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Old 09-16-2008, 02:13 PM   #1
SlowCoder
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Nostalgia hits me again ... BASIC


DOSBox, BASIC and I are friends. I haven't used GWBASIC for many years, but due to nostalgia, am considering fooling around with it a bit.

Problem is, I don't know what to do. What should I write? Any ideas? Anything I do will be released to public domain, not that it really matters.

While I was in high school, I wrote 2 separate programs, the first of which was a flip-book animator, and won 1st place at the local computer fair, The other, a year later, was a paint program, camimg in 2nd due to lack of documentation. . In the early 90's I wrote a rather large scale database program for my employer, which was used for a period of about 9 years.
 
Old 09-16-2008, 04:05 PM   #2
rjlee
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I read recently that computer program ideas are cheap, and that it's the implementation that's the hard part.

Having said that, a guick Google only really turned up this:

http://www.ticalc.org/programming/ideas/ - it's technically for programming calculators but some of the ideas seem appropriate for BASIC at a glance.

I used to love writing text-based adventure games for the BBC Micro all those years ago.

Of course, you could also do something really funky like write a TCP/IP stack or control a robotic arm?
 
Old 09-16-2008, 07:06 PM   #3
SlowCoder
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If I actually had an imagination, I might be able to write a decent text adventure. But I don't, so I can't.

A TCP/IP stack, in BASIC? That would be pretty slow, methinks.

If I had a robot arm, that would definitely be a good project. I am familiar with COM and LPT BASIC programming, so that would be doable. But I don't, so I can't.

Here are my current ideas:
- Platform game engine. Wouldn't be high performance, but probably within my realm of ability, and likely well worth the experience.
- Menuing system similar to QuickMenu or DirectAccess. I've searched around and haven't found any good free ones that have the options I want.
- Some sort of board or card game. I enjoy board and card games. I'd like to make something like Monopoly, but I'm afraid I'd get sued.

Last edited by SlowCoder; 09-16-2008 at 07:09 PM.
 
Old 09-23-2008, 07:35 AM   #4
SlowCoder
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I think I've come up with an idea. Would like to know what you think.

I've collected a rather nice collection of abandonware games. Being somewhat of a perfectionist, I cataloged all of them, and used a freeware DOS menu program to make them easily accessible. This process took some time to complete.

As a possible return to the abandonware community, I might like to build a menu program that has the capability of searching for known programs (in this case abandonware games) via an MD5 based database, cataloging and adding them to the menu in appropriate categories.

Seems to me that someone like Abandonia might be able to pass this out to its users so they wouldn't need to do all the work.

What's your input?
 
Old 10-01-2008, 02:52 PM   #5
rjlee
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A word of caution: Abandonware is a tricky subject. As well as being a poorly defined term, much software that is often classified as abandonware is actually still copyright by someone and cannot legally be copied (including use or distribution) without the copyright-holder's permission, even if no-one seems to know who the copyright-holder is. Under USA law, all software written since 1964 is still under copyright, unless explicitly released into the public domain by the copyright holder [cite-0].

That said, I am not a lawyer nor qualified to give legal advice. I don't know if abandonware is legal in whoever's jurisdiction you fall under. You may also mean something else by the term, or have made a moral decision on your own (which it is not my place to condone or condemn in this forum).

I think that you have the right idea in looking at a more general tool for software cataloguing, not one aimed specifically at one market or type of software. Such a database could be particularly useful to a much larger crowd, which may well include the project you mentioned, as well as commercial companies selling lots of software, and free software projects like GNU [cite-1], who may also have some input into such a project if you can get them interested.

Just my thoughts,

—Robert J Lee
 
Old 10-01-2008, 03:08 PM   #6
SlowCoder
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rjlee View Post
A word of caution: Abandonware is a tricky subject. As well as being a poorly defined term, much software that is often classified as abandonware is actually still copyright by someone and cannot legally be copied (including use or distribution) without the copyright-holder's permission, even if no-one seems to know who the copyright-holder is. Under USA law, all software written since 1964 is still under copyright, unless explicitly released into the public domain by the copyright holder [cite-0].

