HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: tmkk@uiuc.edu (Khan)
Subject: Re: Formal programming education
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 13:31:14 GMT


In article <1992Jul21.001852.25226@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> bp092@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike Ogrinz) writes:
>
>>the news, internet and computer resources! >:-)  You get to see whats out there
>>and play with it but not necessarily buy it!   Its great fun to be at a
>>university if you take advantage of it...  Either that or you can become a
>>grouchy old grunt who gets dumped on for "no aparent reason."
>>                          Get an Education...
>>                                        wReam...
>>
>>P.S.  Hey and you just might meet some girl (? guy ?), fall in love and ...
>>      ... NAH! Strike that last one ...  There really can't be other things
>>      at the University besides classes ... could there ?
> 
>Hey! That's where I met my wife! And to think, I owe it all to
>higher education!

College is where I learned how to drink. And I blame it all on higher
education. ;-)

Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: wyman@rtsg.mot.com (Mark S. Wyman)
Subject: Graphics Library Address
Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 15:14:54 GMT

I currently use FastGraph by Ted Gruber Software.  It is completely
written in assembly (well..there are a couple minor ones that are not).
Nice package.  It is around $150 but you can ask to try their lite
version which is free.  This package is great for after-hour
programmers (like myself) who program for a hobby and don't wish to
shell out alot of money for a graphics package.

I am quite happy with it. Give them a call.  Its free when you call
from work :)

Ted Gruber Software
P.O Box 13408
Las Vega, NV 89112
(702)735-1980

I posted this before but it may have been only local distribution.

By the way, I am not affiliated with Ted Gruber Software.

Mark Wyman
From: mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re:  Game libraries...
Distribution: world
X-NewsSoftware: GRn 1.16e (7/4/92) by Mike Schwartz & Michael B. Smith
Date: 22 Jul 92 21:01:09 PST
Organization: Amiga makes it possible

In article <9207222016.AA66549@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu> psteffn@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU writes:
> It depends on how you look at it.  Really, the only difference between
> most game programmers and most demo programmers is that the game programmers
> get paid to write routines which work on many machines while demo programmers
> win contests by getting the most out of one.  Fortunately, there are much
> less differences among Amigas than PCs so they can get away with more.
> Quite a few conventional coding tricks have been found by demo coders, too.
> How about doing bresenham in 3 lines of 680x0 code?  No branching and no
> MUL/DIV?  Just a short table and the addx opcode.  I learned this one
> from New Mode/Delta Force.
>

Gee, why doesn't my 'C' compiler generate that Bresnehan (was that line
or circle) algorithm inline for me? :)

> Maybe these arcade game manufacturers should hire people based on talent
> and vision instead of just based on a degree in computer science.  I
> noticed in jobs.offered a post by Atari Games with 'Knowledge of C
> required' and 'Knowledge of 680x0 assembler helpful.'  Aim high, eh?

Atari has a network of 50MHz 486 machines running Unix.  It is hard
to find hackers to write software tools on those...  But give those
same guys an Atari ST or Amiga and they write a raytracer just to
render graphics for a demo :)  But the video game hardware Atari
is programming for isn't an ST or Amiga and does require a bit more
aptitude.

> STratoHAK/TPPi
> psteffn@gnu.ai.mit.edu
>

FWIW, game libraries are aplenty.  There have been text adventure
construction sets, pinball construction sets, shoot-em-up construction
sets, etc.  The bottom line is that no library or construction set is
valuble unless you are constantly updating and changing the library's
functionality to meet the demands of a design.  Otherwise the design
meets the demands of the library.  Get it?  The real answer is to
get the source to a real game, learn what you can from it, and learn
to do it for yourself.

--
Amiga programmer of: GRn, MailMinder, Budokan, Beyond Dark Castle, Dark Castle
Sega Genesis programmer of: Dick Tracy and Marble Madness.
Mike Schwartz  (ames!zorch!amiga0!mykes or mykes@amiga0.sf-bay.org)
1124 Fremont Ave.
Los Altos, CA 94024
From: mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at (Markus Stumptner)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: TP or C ?
Date: 27 Jul 92 10:50:25 GMT
Organization: DB and ES Subdivision, TU Vienna

From article <Brwrsq.8uI@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, by tmkk@uiuc.edu (Khan):
> No, Right argument. Show me a language which is simpler than C, yet more
> powerful.

