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bluebery.txt
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2006-10-19
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.IF DSK1.C3
^^^^^^^^^^^^^TEXTWARE, SOFTWARE, and ELSEWHERE
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^TI Articles and Reviews
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^by Jack Sughrue
My daughter Suzi went blueberry picking yesterday, and I
decided to get up early this morning and make some fresh blueberry muffins for
the five of us for breakfast. I went digging through the recipe box for my
favorite recipe. Wasn't there! (It was. I just didn't find it until much
later this afternoon.)
First, I panicked.
How can I make my favorite recipe when the recipe has disappeared?
Then, I paused and thought. As a teacher I should know better. I don't teach
in the hope that the "recipe" will always be at hand for problem-solving.
Hopefully, I teach problem-solving.
Next, I asked myself What do I know? and What do I need to know?
I discovered that I knew how to make the muffins: baking soda, flour, milk,
blueberries, sugar, eggs, oil. And I remembered the logical amounts: 2
teaspoons, two cups, one-and-a-quarter cups, lots, one-half cup, three, and
one-quarter cup, respectively. And as I was remembering and doing, I kept
recalling more and more of the process. Sift the dry stuff into a bowl. Make
a well. Separate the whites and slightly beat them. Add the oil and milk.
Stir until lumpy damp (my expression). Add the blueberries. Stir gently.
Make dabs into pre-greased cupcake tins. Put on 4250 for about 20 minutes.
Make coffee meanwhile. When done, wake family. Have good time with butter
melting all over them. When all 18 are eaten, clean up.
All of which brings me to a book I've had for a few months and have found
useful, exciting, and full of fun: THE TI-99/4A IN BITS & BYTES edited by Remo
A. Loreto ($14.95 from Remo A. Loreto, P.O. Box 14781, Cincinnati, Ohio,
45214). It's a book that's loaded with recipes (programs) but so full of other
kinds of ideas that you will come away from the experience (if you put a lot of
yourself into it) a baker (programmer). You'll learn so many logical, useful,
delightful things about your TI that you will be able to create without the
recipes and share your goodies with family and friends.
Ten different programmers put their best digits
forward in this large (8X11, 142 pages) book. The
claim is that there are 50 programs in BITS & BYTES.
Well, that's not quite true. First, they send you an
extra program not in the book (which is quite good);
then they don't count the small tutorial programs.
There are 37 of these. So, though I bought the book
expecting 50 programs, I ended up with 88! Pleasant
surprise.
Before discussing the 50 (51?) programs for which you
buy the book, I'd like to talk about those other 37.
The first 21 pages of the book take up these minis.
Section 1 is a rather odd tutorial about programming
commands made simple. I say "odd" because this is not
a rehash of the manual which comes with the console.
The tutorial assumes you're intelligent and that you've
probably already read the manual. This section shows
you ways to use CALL COLOR, CALL GCHAR, CALL JOYST,
CALL KEY, CALL HCHAR & VCHAR, DIM, FOR-NEXT-STEP,
GOSUB, GOTO, READ-DATA-RESTORE, and even PRINT in ways
you may not have thought about.
Section 2 is a really simple and good examination of
flowcharting, including a more elaborate chart for a
program in the back part of the book.
Section 3 is a series of hints and tips. I was
fascinated by this section and wished there were whole
books devoted to this type of thing.
Section 4 contains the 50 ready-to-run programs: 28
are in BASIC, 23 are in Extended or require TEII. (If
you noticed the mathematical disparity in the sentence
above, I am including "Black Hole," the extra program.)
These programs give you your money back many times
over in pleasure. Although there are some practical
programs for you serious types (such as Loan
Calculating, Household Inventory, Curve Plot, Message
Board) most of this wonderful book is full of games -
GAMES! Oh, sure! Educational games are here, too, and
there is nothing wrong with that. I'm a teacher, after
all. But this book is mostly fun. Things like Space
Fury, Trap, Skydiving, Eviel-Eyevil, Byteman, Death
Mobile, Baseball, account for most of the 51 programs.
If you enjoy typing in programs (which is one of the
best ways of learning programming, so I suppose that -
at least - is educational) then this book is for you. I
thought the programs ran well and were quite good. They were also
very easy to modify to your own purposes or tastes. I am very happy I bought
this book, which, unfortunately, is not the case with some of the books I've
purchased.
Section 5 is an appendix that contains things programmers are always looking
at: ASCII character codes, conversion tables, music frequencies, reproducible
TI graph paper, and even a place for notes (which I find very handy).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's a small example from the book that shows you how to DISPLAY AT using
BASIC:
100 CALL CLEAR
110 A=12
120 B=1
130 A$="TEXAS INSTRUMENTS HOME COMPUTER"
140 GOSUB 160
150 GOTO 150
160 FOR C=1 TO LEN(A$)
170 CALL HCHAR(A,B,ASC(SEG$(A$,C,1)))
180 B=B+1
190 NEXT C
200 RETURN
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
But now for you non-typists, a super special treat. All the
programs are available as a package book/disk or book/tape from some of the
main suppliers of 99 stuff.
While you're waiting for the book to come it, try my muffin recipe. You might
enjoy that, too.
[Jack Sughrue, Box 459, E.Douglas, MA 01516]
***********
If any newsletter editor prints these articles, please put me on your mailing
list. Thanks - JS
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