Mark Damon Hughes blogs about tech and everything else
I spent a little time this evening making some fireworks for tomorrow night!
Download, unzip, launch in your favorite Atari 800 emulator, like Atari800MacX
Pick Y from the menu, ESC to end, reboot to get back to the menu. See you in a year!
(I didn’t get around to putting an emulator page on my site; I will before my next actual game)
I haven’t seen the new movie yet, but I was in a mood to do something this primitive.
It’ll go into attract mode eventually, which I think is cool, add 11 POKE 77,0 to disable it. Or any key that doesn’t exit will clear it.
Not any really interesting coding tricks, except I replaced POSITION:? with POKE for speed. I use PEEK(764)=255 and then re-POKE it to test if there’s a waiting key, but then use GET to read it in ATASCII instead of scan code.
(updated almost immediately: I realized on XL machines I can turn on accented characters instead of graphics blocks. Take out the POKE 756,204 line if you don’t like that.)
(updated 2021-12-24: I made it pour in from random starts, rather than top of screen, looks somewhat more like the old intro.)
Half a year late, due to pandemic, “brexit”, China, and redesign perfectionism (which I appreciate, but it’s delaying), delayed from summer ’20 into sometime next spring(?), I’m still eager to get my ZX SpecNext. So in the meantime I do emulation.
I’d played a fair bit with a ZX Spectrum emulator, but SpecNext emulation was harder. After a lot of frustration with “CSpect”, which is just a pile of C# crash logs, I tried “ZEsarUX” (hereafter “Zesarux”) and with a bit of fiddling, it Just Works at emulating SpecNext.
10 print"Hello, Mark!" (have to type ^P for “, ^1 for !, it’s a Speccy keyboard, but not the one-key ZX80 keyboard), runsave"hello.bas" (again ^P someday that’ll be wired into my fingers) and cat to make sure it’s there.Sh-1 brings up the Speccy menu.
You’ll need to memorize the keyboard layout in F5, Help, or make a little reference card like I did (for another emulator, on Zesarux Esc is Break, the far right-side keys don’t do anything).
The MMC file (which is a disk image that holds your files) and .zesarux config are in home dir, which I dislike but I’m not arguing with it at this point. If I mount a FAT SD card, it should read/write that and it’d be easier to move files on and off, but I don’t have one I can spare at the moment. Waiting for mail-order or shopping.
Someone has finally uploaded a (possibly legal?) copy of to archive:
Read it from either end, there’s two coherent books written back-on-back like an Ace Double, happily you don’t have to turn your monitor upside down.
The first personal computer book (before the Altair came out!), though the PCC Newsletters predates it (and he mentions them). Fascinating time capsule, political tract about use of computers to control you (CYBERCRUD as he puts it).
Any nitwit can understand computers, and many do.
Unfortunately, due to ridiculous historical circumstances,
computers have been made a mystery to most of the world. And
this situation does not seem to be improving. You hear more
and more about computers, but to most people it’s just one big
blur. The people who know about computers often seem unwilling
to explain things or answer your questions. Stereotyped
notions develop about computers operating in fixed ways–and
so confusion increases. The chasm between laymen and computer
people widens fast and dangerously.This book is a measure of desperation, so serious and abysmal
is the public sense of confusion and ignorance. Anything with
buttons or lights can be palmed off on the layman as a
computer. There are so many different things, and their
differences are so important; yet to the lay public they are
lumped together as “computer stuff,” indistinct and beyond
understanding or criticism. It’s as if people couldn’t tell
apart camera from exposure meter or tripod, or car from truck
or tollbooth. This book is therefore devoted to the premise
thatEVERYBODY SHOULD UNDERSTAND COMPUTERS.
Computers are simply a necessary and enjoyable part of life,
like food and books. Computers are not everything, they are
just an aspect of everything, and not to know this is computer
illiteracy, a silly and dangerous ignorance.
In many ways as relevant as ever. Just because you have a computer or “smart” phone, doesn’t mean you know anything about its operation, purpose, and purposes you can put it to. Most people just use them as glorified TV sets and newspapers, mass media delivering people.
Unredacted 1st ed, includes some very… Ted Nelson is a white male born in the 1930s, his language about race and sex are, uh… not acceptable sometimes. Be aware.
Also, cover price $7 in 1974 is $37.61 in 2021, not $120, as Ted currently charges for a photocopy on his website. But at least he managed to publish this, unlike Xanadu which took 50 years to ship nothing.
I have a much longer draft of notes about it, that I’ll probably finish up at some point. Now that I can just point you at the original, that gets easier.
