+InsaneMultitasker Posted June 28, 2014 Share Posted June 28, 2014 Aside from sometimes99er and myself, is anyone else planning an entry for this competition? I outlined a story and basic responses/actions - that's as far as real life allowed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed in SoDak Posted June 28, 2014 Share Posted June 28, 2014 Maybe we need something like Magellan for Adventures. Yeah, that's the ticket. I'm on it, just as soon as I have a story line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted June 29, 2014 Author Share Posted June 29, 2014 Maybe we need something like Magellan for Adventures. Yeah, that's the ticket. I'm on it, just as soon as I have a story line. Actually my command interpreter is pretty generic and should accommodate most stories. It's pretty easy to implement, but the data entry is rather tedious. I may actually, after some streamlining, develop how-to documentation for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted July 15, 2014 Author Share Posted July 15, 2014 Today is the last day for any additional submissions. A poll will be set up tomorrow morning for voting purposes. It would have been more interesting to have additional entries, but admittedly this was not a natural programming challenge for most of us, including myself If I may ramble for a second here, I have the distinct impression that programming activity on this forum has very sharply declined overall compared a just a few years ago when we had 2 very successful contests with amazing games created like Aperture for example, despite the fact that now we have very impressive tools like Harry's compilers and 2 flavors of Forth to work with. Rasmus' achievements of late have been astounding and few of us can match his coding virtuosity, but we don't have to. He is after all one person, and I miss the diversity of programs that were constantly popping up on this site. Now most of the posts are hardware related or just totally tangential, and this forum is at great risk of degenerating into yet another Yahoo forum... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 We need Owen Brand back on the forum. I know he's just one guy, but he kept the place alive IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 .. 2 flavors of Forth to work with. About that... which one is the most supported and has the most available for it? They both are 80 column right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
senior_falcon Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 We need Owen Brand back on the forum. I know he's just one guy, but he kept the place alive IMO. Don't forget Joe Morris - the same comments would apply to him. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted July 15, 2014 Author Share Posted July 15, 2014 About that... which one is the most supported and has the most available for it? They both are 80 column right? The venerable disk based TI Forth has been around for a long time and gives you a pseudo-64 col editor that is usable. However Lee Stewart has been hard at work creating a special version that incorporates full 80col and eventually moving it into a cartridge. A much more recent addition is Mark Wills' Turbo Forth which is cartridge based and has an excellent 80 col editor. The main difference between the 2 products in my view is that bitmap is fully implemented in TI Forth but not Turbo Forth. However, under its current form, TI Forth eats up a lot of RAM particularly in bitmap mode and thus can severely limit your program size, whereas Turbo Forth lets you use all of the available RAM. TF is also a faster implementation of Forth. As for software, there is unfortunately precious little currently. Willsy developed the most excellent Dark Star game in TF (available on the Gameshelf), and I programmed the Core War simulation in TI Forth. I'm not aware of anything else... Forth is super fast compared to XB, and lets you very easily embed assembly code if you so choose. It is also extremely flexible and extensible. There is a learning curve however because it is entirely stack based, and so far not many TI'ers have been willing to put in the effort to learn it which is a shame. Mark and Lee can chime in here as they are our resident Forth gurus 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InfernalKeith Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 My interactive fiction project was a dud. It was just a crappy idea and the further along I got the more I realized it sucked. I am working on a couple projects right now. I am trying to not post about stuff till it's really close to done, though. I've shared about "in progress" projects before and had them not get finished, and the 99/4A has suffered from enough "vaporware." I'm still mainly interested in writing in XB for "stock" systems at the moment, and I'm also getting into archiving and chronicling well-done old BASIC and XB games from the old days. Given the limited amount of TI time I have, and will have for the foreseeable future, the idea of me learning a new language seems like a non-starter when I have barely put my XB game ideas into action. I think these things wax and wane, especially given the small size of our community. We're always gonna be one attic discovery away from a new (or re-enthused old) 99/4A fan coming in and doing great things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted July 16, 2014 Share Posted July 16, 2014 I was interested in this, as I liked playing with parsers back in the day, but I couldn't come up with a story I wanted to write, so... buh. I could submit my old 'STRANGER' on my website, but I think you wanted new code. