors that improve accuracy. Aim for where your opponent will be in a fifth or tenth of a second, not where he is. For long-distance targets, a quick mouse tap shoots a single shot of the assault rifle, and such shots are usually much more accurate; feel free to tap off a few. The engineer's rifle always has the same accuracy, even when you are moving (it's essentially the sniper's rifle without the scope). To tell how good your accuracy is at the moment, look at the cross-hair targetting. If the yellow lines almost meet at the center, you'll have an accurate shot; as they pull back outwards, your shot is less accurate. The sniper rifle can take a person out in two shots, or one if the shooter does a head-shot (usually hard). If you're a sniper, hold down the mouse button after the shot to stay zoomed in and see how the shot went.

On the flip side, if you do not want to get hit, keep moving like a caffeinated monkey. Aside from the fact that snipers love stationary or predictable targets, there is also the lag factor. Say players Abel and Baker are in two adjacent rooms but can't see each other. Abel rushes into Baker's room, Baker sits there. Abel immediately sees where Baker is, as Baker's old position is the same as his new position, so shooting bullets at it will be quite effective. Baker does not see Abel until he gets an update of Abel's new position, at which point Baker's usually dead.

4.03 - How do I harm a tank while I'm an infantryman?

Many ways are possible. First thing is to shoot the machine-gunner in the turret, if there is one, as he has little protection. Now the tank has only one pair of eyes looking for you. A standard tank-killing method is to toss a grenade or two underneath the tank (preferably from behind, so that you might live to tell the tale). With the 1.2 patch grenades are less effective against tanks, but still do some damage: 6 or 7 thrown next to any tank blow it up. An anti-tank weapon is an obvious choice, if you have one (and recall that if someone else with one dies nearby, you can exchange kits and so pick up their weapon by going to them and hitting the "G" key). You want to use anti-tank weapons against the sides or rear of the tank, if possible. From a little testing (and even more testing), I've found hitting rear/sides/front to be about 12/4/3 in the amount of damage done to medium tanks and 4/2/1.5 to heavy tanks, where 12 is a kill. The lower parts of tanks are usually more vulnerable, and you want your shot to hit the surface of the tank as dead-on (not angled) as possible.

If you are an engineer, hiding or tossing mines or detonation packs can do the job. A classic (but hard) trick is to put a number of exppacks in a jeep, drive hell-for-leather at the enemy tank, jump out at the last second and detonate the explosives. Simply crashing a jeep into a tank does lots of damage anyway. Anti-aircraft guns do a good job on tanks, so shoot them when you can.

In general, keep moving: if the turret is pointing at you, you're probably dead soon, so run up close to the tank and circle it, moving away from the gun's direction. Also consider crouching (Control key) or even lying down, as the tank's machinegun can only point so far down.

One last tip (since it's poorly documented): when using grenades, if you right-click you'll drop the grenade at your feet (or out the window). If you right-click and hold, the longer you hold the farther you'll throw, up to the normal throwing range of just using a left-click.

4.04 - How do I hit something with my bombs?

First, you definitely want to fly while using the "free view"; hit the F9 key to make your cockpit get out of the way while flying. An easy way to make a bomb hit the intended target is to dive bomb, i.e. approach from great height, tilt the airplane's nose down, aim at the target, dive until you're close to the ground, then release the bombs. Instantly pull up and press F11 and you will have a good view of the results. Press F9 to switch back to cockpit view, and F9 once more to have a free view. Better yet, if your joystick has a hat control or extra buttons, set these to change the view. The most common mistake is dropping too late. You can also do safer, but harder, "hug the ground" flyovers, but it's definitely something you'll need to practice to learn when to drop your bombs. Another method of learning to bomb is to use the third-person view while bombing, in order to be able to see and understand how the bombs arc and fall.

By the way, if you notice an explosion immediately after dropping a bomb, or (with friendly fire on) you blow up right when you drop a bomb, it means that you caught up to your bomb and detonated it. When you drop a bomb you should continue to go straight or pull up; pushing your joystick down after dropping causes the problem.

