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A new program for a new computer (story)

Posted: Sat May 02, 2015 2:57 pm
by iamdenteddisk
Back when I was only about ten or so, I was given a small computer. it was only an 8bit but it was handheld portable it had only a line or two lcd text screen for output but had the ability to do basic commands from the command prompt. I don't even know if it had a monitor or environment to write programs in, so I would just enter my programs with line numbers and issue a list command every few strokes to see a representation of my progress to remember where I was with my ideas. Now all this might seem familiar to you the reader. my self now thinking as I write. thinking I am posting in an nostalgic basic programming forum.

(the important part of my story). Any way I needed an idea to create my first test program on this little computer and seeing nothing in my general surroundings to inspire me I went outside to shoot my BB gun at old cans while I was doing this I noticed when I would hit the can my BB's where not penetrating the cans but flinging the cans a few feet because the weak spring driven gun couldn't hurl the BB fast enough. so I had the idea strike me I would fill the can with water to add significant weight to them. to hold the can in place, so I wouldn't have to reset my targets every time I hit one of them. It worked brilliantly! not only did the can stay placed in the position I put them in but an added bonus (ha ha) to my sh-grin "the BB's now pierced both sides of the can and some times would even rip them almost in half... "Destruction!!!!" I loved it, as I was a kid, wild from playing alone as an only boy.

any way, as I did this a bit I made some mental connection to this action, programming my little computer and two planets smashing together. it was after all the 1980's Star Wars and anything else about space or technology, was the rage.

so I decided to write a program that was to simulate what happens to one stationary planet when another smash's into it. so I needed an analog something to compare it to, to come up with some data to put into my program. I thought "I Got it an egg"..

well my program I tweaked and tested for weeks just to get it to run. I had no real programming experience as I was just a kid. finally that moment came to run the final test and in a blink all my little asterisk I had used to represent my planet just cleared away. I had by accident created a screen blanking routine. I had no idea that that is what it was just that it did..

so that evening I showed my mom and told her I wanted an egg to prove my finding's. why she allowed me the egg I have no idea but she did.

I went out side and set it as a target to shoot with my BB gun and sure enough the egg exploded as the BB passed through.

well it just dawned on me. The egg came first!