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted July 16, 2014 Share Posted July 16, 2014 Forth is super fast compared to XB, and lets you very easily embed assembly code if you so choose. It is also extremely flexible and extensible. There is a learning curve however because it is entirely stack based, and so far not many TI'ers have been willing to put in the effort to learn it which is a shame. This is true. It takes to re-adjust your brain to use a stack. However, I recently (well, I think it was last year, actually) wrote a local variables library for TurboForth, which VASTLY sinplifies general forth programming. All those stack thrashing words like DUP SWAP ROT OVER and stuff pretty much vanish from your code. It becomes VERY simple. Vorticon, have a quick read here (when you have time). I'd love to get some feedback on it. :-) I think it will make the language MUCH easier to grasp for Newbies, and it's tiny. ~880 bytes. Note also Vorticon (I know you'll appreciate this!) that the local variables are entirely implemented in Forth. No machine code or under-the-covers tricks. Only Forth lets you change the whole language (like adding locals variables!! wow!) any way you like! Try adding local variables *to the language* in XB, or C or Pascal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted July 16, 2014 Share Posted July 16, 2014 There is a learning curve however because it is entirely stack based, and so far not many TI'ers have been willing to put in the effort to learn it which is a shame. Long ago I learned to write some programs with Tex-Forth but then tried to completely forget the language again (in particular when c99 came up). There's no need to love all languages. (fbForth and other Forth interpreters are great tools, nevertheless; I don't want to put anyone off writing Forth programs.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmusr Posted July 16, 2014 Share Posted July 16, 2014 If I may ramble for a second here, I have the distinct impression that programming activity on this forum has very sharply declined overall compared a just a few years ago when we had 2 very successful contests with amazing games created like Aperture for example, despite the fact that now we have very impressive tools like Harry's compilers and 2 flavors of Forth to work with. Rasmus' achievements of late have been astounding and few of us can match his coding virtuosity, but we don't have to. He is after all one person, and I miss the diversity of programs that were constantly popping up on this site. Now most of the posts are hardware related or just totally tangential, and this forum is at great risk of degenerating into yet another Yahoo forum... It's sad, but I have the same impression. When I post something new only few people seems to be interested in the actual programming aspects. At the same time the possibilities for new projects are opening up rather than becoming exhausted. To name a few: utilizing the 512K cart for large games, exploring the possibilities of the F18A, using Harry's compiler to speed up old XB games, using Tursi's VGM player, exploring new PC backed scrolling or graphics compression techniques, using the 2/3 bitmap mode (as in the light-year demo). And there are even more tools than the ones you mention like the gcc compiler, Magellan, XB256 and Mod2PSG tracker. Perhaps 99% of the software that will ever exist for the TI has already been written, but the last percent has the potential of becoming the most impressive. And everything does not have to be about scrolling. Take a look at the result of the MSXdev'14 competition. Pretty Kingdom, which is relatively simple as far as graphics are concerned, won over artrag's hugely complicated, smooth scrolling, 64 sprite technical wonder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 My interactive fiction project was a dud. It was just a crappy idea and the further along I got the more I realized it sucked. I am working on a couple projects right now. I am trying to not post about stuff till it's really close to done, though. I've shared about "in progress" projects before and had them not get finished, and the 99/4A has suffered from enough "vaporware." He he, I know. I'm also trying not to post (afraid of vapor or sinking like a stone). Let me tell you how bad it is. My main TI project folder has 5 active games and 60 other relatively active projects (digging in every now and then to do bits and pieces). Then there's a folder with 92 projects on hold or to be tucked. Also there's a folder with ideas, notes, links, video-clips and more. Something to wandered thru whenever I like. