CHANGING CONTRAST ANYWHERE!!!

Posted 17 August 2003 - 01:27 PM

I'll risk the embarassment of reporting something you may know but on my CFX, I can change the contrast anywhere on the calculator, wherever it is waiting for input (all except the menu) Tell me if it works on your calc, press Shift and use the arrow keys left and right to change the contrast!!! Hope someone finds some use for this, I know there is one, I'll use it for some games.

I have just got Macromedia Flash MX and soon I'll release my first real website. I'll put up my 'new generation' of games. I just finished making Collapse (it's so fast!) and going on to make Sprite, which I might enter for the competition (a 3D shoot-em up game).

Some programming tips:

1. VERY USEFUL - If you have more than 4 subsequent 'test'=>'operation' codes in your program, use If, IfEnd and else to seperate them into groups of 2. For example say you want to show letters on the screen...

If A<5
Then If A<3
Then A=1=>"A"
A=2=>"B"
Else A=3=>"C"
A=4=>"D"
IfEnd
Else If A<7
Then A=5=>"E"
A=6=>"F"
Else A=7=>"G"
A=8=>"H"
IfEnd
IfEnd

This makes the above code 2x faster than simply putting them all in a line!

2. You don't need to close [{ and ( brackets in most cases. Exceptions are: before =<> and in an equation.

3. Try to arrange your labels so that you don't have so many jumps around the whole program.

4. Logical operations slow things down, if testing two values, try and combine them into one test.

5. Don't use special effects on your programs, they take up too much memory, all we want is the gameplay and special effects take up too much memory and speed.

btw, does anyone know the fastest way to make A become 2 if it's 1 and A become 1 if it's 2. If you put them in order, it will always end up as 1.

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Posted 17 August 2003 - 02:42 PM

"press Shift and use the arrow keys left and right to change the contrast!!! "

That comes in the manual, once I realized that in my AFX, and when I published here Crimson informed to me that it was not a newness...

And when I bought the AFX the first that I made was read the manual...

BTW: Nice programmation tips.

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Posted 17 August 2003 - 04:07 PM

I'll risk the embarassment of reporting something you may know but on my CFX, I can change the contrast anywhere on the calculator, wherever it is waiting for input (all except the menu)

Yeah, you're not the first person revealing this trick in the forum.
But I found more useful thing about it (maybe some of you haven't tried it yet). In programs yuo can make a turn off option. Yuo have to e.g. check if player types F6' /> and call a triangle (-disp- function) if he does. Then player can turn off calculator without breaking program.

btw, does anyone know the fastest way to make A become 2 if it's 1 and A become 1 if it's 2. If you put them in order, it will always end up as 1. 

I'm not sure what do you mean.
Maybe this:

not (A-1)+1->A

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Posted 17 August 2003 - 10:54 PM

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Posted 18 August 2003 - 07:15 AM

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Posted 18 August 2003 - 08:37 AM

Crimson, genisis is right in the that if you do

A=1=>2->A
A=2=>1->A

then all that will happen is that is a = 1 the first line will set a to 2, but the second line will the ask if a = 2, which it will do, and change it back to 1!

the code Endi suggested will work though!

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Posted 18 August 2003 - 02:01 PM

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Posted 18 August 2003 - 02:07 PM

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Posted 18 August 2003 - 11:31 PM

hmmm... I remember an old trick I used much in my basic programs (download them on my website ;-) )

2(A=1) + (A=2)-> A

no one talk about that... I discovered it one day by accident that's really useful!

Edited by 2072, 18 August 2003 - 11:58 PM.

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Posted 18 August 2003 - 11:40 PM

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Posted 18 August 2003 - 11:52 PM

I've thought a little bit more and now

(A=1)+1->A

will put A to 1 if A=0 and then the cycle begin 1 2 1 2 1 2...

in C it would be

A=(A==1) +1;

That trick is useful to make 2 states switches.

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Posted 18 August 2003 - 11:57 PM

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Posted 19 August 2003 - 12:04 AM

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Posted 19 August 2003 - 02:57 AM

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Posted 19 August 2003 - 06:59 AM

Good tips? They're just some random things I thought of. Some more are:

1. For + or -1 AND + or -2 use Isz and Dsz, it takes up less/equal memory and it's faster. +3 is the same as Isz, Isz, Isz but the second way takes up more memory. And don't put zero's in numbers less than 0.

