check out my games and apps

[thx4allthefish]

Hello,I'm a beginning programmer and I made a couple of things and I
want people to try them.
(a couple of working things,let alone lots of unfinished stuff,tests,or
tools made while in the process of the creation of the big stuff).
I completed a game and (almost) a drawing program (that started as a tool
for the game developement process),both of them could be downloaded
from my site,http://www.geocities.com/electromono/index.html

the stuff was made using turbo c 2.02 for DOS,but I also made a remake
version of the game using djgpp and allegro. (it requieres 386 and vga,
while the original game and drawing program require any pc and 640 kb).
if you want to check out the (btw,color,and yes,the original is in b&w)
remake of the game or the program,(even more unfinished than the original),
tell me.

(well,tell me any suggestions,comments,critics,whatever you think about
the stuff)

ps: yes,my projects are "retro-oriented",I tryed to make a game that looks
and behaves like a 1984 one,and I did it on purpose,so don't be scared!
(ok,the remake is more modern,it "is from" 1989/90)

[kohlrak]

What's the OS they run on? I'm getting errors just opening the files themselves. So the window isn't even painted (or displayed for that matter) before teh big crash.

EDIT: read your post. Most of us would rather see them done with a win32 compiler. Works much better that way.

[pkt-zer0]

It worked for me. The controls could use a little tuning, otherwise it's not bad. (Save for the fact that the graphics and the gameplay are horribly simple , it's a good programming accomplihment nonetheless, even moreso if you did it alone.)

[thx4allthefish]

yep,I did it alone and I was learning on the process,I knew how to do some
text mode things like displaying text and getting input from keyboard,but
I knew nothing about the structure of a game or displaying graphics and stuff like
that,making the game was very useful and fun and I have learned a lot.
I'm still just learning,I download and read a lot of tutorials and I do a lot of
testing programs (most of them with no use at all,like a program that converts
numbers from decimal to any system,like based on 3 or 5 or whatever instead of 10),
and it's fun because I always get bizarre and unpredictable results in the firts test.
Even my way of solving some problems is bizarre...I think I'm going through something
that early eighties programmers went through the first time some techniques were
figured out. (for example,I used an array to store the full screen bitmaps,but it
was too big to fit in the stack,and I still don't know how to allocate more ram for it,
so I could save and load just 1/4 of the screen,and I came up with the idea of
storing the images in 4 files!. well,that was very "gotesque",so I read about
handling files and seeking the data and storing things secuentially in a file,and
I found the solution and now I store the 4 parts of the screen in a single file.
I know sooner or later I'll have to come up with something better,but learning
how to use a "real" formar like bmp or gif seems very hard,at least now)

btw: I want to learn a lot of "classic" programming in c before
attemping "modern" stuff like oop using a win32 compiler and that kind of things.
You have to learn to use your feet/walk before you attemp to ride a bike or
drive a car,and,if you can get to where you want to go that way,
why driving anyway?,I mean,I'm a DOS fan,all I want to do is
games and apps for DOS so I can pretend I'm in 1989 and happy about it

[pkt-zer0]

IMO 320�240�256 is the best resolution for DOS apps. Once you set the resolution it's nothing but copying to the A000 offset. But I don't think I still have that code. It was in Pascal, with the basic drawing elements copied from an ASM source, and a menu and scrolling system in Pascal.

[kohlrak]

I'm using winxp and it dosn't like me using DOS apps (a bit ironic considering it is a DOS app in it's own)... not sure how to enable it. I don't wanna pretend i'm in 1989 though. I would be a baby again. X'D anyway... have fun.

[thx4allthefish]

xp is not a DOS app,that was 9x/me,xp comes from the nt branch of
systems that are a 32 bits graphics system on its own,in other words,
nt,2000 and xp are not for DOS,they are whole different systems.
Regular windows (since 1.0 up to 4.9 aka me) is a program that runs in the operating
system DOS,with win9x they made a ms-dos 7.x + win 4.x in a single pack,(and they
modified command.com so it calls win.com,something that previous ms-dos versions
don't do,and the text that used to say "ms-dos bla bla" now says "microsoft windows
bla bla",creating the illusion that it booted and was an os,but it is not).
The lack of DOS is exactly why DOS apps and games have problems with nt/2000/xp
and emulators such as dosbox are needed. (using an emulator to run pc software
in a pc is one of my top ten reasons of why nt/2000/xp sucks)

edit:
"IMO 320�240�256 is the best resolution for DOS apps. Once you set the resolution it's nothing but copying to the A000 offset".
isn't it vga 13h 320x200x256?. 320x240 uses mode x or vesa,the
easiest mode where you just put a value in the adress A000 with an
offset ((y*320) + x) and that color appears on the screen,is mode 13h.
hmm,is there an equivalent of mode 13h but for 320x240 where you just
do that a000:offset thing without having to deal with planes/pages of ram
like in mode x and that kind of stuff?
(I know,sooner or later I'll have to deal with mode x if I want a practical
way of scrolling things)

