How many entries are there actually? I had one on my hard disk, a slightly updated version of an C64 entry which uses some Mega65 specials.
MEGAZINE - a type-in magazine for the MEGA65?
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- Idea/Feature request!
- ZeHa
- Thread is marked as Resolved.
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FPhoton and I were working on the upcoming Intro Disk #4. I was pondering, could one option be that we offer folks to browse the MegaZine entries within the Intro Disk? (Maybe just displaying the source within the intro disk for them to take a photo of and type out from there, or perhaps offer a pdf form in the .zip package).
I submitted two entries, and I would love for them to be included in the Intro Disk. Either as a ready to run PRG or as a PDF to type in would be fine with me.
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Hi Gurce while this is generally a good idea, if you plan to offer such a feature with PDF then probably there should be some kind of Checksumer included as well, since this makes the search for errors a lot easier. ZeHa is using such a tool for BASIC and ML programs in his "Weihnachten auf dem Commodore" magazine, so this would be some extra work to produce the pdf with the calculated checksum for each line and program.
just my 5 cents
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To be honest, I'm not a fan of this PDF or "code screenshot" method, because it's not really what the whole idea is about. Of course, if anyone would like to publish their entry on filehost or the intro disk, I won't hold anyone back, because it's their work and at the moment I don't believe the MEGA community has enough interest for this magazine in a comparable way to the Christmas magazines (which have a much larger potential audience, and are also a nice gift for C64 fans etc, this all is quite different in the much smaller MEGA community). Also, a recent survey has shown that even during the last 6 years of those Christmas magazines, even though they were quite popular, only a small amount of listings have really be typed in by the readers. This is not all too surprising, in a way, but it makes the idea of creating a MEGAZINE even more unattractive for me, at the moment. The reason I started this project was because I was excited about the MEGA when it came out, but I think the time was not right yet for such a project (the MEGAZINE). Now there's more MEGA users and I won't rule out the possibility of creating this magazine at some point, maybe also with the help of others (after all, the Christmas magazines were a collaborative effort too, even though the editing was done by myself - but the main content, the listings, were created by the community).
But about the "digital" idea with PDF or otherwise, I'm a bit doubtful whether that would really give a good estimate whether "typing in listings" is attractive to the MEGA crowd at the moment. About the checksummer, that is currently not available for the MEGA (but there are versions for C64, C128, Plus4 and VIC20, so I guess it's necessary to have a MEGA65 version of it). It can be found here: https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/F64Summer
Maybe it would also make more sense to create a MEGAZINE with some more topics than just type-in listings. More like a general MEGA65 zine, however that is something Dddaaannn is already doing with his newsletter, in a way. Of course, everyone loves a good old paper mag, on the other hand, it's a lot of work and the community already knows a lot of stuff from the existing channels. The magazine would have to offer stuff that's not on the net yet, which WOULD work with type-in software, on the other hand there will be people asking why can't we just put that stuff into filehost, etc...
Hope my post wasn't too random or confusing but I just spit out some thoughts about this all...
As I said, I won't rule out the possibility of having anything like this happen in the future, but at the moment, at least on my side, I have a few other projects which are a lot more important and urgent for me...
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C64Studio has support for these CheckSummer in, so I can provide the values easily. The other requirement, if you really want to have the type-in method, is of course to port the checksummer over.
Which, even "of courser", requires hooking into the BASIC interpreter.
Since you openly want to have standardised APIs, is there a proper place to hook the checksummer into? (some fitting vector?)
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The lack of hooks into the BASIC parser will be a challenge for a checksummer at the moment. So far we've exposed a bunch of low-level vectors but they're not part of the BASIC subsystem directly. A possible design based on existing APIs: a KEYSCAN hook that watches for Return. It could attempt try to locate the line in screen memory and determine the checksum that way, or it could signal to an IRQ handler to wait a few frames for the BASIC interpreter to update BASIC program memory and go from there. Perhaps the IRQ handler maintains a copy of BASIC program memory that it can use to determine what has changed. It's not as elegant as being triggered by the BASIC line parser itself, but it's possible with existing stable APIs.