I would say that Modula-2 or Oberon would qualify quite nicely.  They
don't have the standardized libraries that C has (which for me make up
the #1 argument for C), but libraries have nothing to do with language
power.  As for simplicity, I think a language with 16 operator
priority levels has distinct problems in terms of that.  C offers lots
of ways to do the same thing different ways (the ++-kind operators and
indexing arrays by incrementing pointers - stuff that can have
horrible performance effects on RISC machines) that are not really
needed.

As for the comments on the cryptic C syntax - yes, it is harder to
read.  Reading speed is not measured in characters, but words;
cognitively, word shapes have a lot to do with recognizing a word, and
moderately long keywords separated by whitespaces are easier to read
than bunched-together special characters (don't remember where I read
that, though).
-- 
Markus Stumptner                                mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at
University of Technology Vienna                 vexpert!mst@relay.eu.net
Paniglg. 16, A-1040 Vienna, Austria             ...mcsun!vexpert!mst
From: greg@godzilla.quotron.com (Greg "Maddog" Knauss)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: formal programming education
Date: 22 Jul 92 16:54:11 GMT
Organization: Quotron Systems, Inc.

vspicer@ccu.umanitoba.ca () writes:
>hi net world
>	i am interested in the current thread on formal programming education.
>some associates from high school have *claimed* (note i have problems
>swallowing this) that they have held major programming and marketing jobs
>in the industry with just high school education.
>	one fellow claimed to have worked as the product manager for a major
>software publisher/distributor, the other claims to have worked for litton
>systems (a canadian defence contractor) and the department of defence. both
>say they were making in excess of $100k a year since they were 17. 
>	this strikes me as being completely nuts, but they say there are
>"back doors" into most corporations where "ability" is worth more than
>formal training. 
> 	my degree is in physics and i've worked the past 2 years doing software
>design, electronics systems and general interfacing work for a research
>lab in the physics department. these guys claim with my experience in
>computer programming and hardware systems a job in the computer industry
>would be no problem, but i've always thought unless you have a masters
>in computer science or engineering most places aren't interested. 
>	musings apppreciated....

I suppose it's possible to make a hundred grand straight out of
high school, but it's getting less and less likely.  The computer
industry is speeding up, just like every other big business --
it takes too much time to see if somebody actually has any ability,
so employers take shortcuts (like checking for a masters) when hiring.
(This means they end up with a lot of formally educated people, by the
way, not a lot of able people.)
	I graduated with a BA in Political Science (and STOP laughing,
dammit) but I managed to wiggle in a back door and am merrily working at
in a programming job.  I'm not making a hundred grand, but I think I'm
doing a fair job of impressing people, especially for someone "without
a computer degree."  But I also know that I wouldn't have gotten the
job if I hadn't gone by the back door.
	There's three ways to get hired by a big computer company:

	o  Have a back door (a friend, an intership, a lot of related
	   experience...)
	o  Have a degree
	o  Have the guts to go and found your own company
	   (Bill Gates only has a high school diploma, too...)

-- 
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Greg "Maddog" Knauss                      My boss doesn't know I'm doing this,
 greg@{duke|godzilla}.quotron.com                so I doubt he'd agree with me.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: neil@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Forsyth)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: 386 Game Library
Date: 24 Jul 92 13:54:12 GMT
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University, Scotland

In article <1992Jul21.182453.20983@tc.cornell.edu> elan@tasha.cheme.cornell.edu
(Elan Feingold) writes:
>Whoops, big mistake.  The only reason nkk & I posted this was because we
>were getting pissed off at all the "well you should see MY library" type 
>whining.  This was never meant to be believable!!!  My apologies to everyone.