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Wow! Where do you get the time, Sometimes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted July 17, 2014 Author Share Posted July 17, 2014 This is true. It takes to re-adjust your brain to use a stack. However, I recently (well, I think it was last year, actually) wrote a local variables library for TurboForth, which VASTLY sinplifies general forth programming. All those stack thrashing words like DUP SWAP ROT OVER and stuff pretty much vanish from your code. It becomes VERY simple. Vorticon, have a quick read here (when you have time). I'd love to get some feedback on it. :-) I think it will make the language MUCH easier to grasp for Newbies, and it's tiny. ~880 bytes. Note also Vorticon (I know you'll appreciate this!) that the local variables are entirely implemented in Forth. No machine code or under-the-covers tricks. Only Forth lets you change the whole language (like adding locals variables!! wow!) any way you like! Try adding local variables *to the language* in XB, or C or Pascal This is really a wonderful feature that will indeed minimize stack juggling! It almost feels like cheating Nice work Willsy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Vorticon Posted July 17, 2014 Author Share Posted July 17, 2014 He he, I know. I'm also trying not to post (afraid of vapor or sinking like a stone). Let me tell you how bad it is. My main TI project folder has 5 active games and 60 other relatively active projects (digging in every now and then to do bits and pieces). Then there's a folder with 92 projects on hold or to be tucked. Also there's a folder with ideas, notes, links, video-clips and more. Something to wandered thru whenever I like. Oh good! Then I don't feel so bad since I only have one project languishing in my To Finish folder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 (edited) . Edited September 18, 2014 by sometimes99er 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Sometimes, I understand that one perfectly--the wife thinks my hobby time is time stolen from her. She does not understand the fact that I consider some of my time mine to burn as I wish--even my boys have accepted this as they have learned to do the same. I just have to find a hobby for the wife that she likes to do--then both of us will be able to do something and it won't annoy her that I'm doing my own thing with the computers for a few hours. . . 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Sometimes, I understand that one perfectly--the wife thinks my hobby time is time stolen from her. She does not understand the fact that I consider some of my time mine to burn as I wish--even my boys have accepted this as they have learned to do the same. I just have to find a hobby for the wife that she likes to do--then both of us will be able to do something and it won't annoy her that I'm doing my own thing with the computers for a few hours. . . Bring her to a Faire! She won't look at your hobby quite the same after that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 I've actually taken her to two of the TI Treffs in Germany. She talked a lot with Dan Eichman, Mike Wright, Beery Harmsen and Gerd Weissmann, but was otherwise pretty much uninterested in what was going on. Beery was actually pretty surprised when she turned down his offer of a beer on his tab. . .she liked the food at Gasthof zum Engel though. . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InfernalKeith Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 Never understood spouses who begrudge their other half some solo time for hobbies or projects, or even just music or TV shows that only one of them likes. I was a person before I was half of a couple. My wife thinks my interest in retro stuff is goofy, but she doesn't insist I come sit on the couch with her and watch movies instead of coding or playing games. The only time it causes any strife is when I get too much new stuff, or need a flat surface to sort and test things, and the dining room table gets buried for a few days.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 That might actually be a good idea for a TI game--the sorting table. . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RXB Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 This is true. It takes to re-adjust your brain to use a stack. However, I recently (well, I think it was last year, actually) wrote a local variables library for TurboForth, which VASTLY sinplifies general forth programming. All those stack thrashing words like DUP SWAP ROT OVER and stuff pretty much vanish from your code. It becomes VERY simple. Vorticon, have a quick read here (when you have time). I'd love to get some feedback on it. :-) I think it will make the language MUCH easier to grasp for Newbies, and it's tiny. ~880 bytes. Note also Vorticon (I know you'll appreciate this!) that the local variables are entirely implemented in Forth. No machine code or under-the-covers tricks. Only Forth lets you change the whole language (like adding locals variables!! wow!) any way you like! Try adding local variables *to the language* in XB, or C or Pascal I loved using Forth, but transport of stuff like XB or Basic was aggravating by incompatibility between the way Forth handles disk and everything else. Not to mention Hard Drive support was whole new can of worms to deal with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
senior_falcon Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Vorticon, it is not possible for me to evaluate Eons. It is obvious that you invested a lot of work and time in the program and it looks interesting and like it might be fun. But I've only been able to have two commands recognized and acted on. Then I'm dead and have to start over. The docs for Infocom and Scott Adams gave examples of what the parser was looking for and how to interact with the adventure. If you could provide something like that I think there could be a lot of folks who might get interested in Eons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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