ioccc/2000/thadgavin

Most Portable Output

Thaddaeus Frogley
UK

Gavin Buttimore
UK

To build:

make

NOTE: the author suggested -O6 but at least some gcc versions support no more than level 3 which is what the Makefile has.

To use the SDL version that works independently from the curses version:

make thadgavin_sdl

Use thadgavin_sdl as you would thadgavin below.

To use:

./thadgavin

WARNING: if you are sensitive to rapid movement or if you want to see better what is going on then please see the Alternate code section.

NOTE: in curses mode you might want to type reset after execution of this program as the program does not call endwin(). Using reset will clear the screen.

Try:

echo "Do or do not. There is no try."

Alternate code:

An alternate version exists which allows you to slow down the printing of the characters, useful for those with modern systems or those who are sensitive to rapid moving swirling. To use:

make alt

To make the SDL version:

make thadgavin.alt_sdl

If you wish to reconfigure the delay you can do so like:

make -DZ=50 clobber alt
make -DZS=5000 clobber thadgavin.alt_sdl

Use thadgavin.alt and thadgavin.alt_sdl as you would thadgavin and thadgavin_sdl above.

The default for the curses alt version is 30 and for SDL it is 150000. The different macros is because the curses version is already slower but it's better to not tie the two values together. The reason for such drastically different numbers is because curses is already slower than SDL.

Judges' remarks:

This entry is a nice play by the rules. It can use curses, if the SDL graphic library is not present, and is quite good at that, but the colors used in graphic mode (16 bit depth) are unfortunately less than dazzling. We could not test this entry in DOS mode.

Authors' remarks:

To use under DOS:

Compile using DJGPP as follows:

gcc thadgavin.c -o thadgavin.exe -Wall -lm -O6 -mpentium -fomit-frame-pointer -ffast-math

To use under Windows, X-Windows or MacOS using the Simple DirectMedia Layer:

gcc -O6 -lpthread -g -o thadgavin thadgavin.c -lSDL -DSDL -lm

Warnings

In gcc you might get the following warning:

thadgavin.c.c:46: warning: passing arg 2 of `SDL_SetColors' from incompatible pointer type

In Microsoft Visual Studio you may get warnings as follows:

thadgavin.c(46) : warning C4133: 'function' : incompatible types - from 'unsigned
char *' to 'struct SDL_Color *'
thadgavin.c(63) : warning C4026: function declared with formal parameter list
thadgavin.c(77) : warning C4244: '=' : conversion from 'double ' to 'unsigned
char ', possible loss of data

But don't worry, this is completely normal.

Recommended dosage:

At least 3 minutes taken 3 times a day when tired.

Do not exceed 3 times recommended dose. May cause sickness, dizziness, nausea.

Copyright and CC BY-SA 4.0 License:

This file is Copyright (c) 2023 by Landon Curt Noll. All Rights Reserved. You are free to share and adapt this file under the terms of this license:

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

For more information, see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/