Disc 1 Part 2
To: 999 (all members)
From: K6N (Brian Raw)
Subject: Amoeba Game.
This is a reproduction of a board game
I played in my youth. At the time it
was sold as a game of the computer age
but pre-dated any computer in the high
street by at least 10 years.
Anyhow, I rediscovered this game when
staying at mothers recently and
thought it ought to go easily onto a
computer as it is essentially binary in
nature.
I * I I * I
I * I I * I
I * I I * I
I** O **I I** O **I
I * I I * I
I * I I * I
I * I I * I
The playing board in the centre of the
screen is made up of a 7*7 grid of
blocks, the size of the small flashing
square. These blocks can be turned into
two positions. See the above
representation. Press the SPACE BAR to
turn the block to it's other position.
At each side of the screen, each
of the players 3 cards are displayed,
in two orientations.
Play the game by moving the small
flashing square in the centre pattern
on the screen around using the AZ,.
keys. When the flashing square is over
the part of the pattern that you want
to turn, press the SPACE BAR. If this
action then creates a copy in the
centre grid of one of your cards, your
score is increased by one and you get
another turn. If this action does not
create a copy of one of your cards in
the centre grid, then the turn passes
to the other player.
Who's turn it is, is indicated by the
****** MOVE ****** at the top of the
screen. The game ends when one of the
players runs out of cards and the pack
has gone.
If using paddles then input is only
accepted from the paddle who's go
it is.
What is left of the pack can be seen
by pressing 'S'. The whole pack can be
displayed in turn by pressing C.
Individual cards may be seen by using
P (I used this while designing each
card). Q displays the binary pattern of
both hands, normal and turned.
The above is true only while using
keys, not paddles.
There are 44 cards and a blank card 0.
More cards may be added by adding them
to the DATA list at the beginning of
the program then REN.0. To add this to
the pack, change the number 44 in
PROCshuffle to the new number of cards
in the pack.
With the original board game, you did
not know what each others cards were.
This added to the game, so to
reproduce this, the second version
prints out the cards. The game simply
toggles the squares, so you must score
for yourself as the computer has no
knowledge of the cards you hold.
RIEMANNIAN. From L1M J.Looyenga
This game is an oldie from the
beginning of the PC. I found it worth
making compatible for the BBC. The idea
is very simple: Try to survive for 24
Stardates!
Of course very easy .... or isn't it -
search, buy and sell ??? Watch all very
carefully and you'll know!
Sometimes you'll have to press some
keys; the rate with which the code
disappears can be changed in line 1030;
the rate with which the landing keys
disappear can be changed in lines 2310,
2320.
Have fun!
Push The Bale Solution.
From: LIM (Janny Looyenga)
Subject: Solutions
ROBOL from BEEBUG 12 Issue 1, written
by M. Bobrowski,(a well-known member),
Reminded me of Push the Bale, Issue
22, written by Carl Wheat reminded me
of Slider - a Basicode 3 program -
written by some German boys,
reminded me of Sokoban, the PC
version...
The same solution for all these games!
Alas only 28 screens solved and maybe
not always in the right form and in
a simple way from crosses and
circles. You only have to type the
screen to be solved and to press
Return.
This solution was written in Basicode
3 by Louis Payne from England.
Phases of the Moon by D. Ambrose K7T There is a large and prestigious book
entitled "Numerical Recipes: The Art of
Scientific Computing". The programs are
written in Fortran but there is a
supplementary book, which I have,
containing the programs written in
Basic. The Basic is Microsoft
QuickBasic 4.5 and the first program,
offered to illustrate the methods used,
is one to calculate the phases of the
moon. I adapted this to BBC Basic, and
the program appears here as MOON.
What we are aiming to do is compute
the dates and times of new and full
moons, together with the first and
second quarters. Computations such as
this require the date to be reduced to
a single number: we must choose a
particular instant as the starting
point, and then count the days from
that moment. For reasons that so far
escape me astronomers have chosen
midday at Greenwich on 1st January 4713
BC as the starting point for many
calculations, and for any date the
number of days since that day is known
as the Julian Day number or Julian
date. There was a problem in 1582 in
that ten days were lost from the
calendar when Pope Gregory decreed that
the dates 5-14th October were abolished
in order to correct the errors of the
Julian calendar - hence the variable
igreg% in PROCjulday and PROCcaldat.
The program contains three
Procedures. The first one, PROCjulday,
converts the date offered in line 140
to the Julian date, the second,
PROCflmoon, calculates the Julian dates
of the phases during a period following
that date, and the third, PROCcaldat,
converts the Julian dates into calendar
dates which are printed: if you have a
diary that gives phases of the moon I
think you will find the two agree. In
fact the algorithm is approximate and
the calculated time may be in error by
up to 30 minutes from that given in the
Astronomical Almanac so once in a blue
moon, if the time of a phase is near
midnight, we might find the program
gives the wrong day. I leave it to the
mathematically inclined to elucidate
why the calculations do what we want
and shall make no attempt myself to
explain them. The remarks in lines
1040,1050 are quoted from the original
program and I have been happy to
accept the advice.
I have not made the program
interactive since I was only interested
in converting Microsoft Basic to BBC
Basic as an exercise and have no use
for the result. The date from which the
program operates is in line 140, and
this may be amended if the phases for
any other period are required.
To: 999 (all members)
From: K6N (Brian Raw)
Subject: 3to7
In response to several complaints
about 8BS ADS being read by the 80
column reader, Chris decided to write
a program that read a text file written
in 80 columns but displayed after
little fiddling in 40 columns with or
without colour.
I was fortunate enough to get a
preview of it which was very good but
a little slow as it was all in BASIC.
Subsequently I offered to machine code
the slower parts.
While thinking on it, I realised that
to use a buffer would be much quicker,
so I have incorporated a 16K buffer
rather than read directly from disc
and also displayed the depth into the
file in percentages as the 80 column
reader does.
Hope you like the resulting program.
To: 999 (all members)
From: 3WU (Fred Price)
Subject: G,Bs Xmas Turkey
As Christmas is just here I looked
to see if I had something to suit and
I found this one.I have left it in
it's own Geordie Dialect ( it's not
Wearside I hasten to add ), so it will
give you something to fathom out over
Xmas but if you chicken out, then check
the REM lines 510,516 or would you
prefer them in English?
Well friends all joking apart once
again we come towards another years
end and I would like to wish you all
A Very
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
So load up the printer and enjoy
this little feast provided by our host
Geordie Broon in
--------
GBTURKEY
--------
But watch out as he tends to be a
little bit tightfisted.
Fred
PRESS SPACE