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- The LOADSTAR Challenge
- by Dave Moorman
-
-
- This puzzle is surprisingly
- simple, once you figure out the trick.
- The word "LOADSTAR" is displayed on
- the screen. Use the mouse, joystick,
- or cursor keys to point to one of the
- letters and click.
-
- Under certain circumstances, the
- letter you click will toggle on (red)
- or off (dull gray). Your challenge is
- to figure out those circumstances --
- and turn all eight letters ON.
-
- That's it. Nothing fancy. Nothing
- terribly tricky. In fact, the whole
- puzzle is very, very binary. Oops --
- that was the one clue I promised
- myself I would not give you.
-
- Enjoy.
-
-
- TECH NOTES:
-
- Now for those who want to read all
- the nitty gritty (i.e., bragging),
- here is how Challenge came to be.
-
- The idea came from a game
- supposedly designed for the Altair
- 8800 -- where toggle switches and LEDs
- rule.
-
- Step 1: The screen was designed on
- Mr.MICK, and saved as an FTS file
- (font, screen, color).
-
- Step 2: Got out Mr.Mouse 2.1
- Resource Center and generated a JR
- version (2.5 K) at memory location
- $1000.
-
- Step 3: Wrote the Boot program to
- raise BOTTOM of BASIC up to page 32
- (room for font and Mr.Mouse), and
- bload Mr.Mouse and FTS screen., the
- load and run main program.
-
- Step 4: In main program, assigned
- MM Regions around each letter of
- "LOADSTAR". MM knows when the arrow is
- over a Region, and can easily change
- the color of the Region on demand. The
- logic was simple!
-
- Step 5: Used BASSEM's MERGE
- command to add the LOADSTAR CONNECT
- routine to return to LOADSTAR when the
- user quits.
-
- Step 6: Used Lee Novak's LINKER
- and PACKER to turn everything into one
- file and squeeze the air out of it.
-
- Step 7: Removed bloads from boot
- -- Linked and Packed program includes
- the auxillary files.
-
-
- I love working on the C-64 because
- of familiarity and because we have
- some wonderful modules and tools. Mr.
- Mouse not only makes a program slick
- -- it simplifies many of the functions
- to single commands.
-
- If you get an idea for a program,
- give it a shot! Drop me a line and I
- will suggest tools and utilities that
- will make your work easy and the
- results spiffy.
-
- DMM
-
-
-