Dave, Greg and me were just having a laugh too. We were in fact all talking
about the same library, namely Game Workbench for the Atari ST. That's
why Greg paraphrased my sig saying "That was never 5 game libraries".

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
! DISCLAIMER:Unless otherwise stated, the above comments are entirely my own !
!                                                                            !
! Neil Forsyth                      JANET:  neil@uk.ac.hw.cs                 !
! Dept. of Computer Science         ARPA:   neil@cs.hw.ac.uk                 !
! Heriot-Watt University            UUCP:   ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!neil          !
! Edinburgh, Scotland, UK           "That was never 5 minutes!"              !
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: tmkk@uiuc.edu (Khan)
Subject: Re:  TP or C ?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 13:01:47 GMT


In article <cg.0afn@ami-cg.UUCP> cg@ami-cg.UUCP (Chris Gray) writes:
>In article <1992Jul22.000454.24871@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> stuartw@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz
>writes:
>>	base_ptr[offset]=value;
>>
>>	or
>>
>>	*base_ptr+offset=value;
>
>He he! I just love it when someone saying how great C is messes up with a
>common C error! The above two are of course not equivalent - extra parentheses
>are needed around the 'base_ptr+offset' in the second form.
>
>I've been skipping through these articles on 'TP or C', not realizing I've
>been missing the glorious fun of putting C down!

May I point out that you're not putting down C, you're putting down a
PERSON who *uses* C.

>C is one of the unfriendliest languages I've come in contact with, especially
>in the ways it is used by far too many people.

You know, I always suspected that most of the C bashers in the world
hate the language because they aren't posessed of the intellectual
capacity to understand how to use it. People who think a for loop in C
is confusing, for example. Based on your experience in writing an ANSI C
compiler, I see that you are an exception to this rule. ;-)

Personally, I'd rather be "confused" by a C for loop than be genuinely
confused at all the bizarre dialects that call themselves Pascal. I can
port a Borland C program to Unix C or VAX C or even Atari 8-bit C with
little trouble. The same can *not* be said of a Turbo Pascal program!

Face it, ugly spaghetti code can be written in ANY language. Don't try
to blame the language for a lack of skill on the part of the programmer.

>Folks! Use full prototypes. Turn on all possible warning flags. Make your
>code compile clean. Use some fairly standard programming style. Make your
>file global variables instantly distinguishable from your local ones. Avoid
>inter-file globals (externs) like the plague. Don't overuse macros. Make
>ALL macro names in all upper case (except perhaps true/false).
>
>Anyone (including yourself after a few years) who has to work with your code
>will greatly thank you.

Agreed 100% - and don't forget *thorough* internal documentation! At the
very least, the header comments for a function should identify all
parameters and explain their use. Local variables should also have a
brief comment next to their declarations. Finally, each block of code
within the function should have its own small comment block.

Looks like we're well on our way to writing a Usenet Manual of C Form
and Style. ;-)
From: woody@cs.utexas.edu (James Woodgate)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: TP or C ? (was: Languages to program in and ports and blah and etc...)
Date: 26 Jul 92 05:47:49 GMT
Article-I.D.: priddy.l75i95INN1eg
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
NNTP-Posting-Host: priddy.cs.utexas.edu

In article <l1hmxkp@lynx.unm.edu> iuzzolin@carina.unm.edu (Harold Iuzzolino) writes:
[Tons of stuff deleted]
>This is one nice thing about TP:
>
>function BoolTest(x,y:byte): boolean;
>begin
> ...
>end;
>
>begin
> if BoolTest(10,40) then InsertAnotherSpiffyProcedureNameHereIfYouWant;
>end.
> 
This is simple to do in C.
I always include

