To: Calibrator Calibrator wrote:
On 21 Feb., 04:07, bloomer_au <bloo...@iprimus.com.au> wrote:What amazes me is that I always thought I was a basic whiz, and yet in this latest revisit to programming the computer after a massive hiatus, I'm better at it than I ever was before. I'm using techniques to cram this game into PRODOS I would never have previously come up with.I've had a similar experience: After rediscovering the 6502 (via the Apple II in 2005) I was surprised how much I still knew -- I thought I had forgotten everything after dropping out for 15 years where I thought that only the latest stuff is the best... When writing some routines I immediately had the impression that I came up with better ideas for data structures and program flow than I was used to back then. This gave me quite some confidence and increased my interest in staying "retro".
Not too long ago I helped someone looking for the SSI AD&D gaming aid programs and mentioned that I had written some utility programs in Applesoft for AD&D myself and asked if he'd like to check them out too. He said he would so I pulled them out and took a look at them again. I immediately started finding things that could be improved or were potential bugs. I did a bunch of work on them again before sending them on to him. There are still huge improvements I could make to them. The biggest would probably be to move all the string literals to a text file instead of having them in the program taking up memory all the time. Things like ability and racial bonuses.
One thing I did find myself struggling with is the fact that my Windows programming today is done with PowerBASIC and it has a lot more features than Applesoft. I kept running into situations where commands I would use today don't exist in Applesoft or the command did exist but works in a different way or doesn't support certain options I've gotten used to. Then there is the fact that PowerBASIC is a structured, compiled language.
That said, I had a blast working on those programs again and might go back to them again.