I’ve completed my BASIC 10-Liner contest entry, download on itch.io
Just shove the disk (.atr) in Atari800MacX or any other compatible Atari 800XL emulator, disable BASIC and hit reset, it should boot up into the launcher:
Where you can read docs or source:
And play the game!
So, the source for my first pass was manually-packed down, and I couldn’t really fit everything I wanted in there, or switch to text-graphics mode. With some rethinking, and a better source editing tool, I could… So I wrote a filter program “Basic2List.py” that removes comments & blank lines, joins up everything after a numbered line with colons, lets me insert binary codes with \xFF escapes. It still looks a little dense, because I have to manually use abbreviated statement names or remove spaces, I’d like to make it smart enough about BASIC source to do that itself.
But it lets me turn source like:
5 POKE731,1 // noclick
GR.1 // 20x20 wide chars, 40x4 regular
SE.1,13,15 // palette 1 to gold
W=20 // world size
DIME$(27),M(W,W) // E$() encounter table, M() map
//RRRZZZD$$..........#######>
E$="\xF2\xF2\xF2\xFA\xFA\xFA\xE4\x04\x04\xAE\xAE\xAE\xAE\xAE\xAE\xAE\xAE\xAE\xAE#######\x3E"
H=10 // Hit Points
L=1 // Level
// G=0 // Gold, default value
?"NANOROGUE BY MDHUGHES"
into:
5 POKE731,1:GR.1:SE.1,13,15:W=20:DIME$(27),M(W,W):E$="RRRZZZD$$..........#######>":H=10:L=1:?"NANOROGUE BY MDHUGHES"
(except the RRR… are inverse & graphics chars)
See the Atari BASIC Quick Reference Guide to learn the abbreviations and some of Atari’s peculiarities. And it’s running in Turbo Basic XL which really helped the program size, so I was able to squeeze in stairs!
Last time I was using the compiler, and that worked but it distorted my sounds, and I couldn’t make LAUNCHER.CTB run NANOROG2.CTB! So if I just left them all uncompiled (but tokenized) .BAS files it works fine.
The only down side is it’s stuck in easy mode. I’d love to have a difficulty which increases the GP to Level Up, and makes monsters hit harder (but not reward more), but that didn’t quite make the cut.
Generally I’m pretty pleased by this!
The ZX Spectrum (non-Next) port is turning out to be hard, it lacks a few things and doesn’t have ELSE, either, so I don’t know if it can be done.
Let’s go back to the 1980s!
So I knocked down a tiny subset of my already tiny BASIC demo program, NANOROGUE, and plan to make 10-line versions for Atari 800 and ZX Spectrum. Getting it running on desktop in Chipmunk BASIC was trivial. Just a little ANSI for screen positioning.
Initially I just used standard Atari BASIC, and that worked fine, if very very tightly packed, and not fast… but the lack of an ELSE statement left me with an 11-line program, I wanted to end with 50 ... :GOTO 20:ELSE:GOTO 20:ENDIF but had to move it to a new line. Very frustrating. So I’m using an enhanced BASIC, which is allowed for the PUR-120 tier, for one command.
Being “compiled” (to bytecode, don’t expect miracles) and making AUTORUN.SYS easier than my own utility is nice. TBXL is at least a 1985 tool; though at the time I was using the “official” BASIC XE cartridge instead, which had similar features, and mainly moving over to Action!, 6502 ASM, and C. But for retrocomputing it’s fair game.
Making a TBXL executable & bootable disk is a little fussy.
H to write DOS files). This is your program disk. Like TRON, everything you do will be encoded on it, and losing it will subject you to immediate deresolution.READY. Check you’re in TBXL by typing DIR.ENTER "D2:FOO.LST". RUN to test it. But if you like living the ’80s lifestyle all the way (or using non-ASCII chars, which are annoying to work with), you can work entirely in TBXL.SAVE "D2:FOO.BAS"FOO.BAS, save as AUTORUN.CTB. Swap disks back (you want your program disk in D2!).COPY D1:RUNTIME.COM D2:AUTORUN.SYS
So resuming work on NANOROG, I get:
The only down side is this tiny version has a very slow redraw, it renders the entire screen each move, instead of just fixing last/new positions. I’m pondering changing it to graphics 1 (wide text, 4 colors) and poking screen memory which is probably faster than printing. I made some acceptable bleeps and buzzes with SOUND commands; I’m a poor sound designer, but I get there with some trial and error.
Anyway, next week’s task is the ZX Spectrum version. Speccy BASIC is pretty good, so I expect I can knock that out quick and without all these shenanigans.
Looking for VT100 documentation, I found a folder of textfiles VT100 animations, including the classic Bambi vs. Godzilla.