I agree with ZeHa that we're at an unusual moment for type-ins. We all have nostalgia for them, and a few of us might even ride that nostalgia enough to type in some short programs. But the type-in experience is also frustrating—in ways that we forget when we remember it fondly—and the modern world would nag through the entire experience. For most people, a paper type-in mag would be a fun thing to purchase and browse, but wouldn't actually be anything they type in. I would find it difficult to enjoy a digital type-in mag: it'd require substantial discipline to pretend like I couldn't just copy-paste it into a cross-dev IDE or petcat. And don't forget, many of us were kids when we enjoyed type-ins, and we're now middle-aged adults with worse eyesight and less stamina.
That doesn't mean it wouldn't be worth doing. If enough people would purchase it to be financially sustainable, and would enjoy it in a way to make it fulfilling for the people producing it, then it's a viable project. One possible modification: embrace the fact that most people won't type in listings and design the project around that. Publish both the print mag and a D81 disk image for download, and expect that the mag is there for read-along fun and not necessarily type-along fun. Lean into making the listings readable, possibly with brief prose explanations of how the programs work, with line numbers. Compute!'s Gazette did brief explainers with BASIC programs sometimes, they were fun and useful.
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I'm thinking, how about giving it a try, on a small scale, let's say a few programs from those folks willing to give the format a try, and we suggest to intro-disk users that if they liked the type-in experience, be sure to drop some feedback on the filehost entry for the megazine pdf: what aspect they enjoy it (or not) and in future, if they're ok with pdf or prefer printed form.
As for my nostalgia-bias feelings on this, I feel like we've already got plenty of ready-to-run content on the filehost and in our intro disks to satisfy the "instant gratification" itch of most of our userbase. Many of these programs then steer the user to the joystick, so their MEGA65 experience moves away from a keyboard experience.
So that's why I feel like having some "delayed gratification" type-ins can make for a welcome and refreshing change to this experience. There may be some folks keen to put the lovely MEGA65 keyboard through its paces in some way, but unsure in what way, they've given the BASIC chapter a read, but still feeling at a loss at how to put it all together. A type-in might speak to such people.
Even with your christmas magazines, I bought all of them, and I admit I never typed in most of them, except for one, the MEGA65 type in, and I enjoyed it, it felt nice to type it, and to be rewarded for my efforts by witnessing the cute demo that not many MEGA65 owners will get to experience
It was also an opportunity to dissect adtbm's code and learn how he accomplished what he did via BASIC 65
On the checksum topic, I'm not that experienced with them, but just a potential alternate idea I had was:
1) Let the user type it from the pdf and save it directly to onto the new intro disk
- MOUNT "INTRO4.D81"
- type in code
- DSAVE "PRGNAME" (or DSAVE "@PRGNAME" to overwrite a prior save)
2) In the introdisk's megazine section, there can be file-entries for each type-in, just containing a description, and offering user to press RETURN key to:
- verify their saved "PRGNAME" against some "PRGNAME.CRC" file already existing on the introdisk
- Report a list of lines with checksum errors on them
- If no errors, proceed to running the program
So it wouldn't be a line-by-line realtime crc check as done in the past, but a check over the entire file.
Anyways, I for one am happy to contribute my megazine program entry to this approach. Anyone else willing to give it a try? Dillof? Endurion? Deft?
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Anyways, I for one am happy to contribute my megazine program entry to this approach. Anyone else willing to give it a try? Dillof? Endurion? Deft?
Yes, please include my programs. I would like to see them get published in some form. (I already considered publishing them as PDF myself, but haven't gotten around to it.)