[kohlrak]

So then what does the OS run on? Processor code is a bit much for windows to assume they're running an intel to use intel commands. So it must run on somthing.

[thx4allthefish]

that's one of the aberrations of the nt/2000/xp monstrosity,since it has no DOS,
the gui is like floating in an abyss,you don't have the DOS "floor" to rely on,
because the gui IS the os that boots,it has no real mode/16 bit mode.

(don't mistake the emulation/console window in nt/2000/xp with the real DOS,
it's not even the same thing as the system prompt window in 9x,that is a session
of command.com that runs on top of the front end gui win 4.x that runs on top
of the original/first session of command.com).

what nt/2000/xp does afaik while booting is that a thing called nt loader stored
in the master boot record switches the processor to protected mode so the
32 bit graphic os is able to run,but it's a whole 32 bit thing,
not a 16 bit real mode "floor" with a 32 bit "building" on top of it,
it's just a 32 bit building floating in an abyss.

edit: but I didn't answered your question.
the OS is not supposed to run on something,it IS the thing where
other stuff runs on,like I said before,a "floor".
Well,I compared nt/2000/xp with a building floating in an abyss,but
technically THAT is the "floor" for its universe.

edit: hmm,I was talking about os and programs only,there's something
"in the basement" (if the os is the floor),and that's the bios,the os controls
the processor and the other hardware because the bios is there,that's
the thing that handles the internal stuff,the os just says
"hello mr bios,I need something done by that device",and the bios calls
the device and says "itreirgw�fdskjaasdfkj�lfkjl�wer 6 346jklsdfgjsdfkl�gsdfg".
(weird instructions in the hardware's internal "language". hmm,
1000111000101000111 should be more accurate).

[kohlrak]

i thought the BIOS and DOS are the same thing (only bios is the chip and dos is the softside.) but bios code in itself is a bit... shakey...Means i can't go buy a mac with intel processor cheaply and install xp on it to get a discount cause i'm sure the bios will make sure of that.

[thx4allthefish]

nope,DOS and BIOS are not the same,BIOS is a chip that has its
own software in it,the most basic rutines the computer needs,
the Basic Input Output System,that rutines control the hardware
and do tests on it when the computer is turned on just to see
if there's a graphics card,if there's ram installed and is working,
if the processor is correctly configured,etc.
After the tests,the bios goes to the track 0 of the hard disk
or floppy drive and "kicks in" the loader of the os,in the master
boot record. it could be DOS,windows NT or whatever.
DOS has nothing to do with BIOS,well,in terms of being the same,
of course it calls bios to do the work like "send that packet of
data to the peripheral in the 0x2e8 port irq 3",and DOS knows what
stuff is present or not because bios says 'hey DOS,there's a floppy
disk drive,a hard disk drive,a com1 port,a vga graphics card,bla bla".
But,the pilot is not a cyborg creature part of the plane like if
they were a whole thing.
The bios has 2 parts,software and hardware,the program that is
made by companies like AMI,phoenix or award,stored in a chip.
DOS is just software made by microsot,and it's a whole full featured
operating system in itself,not that emulation look-alike window
that comes with windows nt/2000/xp,that's another thing,in another
totally different operating system.

btw,I don't understand what you mean by running xp in a mac...
mac and pcs are totally different stuff,don't expect a mac to be a
"regular pc computer" but with another brand,they are like
a bomb and a microwave oven. sure,you can make some ka-boom with
both a microwave oven and a bomb,but in completly

[kohlrak]

Havn't you heard mac's going to intel processors? Chances are if it does that it's going to copy the rest of the hardware system that windows comptuers use too. I think that would allow less of a "ka-boom"

And in other word's you're saying to have dos we have to go out to the store and buy it to put on our hard drive like you do windows? I always thought that dos was standard.

