Loadstar 128 37/q37.d81/t.kegler 128

Text File | 2022-08-28 | 7KB | 178 lines

                            K E G L E R   1 2 8

                     Program and Text by Fender Tucker


    KEGLER 128 is a bowling scores database for bowlers like me -- people
who bowl three games at a time, usually one or two times a week. It's not
for league bowlers, since the league secretary probably keeps extensive
data for the whole league, but of course it could be used for keeping track
of your own personal scores, even if they are league games. I've used a C-
64 version of this program for years and finally decided to write a 128
version that would take advantage of the 80-column screen.

    There's nothing fancy about the program. You can keep any number of
bowlers' scores in separate files and each time you bowl, enter the date
and the three scores and the computer will do the rest. It doesn't support
things like handicapping. Surely your league secretary will have all that
information.


 USING KEGLER 128
 ----------------

    The Main Menu has these options:

  BOWLER LIST
  NEW BOWLER
  ENTER SCORES
  TOTALS
  SAVE SCORES
  PRINT SCORES
  QUIT


 New Bowler
 ----------

    The first time you use KEGLER 128 will be after a bowling session where
you have bowled three games. Select NEW BOWLER from the Main Menu and
you'll be asked to enter your name. I entered "Fender 98" to indicate these
are my scores for the year 1998. There's a data file on the disk under that
name (with a "k." prefix for an identifier), which contains my scores for
the first five bowling sessions of this year. Obviously I need to bowl
more.


 Bowler List
 -----------

    Once you have set up a bowler with his file, you won't need NEW BOWLER
until next year or until you want to add another bowler's file to the disk.
Instead select BOWLER LIST and you'll get a scrolling list of all of the
"k." files on the disk. Use CRSR UP/DOWN to highlight a bowler and press
RETURN to select it.


 Totals
 ------

    After your file is loaded, you may want to see the TOTALS right away. I
do. If so, select TOTALS and your scores for each week will be listed in a
scrolling (if necessary) box. Here is the info you see at the TOTALS
screen:

               1st Game 2nd Game 3rd Game     Night           Season
 Week  Date     Scores   Scores   Scores   Total Average   +/-   Average

Under NIGHT you'll see the total pins for the session and the average per-
game score. The +/- indicates how well you did this week compared to your
running average. A PLUS means you bowled better than average and a MINUS
means you did worse than your average. The info is color-coded: if you did
better than average, it's in light red; if you did less than average, the
whole line is grey. If you have a score over 200, it shows up in white.

    The Season Average is just that, your average per game score for all of
the games in this file.


 Enter Scores
 ------------

    When your file is loaded and you've seen your totals, it's time to
enter your three scores for the day/night. Select ENTER SCORES and you go
to a box where a cursor is blinking, waiting for you to enter the date. You
can use any date system you want; this information is printed on the screen
and paper but it's not used in a calculation. Since it's turned into a
string within quotes you can use commas or any other punctuation marks. I
started by entering:

    January 8, 1998

but later decided all those 1998s cluttered up the screen and printout, so
I now use:

    January 8

and let the "98" in my filename keep me straight as to which year I'm in.

    Next I enter my three scores for the day. The cursor knows where to go
so just enter the numbers, pressing RETURN after each. Let's hope they're
all three digits long. If you do score under 100, enter a leading 0, such
as "097" to keep the scoring correct.

    Immediately the info for the session is displayed on the screen. Press
a key to return to the Main Menu, where you may want to see the TOTALS
again.

    If you make a mistake in entering the scores, don't worry. Just break
out of the program and re-RUN it. I thought about adding a CORRECTIONS
feature but decided against it. Commodore programs invite you to become
familiar with their guts as well as their faces. No C-64/128 user should be
shy about breaking out of a program, LISTing it, and then re-RUNning it.
It's where we are more powerful than other computer users.


 Save Scores
 -----------

    Once you have the scores entered correctly and the TOTALS look good,
remember to save the file before ending your session. Make sure there's a
disk with some blocks free in the current drive. I keep KEGLER 128 and all
of my scores files in a partition on my RAMLink. A scores file will
probably never get to be more than 9 or 10 blocks long. The program is
DIMensioned for up to 99 sessions per file, about a year's worth at two
bowling sessions a week.


 Print Scores
 ------------

    This simply gives you a neat printout of your TOTALS. There are three
REMed lines at 780-800 that will put my Star NX-1000 printer in near-letter
quality and condensed subscript mode. If you've got an Epson-emulating
printer you may want to deREM these lines if you like small, condensed
printouts. Otherwise, leave 780-800 with the REMs in them and you'll get a
normal printout.


 Quit
 ----

    This of course takes you back to LOADSTAR 128 if there's a LOADSTAR 128
disk in the current drive. Otherwise it drops you to BASIC.


 LAST MINUTE THOUGHTS
 --------------------

    If you don't bowl three games at a time, then just press RETURN instead
of entering a score. I always bowl three games so I must admit I might have
missed something in the program if you do this too often. In my opinion,
bowling isn't a sport unless you bowl at least three games at a time.

    This was the first program I worked on since getting my SuperCPU for
the 128. KEGLER 128 is a little slow at normal speeds, isn't it? Well, at
20 MHz it's great. Now that we've cajoled the Creative Micro Designs guys
into spending a couple of years of their lives developing the SuperCPU for
the 128, I think all serious users should get one. It takes the clunkiness
out of the C-128. It doesn't just cover up sloppy code by BASIC programmers
like me, it covers up some of the shortcuts that the CBM designers took.

    The program is 95% BASIC so you can fiddle with it all you want. Each
module is identified and there are no tricks. It uses CONTROL80 of course
for things like highlighting, setting up the font, storing and recalling
screens, etc. Bob Markland's super-handy FILENAME INPUT routine was used in
the BOWLER LIST module, as was my BASIC FILE SUBROUTINE. Both of these are
described in detail on Side One of this issue.

    That's it! Remember to SAVE your scores after you enter it but before
you reset or power down your computer. Disk space on LOADSTAR 128 is
limited. Use Copy It to transfer KEGLER 128 to another disk, or insert a
different disk before saving.

                   \\\\\ R - Run   RETURN - Menu \\\\\