Re: Sudoku puzzle solver for Apple II

["Chris Alaimo" <cpalaimo@gmail.com>]

By your logic, no one should ever write an Apple II program using 65c02
language because then not every A2 owner can run it.  How many Apple II
enthusiasts do you know that don't have AT LEAST one 65c02-equipped
Apple in their arsenal?  I think I only have one Apple II that DOESN'T
have a 65c02 in it (or a processor capable of running 65c02 code).

Chris

Michael Black wrote:
> "BLuRry" (brendan.robert@gmail.com) writes:
> >> I don't believe that!  Check out this Sudoku solver:
> >>     http://homepage.ntlworld.com/valleyway/solver.html
> >>
> >> It's written in Javascript, which of course is a quite inefficient
> >> programming language - yet it needs less than half a second to solve
> >> a sudoku, on a 4+ year old PC running at a moderate 1.8 GHz clock speed.
> >
> > Javascript isn't all that bad. :-P  Sure, it's not exactly suited for
> > realtime applications, but once the code has been interpreted and all
> > data structures are created, it's pretty decent actually.  I've found
> > it to be not much slower than, say, Perl.  Some things in the language
> > are actually a lot faster than you think!  Dynamically-created data
> > structures are not a strong-point of javascript when speed is concerned
> > though.
> >
> > http://www.jorendorff.com/articles/javascript/speed-test.html
> >
> > I don't see enough people rag on the speed of, say, Ruby or Python.
> > :-D
> >
> >> ...but why does it require a 65C02 ?  Couldn't it have been written
> >> in plain 6502 assembly language?
> >
> > *sigh*  Why are there so many anti-65c02 enthusiasts out there?  Can't
> > you afford a free emulator that can handle the opcodes or shell out $6
> > for a new 65c02 processor?  But, seriously, I have a strong preference
> > for 65c02 opcodes in my code as well becase it's a slight bit more
> > convienent.  Why limp when you can walk?  (or use 65816 and go for a
> > jog ;-)
> >
> What's the point of having a program for a relatively new game for
> a computer that hasn't been made in almost twenty years, but then
> you are assuming the most interest will be in running it on an emulator?
>
> At that point, you aren't talking about some functionality of an old
> computer, you are doing it for no good reason.
>
> And once you move away from emulators, you do start limiting the
> computers that can run the program when you use a 65C02.  In other
> words, you may be limiting who can run this program on an actual Apple
> II.
>
> But the question still remains, why is it so important to use
> the few instructions that are unique to the 65C02?  They may be nice
> additions, but lots of people survived without them.
> 
>   Michael