Greetings

[johnno56]

Just signed up.

I am a Linux user (ok... stop laughing...) and have only had minor experience using FB...

Basic is my primary language of choice. Been using it for decades and I am still yet to master it... I may never, but it's fun to try.

Ok.  I am going to assume that you guys have a standard 'noobies' area... Ready to learn...

Regards

J

[ron77]

welcome johnno54... glad to have you with us

[johnno56]

Thanks Ron. Much appreciated. I will try my best not to embarrass anyone or bring shame upon this site.

J

[electricwalrus]

hi johnno56

fb is a good environment to start in. How much experience do you have? And what languages.

Would be happy to see any of your works. Feel free to post your programs here. We like more content.

[johnno56]

I have been messing around with Basic for around 40 odd years.  I am still learning... lol
I would have difficulty trying to remember how many types of Basic I have tinkered with... and no, it is not that my memory is fading, just the sheer number of Basics... Early days included GWBasic and QBasic4.5  At one point in time I had some non-windows machines that used Basic... 2005 was when I dumped Windows for Linux (Ubuntu 5.10). In 2007 I started using SDLBasic for about 6 years. 2013 switch to 64bit Linux Mint. Continued on and off with SDLBasic until some years back I started using RCBasic (to this day).

Do I have any "works"?  Nothing I would dare publish... Tinkering and a lack of formal programming skills have evolved into a nasty "lack of ideas" black hole...

Back in May of 2020, SyntaxBomb, had  game competition. This was the only time that I have ever published a completed game. Asteroid-type game, Asterocks. https://www.syntaxbomb.com/game-coding-competitions/voting-time-reboot-game-comp-mar-10th-to-may-10th-2020/

... and no... I did not win or even place... But it was fun... A lot of work but fun.

When my grandkids were younger, the little games that I tinkered together, kept them amused... The two eldest are now in High School and are learning to code themselves... Basic no longer seems to be able to compete with all the other 'popular' languages... Oh well... such is the nature of coding.

Basic is my preferred language and I am still on the lookout for more stuff. I dabbled with FB some years back but never got around to properly checking it out... As a result, I have nothing, in regards to FB, to share with anyone... Hopefully with some help and copious tutorials that may change...

[ron77]

Hello, I see we got a nice topic for "introduce yourself" kinda

here's a little about me... I grew up till my 20s without really using or knowing to use a computer or anything regarding the internet properly... then got my first computer and things started to change I almost got lost in cyberspace only to find myself interested among many things in CHATBOTS I remember talking for hours with ECC-ELIZA or DR SBAITSO wondering how can a program "talk" and communicate and have a human-computer conversation... anyway time flew by, and when I was 39 yo I decided I'd like to get into this intriguing world of "programming" it was about 6 or 7 years ago I started to learn by myself or with the help of private teachers VB.NET - made my first chatbot "Rachel" eventually, after trying a few modern languages such as javascript and python, I discovered QB64 and BASIC and became for the first time a member of a "community" forum and chats... after QB64 I switched to freeBASIC, and to this day I am learning it and continuing with it - I love it although it's difficult at times...

I'm a hobbyist programmer with no computer science degree no real "job" or projects to show no real "pro projects" just one man trying to do what he loves...

RetroCoders Community this community is for hobbyists and beginners and the people who code for fun and interest, not for a degree or a job or money... this is a place to learn and share and have fun

and as the saying goes - there are no stupid questions only stupid answers...

kind regards.
ron77

[johnno56]

Thanks Ron.

I remember keying in Eliza many years ago. (about 1985?) I have forgotten how many times I did that... lol  It was quite addictive seeing how the program "knew" just what to say in response to input...

1979: Built my first 1K ram computer (kit) that used a hexDec keypad and had a cassette tape interface for saving and loading. Took FAR to long keying in programs from a umteenth generation photocopy. 4 minutes to key in 'pong'. No editing function. If it didn't run, it had to be keyed in from the beginning...

1981: Built my second kit computer. 16K ram. Cassette interface. Pure text. No graphics. It connected to the TV's aerial socket. So it sat on top of the TV whilst not in use. My wife was dusting and the duster snagged on the motherboard components and the computer 'fell' off the TV. That was when I discovered that computers do not bounce... That would be my last kit.

