(09-16-2022, 03:08 PM)Pete Wrote: Yeah, we've come a long way. Some of those older BASIC languages had advantages. Atari Basic had a way to change ascii characters into custom 8x8 characters, very easily. I wish we still had that with QB. I don't miss the line numbers from TI days, that's for sure. Programming games like 4-player monopoly on those limited memory systems was a great way to become adept at optimization. Only bad habits is possibly the use of single character variables and few remark statements.
We have indeed come a long way! I too do not miss line numbers and one or two-letter variable names - on the Commodore 64, 2 characters was all you got! You could type longer names, but only the first 2 characters uniquely identified a variable. (I think that was a step up from the TI, wasn't standard TI BASIC limited to one letter?)
I am glad that QB64 at least supports line numbers, which makes it a lot easier to run and/or port these old programs.
And the editor! On the TI, I don't think you could edit an existing line, all you could do was list it, and then re-type the whole thing with your changes! The C64's full screen editor was a step up, where you could move around the screen with the cursor keys and type your changes over the existing code & just press ENTER to save your changes.
Of course the C64 still didn't let you scroll up and down through your program like QBasic's editor! In HS computer class we learned Pascal (on Apple IIs), which opened my eyes that there was a much better way to do things, both with the editor and all the nice structured programming stuff. (And if you got to class early, you could get dibs on one of the newer Apple IIes which had a nicer keyboard and an 80-column card! Next to the 2e, the Apple II Plus was a dog! LoL)
In the 90s when I finally moved to PC and started playing with Qbasic & QB45, it was SO nice to be able to ditch the line numbers, use descriptive label & variable names, scroll up & down through my programs, AND use functions/procedures/UDTs and all the nice structured programming stuff that Pascal had!
In any case, the TI & C64 got me started in programming, that's for sure.
(09-16-2022, 03:08 PM)Pete Wrote: Well if this multi-controller project works out it will be a nice addition for gammers. Have you thought through what syntax may be needed to handle the job? Maybe the usb ports could be used as identifiers. _Mousebutton(1, 2) as an array? In otherwords something to distinguish who clicked what, etc.
I think the first program in this thread that "sort of works" addresses that. Try running it or look at the code and you'll see, it is able to distinguish between mice.