Thanks for picking this up.
yours,
dillo
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So that's why I feel like having some "delayed gratification" type-ins can make for a welcome and refreshing change to this experience. There may be some folks keen to put the lovely MEGA65 keyboard through its paces in some way, but unsure in what way, they've given the BASIC chapter a read, but still feeling at a loss at how to put it all together. A type-in might speak to such people.
Yes, that was also my intention, also for learning a bit more about BASIC and getting used to type it. That's why I was also asking specifically for very READABLE listings, that are not as cluttered as typical C64 listings with cryptic variables, few or no comments, lots of statements separated by colon, everything cramped together without spaces, etc.
On the other hand, one might assume that most people who own a MEGA65 already know the "basics" of BASIC and are not that interested in typing programs just to learn something. But I don't know. I guess the target audience is very limited, and some or even many people might not understand the idea at all (and wondering why they are now "forced" to type something that they could otherwise just download).
Anyway, I'm very interested to see how this works out, so I'd say give it a try
I will be looking forward to the feedback, maybe that makes future MEGAZINE plans clearer
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Anyways, I for one am happy to contribute my megazine program entry to this approach. Anyone else willing to give it a try? Dillof? Endurion? Deft?
Feel free to include mine as well
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Thanks everyone, I'll start looking into the checksumming logic today and see if I can get it running in some fashion on the mega65 as a oneshot verifier across all the basic file.
In the interim, dillof and Endurion, can you send me a DM with your megazine entries? I'll endeavour to get them onto the intro disk in some shape or form
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And also, ZeHa, if you prefer to take care of the presentation side of the pdf, I'm happy to leave that in your hands
I didn't want to steal your thunder there, in-case you had your own plans on the aesthetic look of it all, to keep it inline with your prior print magazines?
But if you've got enough projects on your plate, no worries, I can whip something up
I started digging into the c64 checksummer option you used for past magazines and mulling it over with dddaaannn, but now he has taken the shovel and is digging deeper into it (and losing some sleep, hehe!), so fingers crossed there
I will find another shovel and figure out what I can dig into then!
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I had no clear idea yet on how to design the magazine, it would probably be similar to the last Christmas magazine (the special issue, with color etc), and I already had a basic cover layout mockup, but that is irrelevant for the inside of course
If you like, you can make a suggestion as well, it doesn't have to be identical to my previous layouts, as long as it is considerably oldschool it's fine
with the C65 intended for release in the early 90s, an early 90s magazine look should be good
However I'm still not quite sure how this will be combined with the Intro Disk? Will it be a separate ZIP, or will it be bonus content bundled into a ZIP with the main content being the Intro Disk D81?
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Also, my code for example looks like a hot mess, and as the Mega65 is plenty fast enough I should probably make the code neater to look at?
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Yes, that is actually a very strong wish
the idea being that nice listings might have a higher chance of getting typed in and also some people might be able to learn more from them
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However I'm still not quite sure how this will be combined with the Intro Disk? Will it be a separate ZIP, or will it be bonus content bundled into a ZIP with the main content being the Intro Disk D81?
It's all a bit fluid in my head right now, and as some draft form takes shape, I'm hoping it'll give us more of a chance to assess what we think will work and what want.
Initially, I'm thinking along these lines:
- It can be provided as a .pdf uploaded to filehost, for those folks that want to experience it in isolation
- For the Intro Disk, it can have a 'MegaZine' folder, which contains file-entries for each type-in, each having a little description of each program, and a reminder that they can find the source-code for it within the megazine .pdf provided within the intro-disk zip.
- If they press 'Return' key on any file-entry, it can make an attempt to load up the file that they might have typed in (possibly also performing a checksum-verify across the whole file and warning of lines with errors), and then run the program.
Okies, I'll also try draft something up in the magazine form too, just to get things rolling there.
Maybe I make a private group chat on Discord between ZeHa, Endurion and Dillof, to keep everyone in the loop on things, while also keeping the details a little hidden, so we can have extra surprise factor when we finally share it