2. See if you can get a better one but my trademark 'pause' in programs without the -Disp- symbol is Do:LpWhile Getkey=/=31.

3. Try to stay away from letter inputs in programs, it's cool but allowing a user to select something from a list is easier. Speaking of lists, F1' /> ---, F2' /> --- is a lot easier to program than using an arrow that can move up and down.

Is it possible to make 3D games in text mode? Post any tips or favorite ways of doing something.

EDIT
So I'm a Casio Addict now am I?

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Posted 19 August 2003 - 07:53 AM

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Posted 19 August 2003 - 09:06 AM

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Posted 19 August 2003 - 09:31 AM

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Posted 19 August 2003 - 01:46 PM

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Posted 19 August 2003 - 04:16 PM

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Posted 19 August 2003 - 06:29 PM

"See if you can get a better one but my trademark 'pause' in programs without the -Disp- symbol is Do:LpWhile Getkey=/=31."
Good trick, I use the sam way, with LpWhile

I also use the ENG and Norm commands to make eng. programs, like one called "C" (I hope that this program will be available in the andy davies website, its for ceramic capacitor's codes) , its so usefull.

I think that i'm not a good programmer because much work costs to me to reduce the code of my programs, I need more practice

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Posted 20 August 2003 - 10:04 AM

I think I've said something about the ENG symbols before, you can use them for decimals too. And if you didn't know Norm2 cancels all scientific notation and Gauss/Simpson, well I don't know.

The main thing that interests me is splitting your programs up to make them run faster.

Does this really work, I mean can you split a slow game into a hundred parts to run super fast? Cause if you can then people should be able to make real cool programs, only problem is then people would have the right to complain about too many programs in one game !

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Posted 20 August 2003 - 10:14 AM

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Posted 20 August 2003 - 10:21 AM

0->D	
	FOR 1-A TO 1000
	ISZ D
	NEXT

PROG1:

  0->D
  FOR 1-A TO 1000
  PRGM "PROG2"
  NEXT

	PROG2
  ISZ D

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Posted 20 August 2003 - 10:52 AM

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Posted 21 August 2003 - 03:33 AM

FOR 1->A TO 1000
ISZ D
NEXT

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Posted 21 August 2003 - 02:34 PM

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Posted 22 August 2003 - 03:16 AM

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Posted 22 August 2003 - 06:53 AM

Thankyou, huhn_m! Very useful information, how did you get it so accurate? I guess it is impossible to calculate the speeds efficiently but maybe we could create a benchmark table. Like for everything below a certain benchmark, use a certain command and for everything above, use another.

One thing I'm frustrated about is having to repeat codes in a program, I know you can split it up or use function memory and everything but I just want to be able to rewrite it so I only have it once. BASIC makes simple ideas SO hard to put into code. For example, what is the fastest way to check the values of the cell above, left, right and below a cell in a matrix?

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Posted 22 August 2003 - 07:00 AM

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Posted 22 August 2003 - 07:12 AM

arrgghhh!!!! You're like, everywhere!!! It's always you!!! Tip: your posts are very relevant but post in less topics and less forums, say max 2 forums and 2 topics each forum at a time. People won't be so annoyed.

You can't store commands in a program as far as I know. casiokingdom, if you could that would be one of the biggest breakthroughs yet, you could manipulate code within a program!!! The other breakthough would be to turn on your calc one day and a fully-functional Warcraft III appears on the screen.

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Posted 22 August 2003 - 09:47 AM

heh, from the stories I've heard you shouldn't be the one talking
anyway, as for code rewriting itself, thats kinda been done... I wrote a language for casio basic to interprate, of course its insanely slow, but it has the ability to rewrite its self on the fly and its very hard to write in since its basically all numbers. now if someone were to make a C/ASM interface and executor then it could work out nicely...

Warcraft 3... ok, 3 weeks (j/k)

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Posted 23 August 2003 - 07:16 PM

I said something about BASIC compiler. I started making this project, the hardest thing are expression compilers. The simpliest version works, but something is strange. It compiles on my computer and I can calculate even very complicated value-only expression. But when I try to do something like writing to file (on PC) or to memory zone (on AFX) it says about "stack overflow" error. It appears with many functions I add and I know that I use them correctly. It's strange, I can't continue till I solve this problem...
And I have to divide my free time between this project and programming competition game (which I delayed for a week <_<)
It would be good for all of us to do this compiler, especially that it's mainly functions problem.

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