#define True -1
#define False 0
typedef char bool
typedef unsigned char byte

then you can just say

bool BoolTest(byte x,byte y) {
...
}

...
  if (BoolTest(10,40)) {
    foo();
    }

I think it's pretty funny when people argue about Pascal and C, when
I consider them about the same.  I think an argument about C/Pascal
against Lisp/Prolog would be more fun.  I think the one BIG argument
for C is portability.  I just saw a post for a Ray tracer that works
with Amigas, Macs, IBM's, and Unices, all with the same source code.
You just can't do that Pascal.  I don't think that this necessarily
means that C is better, it just happened that C became the "portable"
language.  Why hasn't the US switched to Metric yet???  Is it because
our system is better, no, it just happened.  It's the same way
as HAYES-compatible modems, EPSON-printers, etc. One language/thing
gets accepted by a number of people, and then someone says, hey
lets make a "standard".  The original Unix could have been written
in Pascal, why not, then maybe someone would have said, hey lets make
a "Standard" Pascal that will work on any machine, it just didn't
happen that way... 


-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
           -Linux Rules-                |
  -"I've been Dos free for 30 days      |
    now."-Former Dos Addict             | Address: woody@cs.utexas.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: sl8nl@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Game libraries...close
Date: 29 Jul 92 17:59:20 MDT
Organization: Utah State University
From: gmt@reef.cis.ufl.edu (GMM)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Split VGA Tweaked Screens
Date: 28 Jul 92 00:55:00 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Florida CIS Dept.

In reference to the split screen stuff, look through the files at the ftp
site "wuarchive.wustl.edu" under the directory mirrors/msdos/pctechniques
or something like that.  There is the source code for as article that 
Micheal Abrash wrote in there for doing the split screen stuff that 
you are talking about.  If you can't find it, I can dig through my
archives and send it to you.

Thanks,
Gary
From: v206gb6c@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (PauL M SchwartZ)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: TP or C ? (was: Languages to program in and ports and blah and etc...)
Date: 22 Jul 92 20:40:00 GMT
Followup-To: rec.games.programmer
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Jul21.025302.22788@hellgate.utah.edu>, galt%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu writes...
>The for statement may seem weird at first, but you can do neat things like this:
> 
>for(t=root;t!=NULL;t=t->next) puts(t->str);
> 
> 
>to cycle through a linked list of strings, printing each as it goes.
> 
>Pascal would be something like:
> 
>t:=root;
>repeat
>  begin
>    write(t^.str);
>    t:=t^.next;
>  end
>until t=Nil
> 
> 
>Sure the C is uglier looking, but an experienced C programmer would easily be 
>able to tell what it does.  And once you know how for works, you don't have
>to worry about using a "for", a "while", or a "repeat...until".  You can just
>use the for statement.

Of course, the experienced TP programer would have written:

t:=root;
while t<>nil do
  begin
    write(t^.str);
    t:=t^.next;
end;

(if root=nil, the repeat loop crashes, someone was sleeping the day they
 talked about linked lists in their data structures class)

at least, you could have taken the BEGIN and END out of the repeat loop 
(wouldn't have made an operational difference, but I know how you C 
 programmers like to save keystrokes).

PauL M SchwartZ           | Follow men's eyes as they look to the skys
Future site of .sig virus |     the shifting shafts of shining 
v206gb6c@ubvms.BitNet     |         weave the fabric of their dreams.
pms@acsu.buffalo.edu      |             - RUSH -
Organization: Sophomore, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 22:10:45 -0400 
From: Court Demas <cd2a+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Split VGA Tweaked Screens


Just looked in Sutty and Blair and found a really simple routine to do it.  I
chopped out the EGA stuff and some other things, so I'm not sure if it's going
to work perfectly for you (I'm using it for 320x240 and 360x480 ModeX).

It works, but I can't seem to get the screen to split more than halfway down.
I haven't spent much time on it, but if I fix it I'll let you know.

Oh, and in case you want to know what this is actually doing:  The static lower
potion of the screen is the first 'Split' lines of the display memory.  The
upper portion of the screen is what pans/scrolls around and can display any
portion of display memory (or so it seems).

