"martin.doherty@undisclosed.com" <martindoherty377@gmail.com> wrote in
message
c4e0186f-8f3b-4c9f-8634-a7f7e0730339@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com">news:c4e0186f-8f3b-4c9f-8634-a7f7e0730339@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
Bill, I just reviewed the manual. This is an amazing new free
software release, on a par with a commercial quality product.
The trick here Martin, my man, is the fact that this IS a commercial quality
product:) Thanks very much for the compliment and also for making me smile.
I'm glad you love documentation, it is usually the weak link but not in
this case.
Now I am LOL:) The fact is that I hate documentation which is why I do it so
well so I don't need to do it again. This pales by comparison to the
business documentation that we need to provide these days.
You should have heard me groan when I added the mouse. I had already made
all sorts of deals with myself that since I didn't have enough memory I
could skip the mouse. So the documents were already done. Then while writing
the programmer's documentation and reviewing the project I found a very
serious memory wasting error. Well a deal's a deal:) So I rewrote the
documentations after correcting the error and adding the mouse to the
program(groan). Amen, I hope!
Now I have the strongest motive in years to haul my //e out of the
basement so my kids can play your game.
That comment was GREAT to hear! BTW there are several more I think you might
like. I guess I'll need to provide better documentation than the text files
that I originally provided when I dusted these old programs off. Some are at
the following link:
http://www.clipshop.ca/DiskImages/index.htm
I have a secret to share with the readers in this list. MeToo! is only "the
tip of the iceberg" when it comes to this type of program. I was rather
prolific when my kids were young and have a boneyard of these types of
programs that I have been digging through.
I have a math game for kids called "Bingo The Number Dog" which I am
currently working on and which I have an IBM-PC MS-DOS version that was long
ago made obsolete when Windows 3.1 came in to use as a guideline. Bingo had
an Apple version at one time too, but it got lost years back.
I was thinking about writing it in a more modern programming tool called
CC65 but no matter how I write the Apple //e version, I am going to "raise
the bar" even higher on Bingo than I did on MeToo!
Writing this type of program with manuals by taking an MS-DOS program as a
starting point is a maximum of 2 months of spare time for me with life
thrown-in.
Feedback like yours is very much appreciated. The venue for these was lost
in the early 1990's when the big companies and large educatational software
groups took over. Before that a guy could write for his local school market
and find a local publisher who had a niche market. It was a cottage industry
and a good way to make money on the side when I had a young family.
I sold copies of my programs at bake-sales in shopping malls to raise money
ny son's boy scout troops in those years, and gave copies away to my kids'
schools. Being a professional musician off and on I also visited the
kindergarten etc. and played all the children's songs with the teacher (and
so on). Very old-hippie and artsy-fartsy y'know.
Well, anyway, the Apple II community being small but lively is rather
reminiscent of those years for me, and lots of you guys who grew-up with the
apple have young kids and we old farts have grandchildren so I assure you
that there is some selfishness involved in my efforts. The notoriety alone
is worth it! The satisfaction that folks like you get a kick out of these is
a bonus!
Cheers yerself:) They don't make 'em like we used to. It has all got so
complicated that simple kids' games with a vintage feel provide a pure
alternative I think.
Have Fun with your old Apple and your kids!.
Bill