BAM: PUTSTRING prototyping

[CharlieJV]

I had a wee bug in my first prototype, and since I'm planning on doing all kinds of prototyping as I plan out an include library for the thing, I figured best to aggregate developments in one thread.


The fundamental PUTSTRING feature to graphically position a string on the screen:

• Run the program
  
• View the source code
  

The PUTSTRING feature to "roll/unroll" a single character in one or more simultaneous directions (right, left, down, up; each in amounts of between 1 and 7 pixels), graphically positioned on the screen:

• Run the program
  
• View the source code
  

[CharlieJV]

The PUTSTRING feature to "roll/unroll" a single character in one or more directions (currently only towards the right, or the left, individually or simultaneously), graphically positioned on the screen:

• Run the program
  
• View the source code
  

First version of that sample had "roll right", now has "roll right" and "roll left".

Roll one direction, or roll the other direction, or simultaneously roll both directions.

[CharlieJV]

The PUTSTRING feature to "roll/unroll" a single character in one or more simultaneous directions (right, left, down, up; each in amounts of between 1 and 7 pixels), graphically positioned on the screen:

• Run the program
  
• View the source code
  

Down and up added.  Certain combinations make for interesting animation.

[bplus]

Ha! what fun rolling every way: up, down, left, right... next is in on the floor laughing.

[CharlieJV]

Randomly paint the screen with custom triangle characters:

• Run the program
  
• View the source code
  

   

[bplus]

Killer confetti!

BTW what was or will be the 1 Year Anniversary for BAM?

[CharlieJV]

Killer confetti!

BTW what was or will be the 1 Year Anniversary for BAM?

Using characters as an alternative to sprites has some pretty interesting possibilities.  I have to chew on it for a bit.

BAM Anniversary?  Something I started in December 2020, so two years-old last December.  Time flies!

[TerryRitchie]

Killer confetti!

BTW what was or will be the 1 Year Anniversary for BAM?

Using characters as an alternative to sprites has some pretty interesting possibilities.  I have to chew on it for a bit.

BAM Anniversary?  Something I started in December 2020, so two years-old last December.  Time flies!

Central Point Software and Norton Utilities did this kind of thing back in the 80's and 90's quite a bit. They developed custom character sets that when used you would swear a text only screen (SCREEN 0) was a graphics screen. It was a cool trick to spruce up DOS era software.

[CharlieJV]

Central Point Software and Norton Utilities did this kind of thing back in the 80's and 90's quite a bit. They developed custom character sets that when used you would swear a text only screen (SCREEN 0) was a graphics screen. It was a cool trick to spruce up DOS era software.

Now I'm even more curious about this old-school approach to graphics.

Here's an interesting thread of discussion over at retrocomputing.stackexchange: Which computers had redefinable character sets?

[CharlieJV]

For the BAM: _LETCHR$ and _GETCHR$ thread, I introduced a Tessellation with randomly generated graphics characters program to demonstrate using custom characters for character graphics.

To demonstrate how PUTSTRING can be used to layer character graphics (particularly useful to get more than one colour in graphics, I've put together a second version of the Tessellation program:

• Run the program
  
• View the source code