Programming

    This is my page dedicated to computer programming.  I've been coding (writing code for computer programs) for a little over four years now.  I started my sophomore year of high school.  I was really interested in computers, so I decided to take a computer programming class.  At the time, my high school offered BASIC and Pascal programming.  I signed up for the BASIC course, because it was a prerequisite for Pascal.  After beginning class, our teacher informed us that even though the class was called BASIC, we were actually going to learn Pascal, which I was happy about because Pascal is a more advanced language.  There was a limited number of computers available for our class, so we were required to write most of our programs in groups.  I was in a group with my friends Aaron Sawyer, Jeremy Smuckler, and Patrick Morgan.  We all learned very quickly.  In addition to the basic stuff we were doing for class (using arrays and records, sorting, and doing various other things that only programmers will know anything about), we also learned some advanced stuff on our own, like working with files and graphics (my personal favorite part of coding).  Aaron, Patrick, and I continued on with our programming education the following year in the Pascal course, in which we worked independently from the rest of the class on our own advanced projects.  We were joined by another of our friends, Josh Lothian, who took the BASIC class during the first term of that year (the Pascal class was offered during the second term).
    Finally, during my senior year, my high school decided to offer a C programming class.  C is one of the most commonly used programming languages (actually most people use C++, but they are very similar; C++ is just more advanced) so I was really glad when I heard they were going to offer this class.  Also, It gave me the opportunity to take another computer class, since I had already taken the only two offered by my school.  Josh also took the class with me.  We were in the class for both terms of our senior year, and learned a lot about C, although there is still a lot of stuff I don't know.
    Until now, programming has just been a hobby of mine, but I may eventually make a career out of it.  I'm majoring in computer science, so I'll have to take a lot more programming classes, and I am considering being a computer programmer as a career.  I've always kind of wanted to write video games.  Anyway, if you're interested in programming, feel free to e-mail or chat with me about it.  I don't know if I can be that helpful, but I'll try.

Here are some of the programs I have written.  The source file and the executable file are included in the zips.

The following programs were written in Pascal:

Dradle.zip - this is a program that I wrote for Jeremy's Bar Mitzvah.  It simulates the Jewish game of Dradle and, of course, plays the Dradle song.  You know: "Dradle, dradle, dradle, I made you out of clay.  Dradle, dradle, dradle; dradle I will play." (Please keep in mind that I was using really simple code for the music.  Also, it may sound a little fast since it was originally written for a slow Pentium about three years ago.)  I think I got all the bugs out of this version, but no promises.

Pyre.zip - This file has two programs, both of which display Pyre (my alias) in some way that I thought was really cool at the time (and still isn't too bad for something written with Pascal's BGI graphics).  For people who don't code, BGI's are the really lame and inefficient graphics built in to the Pascal language.  I think they are in C, too, and probalby some other languages.

StickDude.zip - Here is a simple animation done with Pascal's BGI graphics.

Note about above programs: You need to have the BGI library to run them.  Otherwise you get an error.  If you have Pascal you've probably got it.  Otherwise you may not.  I may put a copy of it here if I get around to it and can find it.  The other stuff on this page should work fine on it's own.

These programs were written in C:

Test.zip - This is a really simple program.  All it does is plot lots of multicolored dots on the screen.  I was basically just trying to see if I could plot points on the screen using the video memory instead of crummy BGI's.

Pal.zip - This creates a 256 color pallete and displays it on the screen.  If you want to see how to change the palette, the source code may be useful.

Circle.zip - This program draws several multicolored circles on the screen and then shifts the palette so the colors appear to be moving into or out of the circle.  I think the effect is called a wormhole.

Plasma.zip - This program creates an effect called a plasma.  This one isn't all original code.  I copied the actual code for the plasma from a very helpful text file about coding graphics in C, which I will include at the end of this page.

Stars.zip - This program is a star field.  Again, I got the star field code from the previously mentioned text file, but I modified it a bit.

Fire.zip - This program creates a fire effect.  I never really got it to look as cool as I wanted it to, but it's ok, I guess.

gfx.txt - This file has pretty good explanations on how to do some graphics coding in C.  It tells how to do basic stuff like plotting points, drawing lines and circles, etc.  It also explains some classic demo effects and has some example code for a few of them.