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It's BASIC Week again! [message #300344] Sun, 13 September 2015 13:03 Go to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: fozztexx

I do a regular contest on RetroBattlestations called BASIC Week which
is a sort of tribute to the days when it was common for programs to be
published in books and magazines and people would type them into their
computers. One of the neat things about distributing software through
type-in listings is that there’s no need for working disk drives or
tape drives, or to do complicated things like get a serial connection
working and find a way to transfer files. If a computer has built-in
BASIC just turn it on and start typing!

Past programs have displayed vector graphics, silly text screen
animations, and a couple of games. This time around the program is
called Winchester Drive and the concept is to explore a mansion to see
what you can find. I decided this time around to try out true sprites
and made a version for both the Apple II and Commodore 128.

I wanted to do a Commodore 64 version but couldn't find any line
drawing routines written in assembly anywhere! I thought for sure in
the last 33 years some book or magazine somewhere would have written a
couple of simple routines to clear the graphics screen and draw some
lines that you could POKE in and then call with SYS. Oh well, I will
leave the C64 version to someone else. :-)

The challenge is more about honor and glory and getting an excuse to
show off old computers and/or skills with porting, but I do give out
vinyl decals & stickers for prizes (http://imgur.com/a/iAS5T).

I know that the TI-99/4A, Atari 400/800, Coleco Adam, MSX, and maybe
some others also had sprites. Sprites aren’t really needed for porting
to other systems, they’re just an easy way to move the player around
the screen. The program could definitely be ported to systems that use
simple character graphics or even plain text screens.

The complete source code has been posted to github, and you can see
the full rules and check out other submissions here:

https://redd.it/3ko0nd

--
Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx
Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com
Re: It's BASIC Week again! [message #300345 is a reply to message #300344] Sun, 13 September 2015 13:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: B00ze

On 2015-09-13 13:03, fozztexx@mail.fozztexx.com (fozztexx) wrote:

> I wanted to do a Commodore 64 version but couldn't find any line
> drawing routines written in assembly anywhere! I thought for sure in
> the last 33 years some book or magazine somewhere would have written a
> couple of simple routines to clear the graphics screen and draw some
> lines that you could POKE in and then call with SYS. Oh well, I will
> leave the C64 version to someone else. :-)

Transactor magazine did publish line drawing routines, but I can't
possibly recall the issue number...

Regards,

--
! _\|/_ Sylvain / B00ze64@nospam.hotmail.com
! (o o) Member-+-David-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/Planetary-Society-+-
oO-( )-Oo The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
Re: It's BASIC Week again! [message #300470 is a reply to message #300344] Tue, 15 September 2015 09:58 Go to previous messageGo to next message
rusure is currently offline  rusure
Messages: 1030
Registered: March 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 11:03:19 AM UTC-6, fozztexx wrote:
couldn't find any line drawing routines written in assembly anywhere! I thought for sure in the last 33 years some book or magazine somewhere would have written a couple of simple routines to clear the graphics screen and draw some lines that you could POKE in and then call with SYS.

DGRAPH in the April 1988 issue of COMPUTE! GAZETTE may augument the C64 BASIC instruction set with graphic commands.

Find COMPUTE! GAZETTE issues here

ftp://arnold.c64.org/pub/magazines/
Re: It's BASIC Week again! [message #300597 is a reply to message #300345] Thu, 17 September 2015 00:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
lawless.jim is currently offline  lawless.jim
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Registered: March 2013
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Member
Stephen Judd's BLARG ... a set of graphical extensions to C64 BASIC ... can be found here:

http://www.ffd2.com/fridge/
Re: It's BASIC Week again! [message #300598 is a reply to message #300345] Thu, 17 September 2015 00:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
rusure is currently offline  rusure
Messages: 1030
Registered: March 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 11:56:12 AM UTC-6, B00ze wrote:
> On 2015-09-13 13:03, fozztexx@mail.fozztexx.com (fozztexx) wrote:

>
> Transactor magazine did publish line drawing routines, but I can't
> possibly recall the issue number...

The December 1988 Transactor issue had an article containing a couple of C64 graphics programs. I've never used them but they look highly rudimentary.. DGRAPH in the April 1988 Compute Gazette issue appears to be much more elaborate and flexible. DGRAPH adds commands to the C64 BASIC instruction set for graphics operations. A runing BASIC program is needed to use DGRAPH's features. I don't know how important it is to access a graphics operation using a sys, peek or a poke.
Re: It's BASIC Week again! [message #300758 is a reply to message #300598] Fri, 18 September 2015 21:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: B00ze

On 2015-09-17 00:10, rusure <r_u_sure9@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 11:56:12 AM UTC-6, B00ze wrote:
>> On 2015-09-13 13:03, fozztexx@mail.fozztexx.com (fozztexx) wrote:
>>
>> Transactor magazine did publish line drawing routines, but I can't
>> possibly recall the issue number...
>
> The December 1988 Transactor issue had an article containing a couple of C64 graphics programs. I've never used them but they look highly rudimentary.. DGRAPH in the April 1988 Compute Gazette issue appears to be much more elaborate and flexible. DGRAPH adds commands to the C64 BASIC instruction set for graphics operations. A runing BASIC program is needed to use DGRAPH's features. I don't know how important it is to access a graphics operation using a sys, peek or a poke.

My recollection of Transactor is that it was a serious magazine with
highly efficient machine language routines frequently presented and
explained. My recollection of those drawing routines is that they were
pretty efficient, but yes, they were rudimentary. I never used them
myself either...

Best Regards,

--
! _\|/_ Sylvain / B00ze64@nospam.hotmail.com
! (o o) Member-+-David-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/Planetary-Society-+-
oO-( )-Oo No Keyboard Error, Press F1 to continue...
Re: It's BASIC Week again! [message #302362 is a reply to message #300344] Sun, 11 October 2015 07:59 Go to previous message
Errol Smith is currently offline  Errol Smith
Messages: 135
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
Senior Member
fozztexx wrote:
> I wanted to do a Commodore 64 version but couldn't find any line
> drawing routines written in assembly anywhere! I thought for sure in
> the last 33 years some book or magazine somewhere would have written a
> couple of simple routines to clear the graphics screen and draw some
> lines that you could POKE in and then call with SYS. Oh well, I will
> leave the C64 version to someone else. :-)

There was also the "minigraph" utility which could be called from basic
with SYS commands, it is in the book "Commodore 64 Advanced User Guide"
by John Gordon & Ian McLean, Prentice Hall 1986. Use of the commands is
in chapter 6 and the code itself is in Appendix I.

They mention it was made by "Paul Schatz" and was originally published
in Tim Onosko's book "Commodore 64: getting the most of it" (another
Prentice Hall book) from 1983.

(So yes in the past 33 years people have written stuff like that :) )

Looks like it might be on this disk:
http://websearch.cbm8bit.com/8bit/commodore/disk-image/cdc12 9b660348128c2f3eecec8de6c32

E
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