Search found 19 matches

by MarkTheStrange
Thu Oct 24, 2024 5:47 pm
Forum: Games
Topic: SOLITAIRE
Replies: 8
Views: 2541

Re: SOLITAIRE

Maybe add a confirmation step on the ESC-restart feature? I missed the "right click to deselect" instruction and tried to undo selecting a card by pressing ESC - boom.
by MarkTheStrange
Thu Oct 10, 2024 3:03 pm
Forum: Libraries and Examples
Topic: Example on using EXEC
Replies: 3
Views: 390

Re: Example on using EXEC

FWIW, if you wanted to create a "null device" on the X16, that wouldn't be too hard. Pick a device number that's not currently in use, like 7. Then you just have to write your own routines to handle OPEN, CLOSE, CHKIN, CHKOUT, CLRCHN, and BSOUT/CHROUT (if you want it to work for input as w...
by MarkTheStrange
Sat Aug 24, 2024 5:17 am
Forum: Libraries and Examples
Topic: USR() function to sort BASIC string array
Replies: 0
Views: 931

USR() function to sort BASIC string array

This is an implementation of Shell's sort designed to be called via USR() from CBM BASIC. In my testing it sorted 100 words in 3 jiffies, and 1000 in under a second. The argument should be the address of the array's first element: X=USR(POINTER(A$(0))) There's a loader program which can be assembled...
by MarkTheStrange
Wed Apr 17, 2024 9:05 pm
Forum: Misc Apps
Topic: Biorhythm Calculator
Replies: 0
Views: 1198

Biorhythm Calculator

This seems like a suitably retro application for our new retro computer. Written in Prog8 so the graphing is reasonably speedy. (If you aren't familiar with Biorhythms, you can read about the insanity on Wikipedia .) The Prog8 source code includes a general-purpose date manipulation library, which s...
by MarkTheStrange
Sat Jan 20, 2024 4:45 am
Forum: Misc Apps
Topic: Towers of Hanoi in BASIC
Replies: 1
Views: 1547

Towers of Hanoi in BASIC

Thought this would make a relatively simple demo of what you can do with BASIC. It loads some sprites into memory and draws some pegs and then animates the solution for the 8-disc Towers of Hanoi puzzle. The solution part uses recursion via global arrays functioning as "stacks" for each &q...
by MarkTheStrange
Thu Jan 11, 2024 6:42 pm
Forum: Misc Apps
Topic: Matrix-style digital rain screensaver
Replies: 0
Views: 37880

Matrix-style digital rain screensaver

This renders a version of the digital rain display seen in The Matrix . 2587 Screen shot It's all PETSCII (no halfwidth kana characters, sorry). It doesn't do anything else – no messages fade in or anything – but it does have a bit of variability. You can use the + and - keys to make it faster or sl...
by MarkTheStrange
Tue Dec 19, 2023 2:06 am
Forum: Development Tools
Topic: VolksForth
Replies: 15
Views: 15658

Re: VolksForth

I'm afraid I don't think you can do much on the X16 with VolksForth in this form (i.e. no access to the kernel or even PETSCII control codes in its stock configuration). You can do a lot in plain text mode on the X16 - display text in multiple colors anywhere on the screen, for instance. In VolksFor...
by MarkTheStrange
Wed Dec 06, 2023 2:57 am
Forum: Development Tools
Topic: VolksForth
Replies: 15
Views: 15658

Re: VolksForth

I think there's two reasons for this. For one, I guess it's hard to implement the Forth-83 standard words KEY, EXPECT and QUIT with the CBM BASIC screen editor. And two, the first VolksForth, on the C64, offers to use up to 50k of RAM ($0800-$CFFF) and thus didn't have the BASIC ROM enabled. Fair, ...
by MarkTheStrange
Tue Dec 05, 2023 5:17 pm
Forum: Development Tools
Topic: VolksForth
Replies: 15
Views: 15658

Re: VolksForth

@voidstar There are standards for FORTH (FORTH-83, ANS FORTH), but no two are quite alike anyway. I'm not familiar with any that have a word named STACK, though. The stack (well, the data stack; there's also a return stack) is where operands live, but is itself unnamed. The nondestructive way to loo...
by MarkTheStrange
Tue Dec 05, 2023 12:50 pm
Forum: Development Tools
Topic: VolksForth
Replies: 15
Views: 15658

Re: VolksForth

Cool to see Forth on the X16! Some initial thoughts: It seems odd not to take advantage of the screen editor – by which I just mean the one that BASIC uses, not X16Edit, i.e. reading input using BASIN/CHRIN instead of rolling your own cursor and using GETIN. You lose the ability to cursor around the...