That said, I am not a lawyer nor qualified to give legal advice. I don't know if abandonware is legal in whoever's jurisdiction you fall under. You may also mean something else by the term, or have made a moral decision on your own (which it is not my place to condone or condemn in this forum).
I get, and understand your point. You are correct that the term "abandonware" is tricky. I have endeavored to remain on the legal side, and have done some research before downloading questionable titles.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rjlee View Post
I think that you have the right idea in looking at a more general tool for software cataloguing, not one aimed specifically at one market or type of software. Such a database could be particularly useful to a much larger crowd, which may well include the project you mentioned, as well as commercial companies selling lots of software, and free software projects like GNU [cite-1], who may also have some input into such a project if you can get them interested.
Yep. I'm already working on the project. I've moved it to QBasic though, as the software can be compiled, and I have access to other important functions. I'm intentionally writing in a legacy language, rather than VB or .NET (which I do know), for the nostalgic feeling. The only real issue I have at this time is how to manage the limited memory space available to me in QBasic for my menu items and all their data, as the number of titles can potentially be in the multi-thousands. My current solution is to build using INI style files that are accessed on the fly as menus are selected.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rjlee View Post
Just my thoughts
Much appreciated.

I know I'm writing about QB programming in a Linux forum, but I think I hold a common interest in that I am a developer, contributing to the community. So don't bash me for using an MS product, even if it truly was good back in its day.
 
Old 10-02-2008, 12:54 PM   #7
rjlee
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SlowCoder View Post
I know I'm writing about QB programming in a Linux forum, but I think I hold a common interest in that I am a developer, contributing to the community. So don't bash me for using an MS product, even if it truly was good back in its day.
Slightly off-topic, but my company is still supporting an end-user application written in Microsoft FoxPro for SCO UNIX. I think you probably got the better end of the deal.

IMHO Microsoft Bashing has little place in a Linux forum. In my experience, very few Linux developers care about Microsoft one way or the other; the emphasis is on creating the best operating system, the market share will take care of itself.
 
Old 10-02-2008, 10:01 PM   #8
sundialsvcs
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rjlee View Post
IMHO Microsoft Bashing has little place in a Linux forum. In my experience, very few Linux developers care about Microsoft one way or the other; the emphasis is on creating the best operating system, the market share will take care of itself.
Fact is, most professional Linux users also use Windows and/or OS/X pretty much on a daily basis. And we are quite likely to understand all three of those systems in very-considerable depth. Our employers or clients run a mixture of equipment types, for a mixture of purposes, in a configuration that has grown organically over time.

If "you're new at this," you might innocently assume that office-desktop machines are "all there is." But that simply isn't the case. Computers are bought and configured to run particular applications for specific purposes, and many types of systems run side by side. The business purpose drives the choice of application, and choice of application drives the choice of operating system ... not the other way around.

Last edited by sundialsvcs; 10-02-2008 at 10:04 PM.
 
Old 10-04-2008, 08:43 PM   #9
dasy2k1
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yeh the one old game i play is a 98% GNUed clone of a peice of abandonware (you still need 5 original files) which are in a legal grey area...

basically both the author and the company that used to distrubute it say that while they still own the coppyright they consider the game dead and have better things to do with their time and money than attempt to enforce it
 
Old 10-07-2008, 12:52 PM   #10
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this is a little offtopic, but has to to with basic... well... with TiBasic.
Anyone know if there's any updates to the TiNspire lately?

Fedora Development

Last edited by Nightfish; 10-22-2008 at 12:54 PM.
 
Old 12-29-2008, 06:14 PM   #11
frenchn00b
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SlowCoder View Post
DOSBox, BASIC and I are friends. I haven't used GWBASIC for many years, but due to nostalgia, am considering fooling around with it a bit.

Problem is, I don't know what to do. What should I write? Any ideas? Anything I do will be released to public domain, not that it really matters.

While I was in high school, I wrote 2 separate programs, the first of which was a flip-book animator, and won 1st place at the local computer fair, The other, a year later, was a paint program, camimg in 2nd due to lack of documentation. . In the early 90's I wrote a rather large scale database program for my employer, which was used for a period of about 9 years.
Ahh yeah nostalgia of basic. I got that too.
Did you try ?
http://www.jaapan.de/extern/uptd_img/gfabasiceditor.gif
http://www.stcarchiv.de/stc2001/img/...dateinamen.gif

the editor was fabulous because you could never type any mistake.
It helped you during coding still unbeatable for that
 
  


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