Slightly difficult to watch on any modern computer, so save this script: (works on Mac & other Unix-likes, wtf knows what Windows does for clear and reset.)
Use: % slowblade.py ~/Downloads/bambi_godzila.txt 500
slowblade.py: [update 2022-04-18, stdin for “-“]
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import os, sys, time
def slowblade(f, spd):
try:
os.system("clear")
if f == "-":
text = sys.stdin.read()
else:
text = open(f, encoding='Windows-1252').read()
for c in text:
sys.stdout.write(c); sys.stdout.flush()
time.sleep(1.0/spd)
print("")
except (IOError, EOFError):
pass
finally:
os.system("sleep 10; reset")
if __name__ == "__main__":
if len(sys.argv) == 1: raise Exception("Usage: slowblade.py FILENAME [SPEED (default 100)]")
else: slowblade(sys.argv[1], int(sys.argv[2]) if len(sys.argv) >= 3 else 100)
Exploring the archives of the People’s Computer Company (a public timesharing computer center in the early ’70s, yes before home computers), and many of the programs we’re familiar with from David H. Ahl’s Creative Computing come from here. 15 different variations on guess the number and guess a coordinate, sure, but also some really important things, many of them long forgotten.
Then I find this artifact:
What the. This is basically a MUD†, from 1973!
Source code (uses a very long TREES library on previous pages).
Everyone knows WUMPUS, which is based on CAVES, but this is the rock star of these! How does everyone not have a copy of PCAVES? This is like finding a working Airwolf helicopter in a cave with ochre handprints on the walls. HOW THE FUCK did cavemen do that? Why don’t we all have an Airwolf, if it existed 47 years ago?!
So anyway some barely-modernized version of this will be added to the MysticDungeon soon, you’ll all be able to graffiti up a cave!
† more like a MUSH (“Multi-User Shared Hallucination”) with one user at a time, specifically.
My programming started in 1979 with the TRS-80 Model I, but in late 1981? early 1982?, I got my Atari 800, and later a 1200XL, then Atari ST. Those are what I consider “my computers”.
Last few weeks for hobby time, I’ve taken up playing with an Atari 8-bit emulator, and may soon buy an old machine (130XE? I guess?) and a modern SD-card reader, and HDMI adapter unless I want to set up my old CRT… Yes, this is “pointless”, but it’s the most emotionally rewarding programming I’ve done in some time.
Had to do a lot of setup to get to this point, though. Follows are my excessive notes, which will hopefully be useful to others.
The keyboard mapping in AtariMacX is weird, I finally figured out:
| Mac Key | Atari Key |
|---|---|
| ` | Break |
| F2 | Option |
| F3 | Select |
| F4 | Start |
| F5 | Reset |
| Sh-F5 | Cold Boot |
| Opt-F5 | Insert Char (be REAL DAMN CAREFUL not to miss the Opt key!) |
| Sh-Opt-F5 | Insert Line (same, DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER) |
| Home / Opt-F7 | Clear |
| End | Atari/Inverse |
| PgDn / Opt-F10 | Help (XL/XE) |
| Opt-F1 | F1 (1200XL) |
| Opt-F2 | F2 (1200XL) |
| Opt-F3 | F3 (1200XL) |
| Opt-F4 | F4 (1200XL) |
| Capslock | Cycle caps, may take several tries of caps A backspace repeat until you get lowercase, not graphics or uppercase. |
| Sh-Capslock | Uppercase, almost always works |
Typing on a real Atari keyboard is probably the #1 reason to get real hardware instead of emulation.
Immediately it comes rushing back, how much I didn’t like the default environment of blue screen, clicky keyboard, inset margins. Easy to fix with a few pokes, but I don’t want to do that every time I reboot, so I need a startup program.
DOS25.XFD image in OSRoms, and call that boot.atr, store it in Disks, Load it in D1 Cmd-1 and pick boot.atr.disk2.atr or whatever.
I <return> D2: <return> Y <return>AUTO.LST, convert Unix newlines (char 10) to the ATASCII newline (char 155 õ), and drop it in the HardDrive1 folder.% LANG=C tr '\233' '\n' <AUTO.LST.TXT >AUTO.LSTE."H1:AUTO.LST" <return> RUN <return>, pick Y. (Script AUTORUN.SYS), and enter:
boot.atr.LIST "H1:AUTO.LST". I use LIST/ENTER (text LST format) instead of SAVE/LOAD (tokenized BAS format) so I can read it from the Mac; BAS is slightly smaller and much faster to load/save, but it doesn’t matter with emulation or an SD-card.
BASIC set up and tested, and it’s a convenient place for little utilities, but now for real programming.