[thx4allthefish]

yes,that's the way it was,DOS used to come in floppy disks,in a box,just like any
regular software,it's not "a part of the computer",and you booted with floppy 1 in
and it started the install process,like when you install windows from a cd.
(regular) windows and DOS were separate products up to version 6.22 of the OS,
and version 3.11 of the gui,they made a "pack" with version 7.0 of the OS and 4.0
of the gui and called it "windows 95". the first win95 came both in floppy disks and cd,
but since win98 it comes on cd only.
When you install win9x,what it does is installing both the operating system and the gui,
(replacing old versions if there were any,like,if you had win95 and installed win98,
it replaced DOS 7.0 with DOS 7.1,and updated windows 4.0 to windows 4.1).
Windows was optional,you could get everything done with just DOS,and if you
wanted to be cool and to show your friends you had paint and solitarie,you installed
windows. (it took time for it to be more than just a file manager,a painting program and
a solitarie game). Since version 4.0 it windows became the standard gui for DOS and
it was optional no more. they even modified command.com so after booting instead
of just staying at the c:\ prompt,it runs windows.
Before 4.0 you had to do it manually calling win.com,like I said,it was optional,
and after you used it to do whatever you wanted to do,you closed it and back to
DOS (and more complex programs and games,there was a time when windows games
could be just as complex as solitarie or tetris,and when big games started to come
for windows,they were adventure games like shivers. then with 4.0 and directx it
was possible to do windows games as complex as DOS ones,but requiring more
hardware of course,it's not the same having to deal with just the OS,than having
to deal with both the OS and the gui and having the multitasking gui loaded harms
the performance of games,in DOS they got all the processing for themselves).
the "restart in ms dos mode" feature in 9x is just the same feature that was called
"exit to dos" or "exit windows".

anyway,yes,DOS was a product just like the win9x packs or the win nt/2000/xp OSes
are now.
btw,the home and office computers market used to be ruled by DOS operating systems,with or without windows,but microsoft made the move of replacing that branch with the nt branch,that was previously used only in high performance servers
and other stuff besides pc. it is a long term "conspiracy",they started to "brainwash"
people with the 9x packs,people forgot of DOS or never heard of it and really believed
that "windows is the operating system" crap,so when they released nt 5 as "2000",
everybody thought it was just another one in the same series of windows 9x,
but it wasn't,it was a totally different os,and with xp the "invasion" was completed
and the 32 bit graphic operating system windows nt took over of what was once the
domain of the 16 bit text operating system DOS and it's front-end-gui regular windows.
to avoid confusion,I wish the nt products were called just that,nt 2000,nt xp,whatever,and that the windows name was keeped just for the front-end-gui for DOS,but,that's EXACTLY the key point of microsoft's conspiracy,making people believe
it was always just the windows series of products and that windows 2000 or xp are
susesors of 9x,but they are not,they are susesors of the original nt,the DOS branch
was terminated :(

[pkt-zer0]

It's somewhat sad to see that there are so many people who never really used DOS and therefore missed out on a lot of good games... Hopefully DOSBox will get faster soon and I'll be able to play System Shock 1 properly again (random freezes with my soundcard... or it could be the P133 proc. Plus I don't even know where the proper DOS drivers for my soundcard were. Ugh. And it took half an hour to assemble it. )

[thx4allthefish]

It's somewhat sad to see that there are so many people who never really used DOS and therefore missed out on a lot of good games... Hopefully DOSBox will get faster soon and I'll be able to play System Shock 1 properly again (random freezes with my soundcard... or it could be the P133 proc. Plus I don't even know where the proper DOS drivers for my soundcard were. Ugh. And it took half an hour to assemble it. )

I still don't get the point of nt/2000/xp "gee,let's install something that'll
make the computer run slower!,now I have to use an emulator to run pc games in a pc".

using nt/2000/xp is like placing square wheels in a car and wishing it
worked better,and using an "adaptation module" to turn the square wheels
into something similar to round ones,so a new car will perform almost as
the old cars used to do. one thinks "ehm...have you thought of not
switching to square wheels in the first place?,why making problems where
there used to be no problems?".

"because xp looks better than 9x", bah,who cares about good looks,
(I know,the whole modern society),it's the performance the thing that matters and should be judged and not the pretty colors.
It's like saying "yes,but the square wheels look so good!!".


ps: I have system shock 1 but I didn't like it.