Re: MeToo Children's Program

["Bill Buckels" <bbuckels@mts.net>]

"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