How to program a simple game?

[D-Man]

I was teaching school when the Atari 800 came out.  I wrote a simple program (game) for my students to play.  Here it is:  The screen read On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!  Then it would start counting from 1000 to 0.  I would pick a number, say 73, and they would type run and then hit ESC to try to stop it on 73.  Whoever came the closest won a prize!

I have that program on an Atari floppy disk but no disk drive.  Could someone type that program for me so I can play it on Christmas when the grandkids come over.  I think it is only a few lines of typing in Graphics 2.  I do have the Atari 800 computer so I'll be able to type it in if somebody answers this.  Thanks in advance.

D-Man

[RickR]

I'm happy to help, but how would I get the program to you?  Via an ATR image file?  Or I guess you mean to just provide a listing that you could type in yourself? 

[D-Man]

Thank you Rick. I was thinking you, or someone, could just type it on this post and then I would write it down.  I don't think it's very long...if my memory is corrct. LOL  Or you could email it to me.  Whatever works best for you.

[RickR]

It will be fun.  I haven't written a basic program in ages.  I'll try to give it a whirl this Friday or Saturday. 

 

[D-Man]

OK, thanks!

[RickR]

Here's my first attempt.  Let me know what you think.

[D-Man]

Wow thanks! I'll give it a try right now.  I'll let you know;

[D-Man]

I tried it but it doesn't count down to 0.  It looks like it counting down 1000 to 0, then 900 to 0, then 800 to 0 and so on, but it goes so fast it's really hard to tell.  Also, how do I get it into Graphics 2.  Is it PRINT #6?

[RickR]

1 hour ago, D-Man said:

I tried it but it doesn't count down to 0.  It looks like it counting down 1000 to 0, then 900 to 0, then 800 to 0 and so on, but it goes so fast it's really hard to tell.  Also, how do I get it into Graphics 2.  Is it PRINT #6?

Try removing line 5 and instead typing line 5 as 35.  I didn't really like the clear screen as every pass through the loop.

The command for Graphics 2 would be:  "GRAPHICS 2" 

I found this site to be very helpful in remembering commands:  http://blog.3b2.sk/igi/Data/Atari/Basic/abasic.html#GRAPHICS

 

[D-Man]

Here's what I ended up doing.  It does work it just counts up instead of down.  On line 15 how can I make it so the number is a random number between 1 and 800 instead of always being 800?

10 GRAPHICS 2

15 FOR I=1 TO 800:NEXT I

30 FOR X=1 TO 1000

32 POSITION 9,5

35 PRINT #6;X

40 NEXT X

[RickR]

1 hour ago, D-Man said:

On line 15 how can I make it so the number is a random number between 1 and 800 instead of always being 800?

I think it would be like this:

14 R = INT(800 * RND(1)) + 1

15 FOR I = 1 TO R : NEXT I

 

[HDN]

When you guys are done with this, I’m definitely porting it to VIC-20! Mine doesn’t work anymore, but that doesn’t mean I don’t mess around in BASIC on emulators still! (I really should get around to fixing that computer one of these days.)

[RickR]

7 hours ago, HDN said:

When you guys are done with this, I’m definitely porting it to VIC-20! Mine doesn’t work anymore, but that doesn’t mean I don’t mess around in BASIC on emulators still! (I really should get around to fixing that computer one of these days.)

We'll have to adjust some of the commands a bit for Commodore BASIC, but that's easily do-able.

[D-Man]

Well, we played my game at Christmas and all my grandchildren loved it!  We all had a lot of fun.  Thanks for all the help! Now I'm going to try and expand it and make it better for our next gathering! Thanks again.

Dennis

[RickR]

4 hours ago, D-Man said:

Well, we played my game at Christmas and all my grandchildren loved it!  We all had a lot of fun.  Thanks for all the help! Now I'm going to try and expand it and make it better for our next gathering! Thanks again.

Dennis

Great!  Thank you for the little trip down memory lane.  I hadn't done a BASIC program in decades, although I owe most of my career to fiddling around on those computers as a teenager.

 

[D-Man]

Will the cable for the Atari 1050 disk drive also work on the Atari 810 drive?

 

[RickR]

4 hours ago, D-Man said:

Will the cable for the Atari 1050 disk drive also work on the Atari 810 drive?

 

Yes.  The SIO cables are standard for all devices. 

[D-Man]

Ok, that’s what I needed To know. Thank you!