Torpedo planes are trickier still. You can drop the torpedoes directly on to the target, but it is often better to drop the torpedo in the water and let it travel to the ship. See the weapons damage page for a comparison. To have a torpedo hit from the water, you must fly very close to the water and drop it towards the ship. It also helps to cut back on the throttle and slow way down, and to release well before you get to the target. The torpedo travels straight forever, so in theory you could drop the torpedo from very far away.

The Battlefield 1942 Airforce site has plenty of info on flying.

4.05 - How do I hit something with an anti-aircraft gun?

Note that when you shoot, a puff of smoke appears a little later. That's where your explosion takes place. The light grey puffs are misses, the darker puffs of flak are near misses, the black puffs are hits. So, lead the target a bit, shooting where you think he'll be in a second or two. To learn how much to lead, you can fire in one fixed spot where a plane is about to fly and see when you hit.

If firing at a plane, don't stop firing when the plane appears to be crashing, continue firing until it blows up or breaks apart. If you stop firing when the enemy plane appears to have lost control, the pilot could still bail out. By blowing up the plane you reduce the risk of a successful bail-out. Flak guns can also damage ground vehicles and hurt infantry. Your own AA gun can take some damage from your hits if the target is too close to you. On some maps, e.g. Bocage, if your flak gun shoots low enough it can hit your own sandbags and you damage yourself.

4.06 - Are there maps of the battlefields that I can study?

The Annotated Map site has maps noting control points, vehicle starting positions, and medical and ammo supply points. There is also a list of vehicles available.

5. - Miscellaneous

5.01 - How do I make a screenshot during a BF 1942 session?

While playing, hit the "PrtScn" key (typically to the right of the F12 key) while playing. Each time you hit this key, the screenshot is saved in the "C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 1942\ScreenShots" folder as a .tga (Truevision Targa) image. To view these, get some reasonable (free) graphics viewer such as Irfanview.

5.02 - How do I make a movie of a BF 1942 session?

FRAPS is free, simple, and works well, but does not capture sound. Search the BF42.com forums for terms like "video capture" and "stunt movies" for more information.

6. - Glossary

Some quick definitions of abbreviations and terms often encountered:

ASE - All-Seeing Eye, external software that can connect you to multiplayer games. See question 2.03.
BF - Battlefield (i.e., this game).
Camper - Someone who stays or waits at a location because of some advantage, e.g. people camp on carriers and hangars waiting for planes to spawn.
Clan - A group of people on the same team that play together. You'll see the clan name as the first part of their screen name. See Battlefield 1942 Match's list for some example clans, and Ocean Fish for a typical clan site.
CTF - Capture the Flag.
gg - "good game."
GS, GSA - GameSpy, GameSpy Arcade. The default service that connects you with multiplayer games.
Jingletard - A smacktard who got Battlefield 1942 for Christmas and wishes it was Unreal Tournament 2003.
Ladder - A list of clans and their ratings on a given server or service. Clans can fight each other in formal matches, moving up or down the ladder. See Battlefield 1942 Match and Proving Grounds, for example; Proving Grounds' FAQ gives a general rundown of the idea.
lol - Laughing out loud.
MP - Multiplayer.
Noob, Newbie - New player who is learning the ropes.
rofl - Rolling on floor, laughing.
RTR, TRTR - The Road to Rome, the first Battlefield 1942 expansion.
Smacktard - a particularly idiotic or annoying player: crashes or beaches the battleship, shoots at teammates for taking "his" plane, etc. View posters about this.
SP - Single player.
TDM - Team Death Match.
Tickets - In Conquest battles each team starts with a number of tickets, listed in the upper right corner of the screen. Dying costs a ticket, and losing a number of control points causes tickets to be lost over time.
TKer - Team-Killer. Someone who kills his teammates or otherwise plays against his own side. Usually banned from the server if he's caught, or he can be voted off by the other players.
wth, wtf - What the hell? What the fark?

Credits: Thanks to Robert Spelman, Roger Vousden, Jordan Sugarman, Joni Nieminen, Jordi van Kessel, Chris "Mr Jones", Chris "the Bishop" Curran, Hans Petter Egge, eggman|exp, Bubnod, Venom400, Ric Crouch, Carl Catozzi, Oblivious, Minimad, and Dave Fraser for their suggestions, corrections, and additions to this FAQ.

Back to main page.


Eric Haines, a.k.a. [Fredhead] / erich@acm.org

Last change: March 7, 2004