Mapper plus

— Mapper —

While working on Mapper, I have made some up front choices.  Zbasic allows you to work in immediate mode just like in AppleSoft.  To add or change lines you just type a line number and then then new line or the replacement line and press enter.

You can also work in what I’ll call compiler mode for lack of a better name.  You edit the source file in a full screen editor and exit the editor to compile and run the program.  I’m going to be working in compiler mode.  I don’t want to use line numbers, so I’ll use tags and using the full screen editor you don’t have line numbers showing on the screen unless you want them.

I made good progress on the program today.  It was so peaceful and quiet, I flew through some of the stuff I had in my head.

Additionally I wrapped my mind around the bit handling of Zbasic and I think I can really compress MACHID.

I can skip the step where I converted the PEEK results of certain memory locations to a string of binary digits which although visual was very inefficient.  For those of you who work comfortably with bit values you should look at both the AppleSoft and Zbasic versions of MACHID for a good laugh.  I knew it was the hardest way to work with bit values, but was drawing a blank, so both versions convert a number to a string representation of the binary value of the number and then use string manipulations to look at each bit to see if it is a one or a zero.

— On the Island —

On the Island some things take time to change.

They did not have electricity until the late 1970’s, when they installed a large diesel generator down by the town landing.  They built a two story building with a daylight garage on the lower level and office/storage space upstairs to house it.  For the most part the summer people did not jump right into getting electricity installed.  Some still do not have it.  Years later a cable was laid down from the mainland and we were tied into the power grid and the generator was relegated to emergency standby status.

Telephones came later in the 1990’s and for a while high speed internet was relegated to satellite dish.

My father, who I am visiting, does not have internet, so I work on these posts in OpenOffice and then walk down to the Town Hall/Public Library and sit on the porch, copy and paste them into WordPress.  One thing thing that hasn’t changed is the night sky.  I think that even now, there are only about three street lights on the whole island.  Tonight there are no clouds and the stars are incredible.

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