-court

;----------------------------------------------------------------------------
; void SplitScreen(int Split)
;
                public  _SplitScreen
_SplitScreen proc SPLIT:WORD
                push    bp
                mov             bp,sp
                push    ds
                mov             ax,@data
                mov             ds,ax

;       call    _WaitForRetrace

                push    es
                xor             ax,ax
                mov             es,ax
                mov             dx,3d4h

                mov             al,18h
                out             dx,al
                inc             dx
                mov             ax,[SPLIT]
                out             dx,al
                dec             dx


@@VGA_Split:
                mov             al,7
                out             dx,al
                inc             dx
                in              al,dx
                mov             bl,byte ptr SPLIT+1 ;100d               ;Split+1
                and             bl,1
                mov             cl,4
                shl             bl,cl
                and             al, not 10h
                or              bl,al
                out             dx,al
                dec             dx
                mov             al,9
                out             dx,al
                inc             dx
                in              al,dx
                and             al,not 40h
                out             dx,al


                pop             es
                pop             ds
                pop             bp
                ret
_SplitScreen    ENDP


-------------------------------------------------------------
oh, one more thing.  The parameter Split has a strange relationship with the
number of lines which are actually displayed.  I haven't really figured out
why, but it probrably has something to do with ModeX..


-court
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: dxc0904@ultb.isc.rit.edu (D.X. Chin )
Subject: Using Images in Games
Summary: using GIFS or others in Games
Originator: dxc0904@ultb
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Distribution: all
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 14:18:17 GMT

Hello All:
	I have a problem or just a question, How would I go about using
GIF images in my programs, I don't mean 16 color images, I mean 256
color images, I really only need 320x200. But I'm not sure how to
manipulate them. 
	I've tried using the Genus PCX libraries, but I can't get their
BGI to work with Borlands. Because Borlands I think only uses 16 color
VGA. I tried using a 256 color VGA BGI driver I found, but they didn't
work with each other either. 
	What I'm trying to do is use a drawn image for a background in a
game i'm working on. Any help would be great... 

thanx in advance...
-
- Dower
- dxc0904@ultb.rit.edu
From: baylor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Baylor)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Game libraries...
Date: 27 Jul 92 02:20:07 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

>I write a whammy-humdinger catchy shareware game using this library, but can I
>really call it my own if all the ultra-quick graphics routines were written by
>someone else?  More rewarding would be if I could examine the source, use it 
>(and maybe customize a few routines), and be able to come out of the project
>knowing a little more about programming and maybe in the future being able to
>contribute some small routine, or improvement of my own to the library.

	I'm not sure if this is being said so let me give my few cents
worth. 
	I'd love a games library (I assume this is really a sprite 
library; no hack and no reason to intigrate a good infocom parser).
Many of you know that i've leached more code from you guys over the 
past year than anyone else I know. I beg for code from different people
to do things I quite often can already do.
	That's because I love seeing how other people do things. I've never
actually used anyone else's code before - i just print out and highlight
things that strike me then see if I can rewrite it from memory and quite
often run it through several reference manuals.
	I don't like using others code and I don't like being able to do 
something I don't understand. But looking at others work 1)makes you 
know what can be done (kind of inspiring really) and 2)shows you a
way that it can be done. I learn by example and love to see other peoples
work. 
	The graphics books out there don't really cover anything to useful
to games programming (except maybe the never-can-find abrash book). This
demo code is great. Frankly some of the best stuff I've used has not benn
source of games but little snipets of code to do a single task - my 
favorite is the code someone uploaded to make a 512x512 virtual screen
in mode X and then scroll around using the crtc controller.
	Yeah I'm a leach and yes i'd love for someone to make a graphics
library. But i also, after examining heavily, write my own code. If you 
can't a good teacher (for games programming? Yea, right, especially for
us history majors who don't take cs classes) then I think a good 
chunk of demo code should do just the trick.

ps- i pay for almost all the shareware i end up using, but the one's 
    i end up using are quite often those non-nagware/source included
    one's that come with good demo code - HTUtils being the one i now
    use oon contract jobs quite frequently. Of course, i rewrote it
    to my own specifications :)



-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Baylor Wetzel    baylor@cc.utexas.edu        Hang Tyson 
Free Leonard Peltier
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