Herein ends today's history lesson...

In regards to Stupid questions AND answers, mine will be putting your 'saying', to the test.   Moo Ha Ha...

Have a great day.

J

[electricwalrus]

Wow! That asterocks looks really good. What language was that!
Did you do the collision detection on your own? You would have needed a lot of trig for that. Me, I have experience with that too. I also have experience in making such games in Visual Basic 6. Great work. Unfortunately i can't get a download. Is it because Im not signed in?

It seems you are also well into computing history. My first computer was an Amstrad CPC, then amiga 500 then IBM PCs. I'm 37 so I don't go back any further than that.

Great to have you here.

[electricwalrus]

Greetings, I'm "electricwalrus"

My programming experience is with Visual Basic and MS Access SQL.
I am also skilled in HTML/CSS/Javascript (vanilla javascript)
I also can read C++ a little bit but have no experience it it.
PHP is also an interest for me but I don't like it a lot.

I came across this forum when I got in contact with ron77 on IRC. Good person he is. We discuss freebasic a lot.

I don't work currently. Being put through the wringer with mental health but it is improving and will likely to get better for me. I am able to do programming more and more as the days go past. And keeping well and healthy.

I do a LOT of writing on paper and I scan them into the computer. My works contain 3d math concepts, business, being healthy, money management and life hacks. I have 4 completed workbooks of 64 pages each. I don't dare to show them all online or publish them however. It really is just to keep me busy or to show close friends.

Will be happy to see any new members to this forum. Don't be afraid to register and show us your skills.

Kind Regards,
ElectricWalrus 

[johnno56]

ElectricWalrus,

After building my first two computers, I decided that buying them 'ready made', turned out to be slighly cheaper. The second machine that I bought was also an Amstrad CPC464. Unfortunately, when the internal power supply goes PHITTZZZ, the motherboard has little to no choice in dying with it. I now use an emulator... but the original users manual survived... Woo Hoo...

Asterocks was originally written with RCBasic. https://www.dropbox.com/s/h751qy018s6id9l/AsterRocks.zip?dl=0
One of the guys, associated with the game competition, created a Windows executable. As I do not use Windows I have no idea where the executable is located. But, if memory serves correctly, it may be included in the download...

Collision detection....

collision = 0
function collide(circ1x, circ1y, circ2x, circ2y, r1, r2)
    '    Calculate difference between centres
    distX = circ1x - circ2x
    distY = circ1y - circ2y
    '    Get distance using Pythagoras
    dist = sqrt((distX * distX) + (distY * distY))
    if dist <= (r1 + r2) then
        collision = 1
    else
        collision = 0
    end if
    return collision
end function

Circular collision detection. Simply keep track of the distance between Bullets and Rock and between Player and Rocks.

The game link does not include the basic file...

You cannot view this attachment.

It would be interesting to see if it can be converted to FreeBasic but, based on my current FB skill (of lack of it), it would have to be done by someone other than myself...

Do you still have your CPC?

J

[electricwalrus]

No unfortunately none of my retro computers continued to live until present day. I kinda wish I could have them back. Maybe would need to look on ebay or vintage computer shops in USA.

Oic how you did it there in that code. Thats distance and pythag. I know that too well COol

[electricwalrus]

Yes. I know of ways to do colision detection in polygons. its spliting the polygon into triangles then checking if a point is in each of those triangles. I have it detailed in one of my books.

[ron77]

Hello electricwalrus and johnno56

I've just downloaded and played your game astrorocks johnno56 it's very highly polished and looks really good it would be interesting to post it to freebasic somehow however my graphics and game dev are weak since I mostly code chatbots and my strong side in programming is string manipulations.

[johnno56]

I am still reading through the references and tutorials... but, at some point in time, I may just pick up enough knowledge and courage to attempt an FB conversion... Oh, no promises... Could be fun...

[CharlieJV]

I never introduced myself when I joined up, so: Hi!

Because I find it hard to organize my thoughts/writings with plain text and/or markup, I'm introducing myself via a published "Doc", which I find much easier to create and update:About Me, Charlie Veniot.

I really enjoy reading about other people: their careers, their experiences, their interests.  There are only so many days in a lifetime, no time to do it all.  So the next best thing: read about the good stuff others have been (and are) involved in.