Atari Macro Assembler and Program Text Editor
Atari Macro Assembler and Program Text Editor.atx (ATX is write-protected or encrypted or something; you can’t use them directly, and have to disable the SIO speedup hack in emulator) disk in drive 2 of your Atari (Cmd-2), Control -> Disable BASIC (which will reboot to DOS). So you want the program files off that:
C <return> D2:MEDIT,D1:MEDIT <return>C <return> D2:MEDITCM.BAS,D1:MEDITCM.BAS <return>C <return> D2:AMAC,D1:AMAC <return> (skip if you’ll never write ASM)C <return> D2:SYSTEXT,D1:SYSTEXT <return> (I think only needed for AMAC?)disk2.atr.LOAD "D1:MEDITCM.BAS" <return> RUN <return> and configure MEDIT however you like.
C <return> D1:*.ECF,D2: <return>L <return> MEDIT <return>, filename D2:HELLO.PAS, and enter:
program hello;
var c: char;
begin
writeln('Hello, Atari!');
read(c);
end.
<option> exit <start> to save & exit. Note return doesn’t execute commands in MEDIT, start does. Kids Today™ have some meme about how hard it is to exit vi? Ha ha, they have no idea. RTFM.
Finally ready to program in Action! or Pascal, which is what I mainly did back in the day.
UNSUPPORTED FEATURES
Features in C not supported in DEEP BLUE C are:
1) structures, unions
2) multidimension arrays
3) Floating point numbers
4) Functions returning anything but int
5) Unary operators: sizeof
6) Binary operators: typecasting
DIFFERENCES FROM STANDARD C
THE DEEP BLUE C language has the following nonstandard features:
1. The last clause of a "switch" statement, either "case" or "default", must
be terminated with a "break", a "continue" or a "return" statement.
2. The ancient =<op> construct has been removed. Use <op>= instead.
3. Characters are unsigned. Chars range in value from 0 to 255.
4. Strings can not be continued on the next logical line.
5. C source code lines can be a maximum of 79 characters long.
6. Functions can have a maximum of 126 arguments.
SPECIAL SYNTAX
C uses several ASCII characters not available on the ATARI computer's
keyboard. In particular the braces have been replaced by to two-letter
combinations $( and $), and the tilde has been replaced by $-. The $ character
is not used in C, so your editor's find and replace command can be used to
convert standard c programs into a format acceptable to DEEP BLUE C.
.PCD), so has to start from bootdisk or run Draper’s menu then your program, ick. But this was no trouble to get running, so it wins.
drpascal.atr in drive 1, reboot, boots into a menu.\o/ Hit any key to exit the program.boot.atr, Drive 2, drpascal.atr, rebootC <return> D2:AUTORUN.SYS,D1:PASCAL.COM <return>C <return> D2:INIT.PCD,D1:INIT.PCD <return>disk2.atrL <return> PASCAL.COM <return>INIT.PAS source is included. If I ask it to compile, it prompts to insert drpascal.atr, and then I can switch back, which is reasonable.disk2.atr contents to H1, so they can be managed & edited on the Mac, but I just wanted to get things running first.This took quite a lot of my hobby time doing something harder than actual work, to be honest. But I’m in a good place with it now.
In 1979, I learned to program in BASIC on a TRS-80 Model I. Sometime in the next year, I read one of my first programming books:
I played Monster Chase and Lost Treasure, modified them extensively, and combined them, so the cave on the island had a monster chase to reach the exit. I recall having problems getting Starship Alpha and Devil’s Dungeon to work, but they joined my software library eventually.
One of my earliest and happiest programming memories was sitting at the dining room table, reading Monster Chase, and writing out a smarter movement system and obstacles in a notebook; at the time the only computers were at school, so I wrote code on paper and typed them in later.
So when I found the book again on archive.org last night, I was very excited, and had to reimplement it. I actually typed this into Pythonista on my phone with the PDF open on an iPad, only moved it to the computer to do some final cleanup and upload it.
The book suggests some modifications, and I did some minor ones: Lowered the movement error to 10%, and risk of shark attack to 10%, rising by 1.5x rather than a flat +50% each time; being anywhere near the island edge killed you too often in the original. I also don’t move you out of the water automatically, that should cost a turn.
I realized in converting it that I hate, hate, hate Row,Column coordinates instead of Cartesian X,Y; tons of mainframe-era computing resources used Row,Column, and you can still see it in some APIs like Curses. Note that the original program is 74 lines, mine’s 214; BASIC is a terrible language, but it’s terse.
I could adapt this into another doorgame for my Mystic Dungeon BBS, but I’m not sure what the multiplayer aspect would be, and it has limited replayability without doing some randomization.
