1996 corolla 1.6L flashing engine light

hi there, my friend has a 1996 corolla and the engine light came on about 6 months ago. they car idled and ran rough under acceleration especially. i put on a new distrubuter cap and i am pretty sure i did new plugs and wires. the light didn't come back on until now. now it seems to have a slight skip at an idle every fifteen seconds or so. taking off it bucks and skips so you have to slip the clutch to get it going. going up a hill it loses power real quick and starts bucking and misfiring and the check engine lights starts flashing. really it shouldn't be driven until we figure out what is going on... i plan on getting an OBD2 tester or whatever the heck they are called and pull some codes, but if anyone could help i would be grateful. thank you- ryan

ok checked codes and they are mulitple/random misfire, cylinder 2 misfire, cylnder 3 misfire... i drove it and i can feel it went it does it under hard acceleration, it cuts out on the one and then sometimes you can feel the other drop... i just changed the distributer cap and i looked at this one and i don't see any cracks or anything... i hope its not a head gasket leak between cylinders or something, i think my they had to add a little coolant a few weeks ago, any thoughts?