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Loadstar 128 42
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q42.d81
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t.landscapes 40
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2022-08-28
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F R A C T A L L A N D S C A P E S 4 0
Program by Ian Adam, P.E.
Text by Fender Tucker
This is a 40-column version of FRACTAL LANDSCAPES, a BASIC 8 program by
Ian Adam published on LS 128 #19 and on THE BEST OF IAN ADAM. It's much
smaller than the BASIC 8 version but still has all the charm and options.
If you haven't seen the 80-column version, you are in for a treat. This
program will use the relatively modern study of fractals to generate lines
on the screen in such a way as to simulate a 3-D landscape, complete with
islands, water, mountains and shorelines.
All of the hot keys for the many options are listed on the screen and
you can have a lot of fun just pressing keys and seeing what they do. In
fact, every time this has been published in the past, the only instructions
were to "press the hot keys and have fun." This time I'll at least try to
explain what each hot key does.
This is not strictly a 40-column program. The landscape will be drawn
on the 40-column screen but you can have the menu and text on the 80-column
screen if you prefer, and just switch to the 40-column screen to see the
scene. The asterisk (*) is the key that switches the program between the
two screens. As for the monitor screen, you'll have to press the 40/80
switch on the monitor yourself.
HOT KEYS
--------
RETURN - Redraw the landscape. At 1 or 2 MHz it's pretty slow. At 20 MHz
it's much more "21st Century". Some of the parameters below can be changed
and when you press RETURN the landscape is immediately redrawn. Others will
cause a "re-generation". While this is happening, characters will be drawn
to the screen to show you that is working.
SPACE - Display the current picture by going to the graphics screen. It
also takes you back to the menu.
N - Generate a New random-seeded picture, which is then displayed.
A - Autopilot - Keep generating and displaying new scenes. See if you can
figure out how to stop this mode. I couldn't.
C - When ON, the landscape is realistically colored. When OFF, it's just
green. The OFF mode is much faster than the ON mode.
R - Select among three resolutions. The higher the resolution, the denser
the landscape and the longer it takes to draw. To me, the landscapes drawn
at medium resolution are the best looking.
T - Select among the various types of terrain: Smooth, Bumpy, Hilly,
Rough, Mountainous and Crazy.
S - Enter a number to generate the random seed. A number should always
generate the same landscape. Or should it? Apparently, you may enter any
number, although numbers longer than eight digits may mess up the menu
screen a little.
P - Set the angle you're viewing the landscape from, 0 to 90 degrees.
L - Set the "height" of sea level, from 120 to 220.
W - If ON, show the bottom of the sea, below the water line. If OFF, then
show only the top of the water.
H - If set to REMOVE, then the lines generated for the landscape that are
"behind" others, according to your viewpoint, are not seen. You see only
what you would see in real life.
V - If set to SHOW, display the vertical lines that are used in the
drawing. If set to REMOVE, erase them.
D - Disk Menu. Here you can LOAD a landscape, SAVE a landscape, see the
DIRECTORY of the current drive, change the current drive, or go back to the
menu. When you enter names for loading and saving, don't enter the "fl."
prefix. The program will append it for you.
I - Change the menu's text color, both the commands and the categories.
* - Switch between the 40-column and 80-column screens. You also have to
flip the switch on your monitor. You don't HAVE to use this feature. You
can keep your monitor and the program all in 40-column mode at all times.
B - When ON, it blanks the screen while the processing is going on. This
makes it go about twice as fast.
M - See the opening message from Ian again.
X - Reset all of the parameters to their default values.
Q - Quit to LOADSTAR 128 if there's a LOADSTAR 128 disk in the current
drive.
This program is a real gem, especially at 20 MHz. It generates the
landscapes fast enough so you can see what changing the various parameters
do. The amazing thing about the landscapes is that the files that define
each one are all 1 block long! In fact, it only takes 13 numbers to define
a complete landscape.
Ian Adam wrote more of these mathematics-based programs for LOADSTAR
than anyone. I am very glad that I found this and could end LOADSTAR 128
#42 with it.
\\\\\ R - Run RETURN - Menu \\\\\