The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

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TMD2003
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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by TMD2003 »

END OF WEEK 19:

As you see above, this week's action has been a solitary game... a solitary line of code, even. But, for all its simplicity - and that it's a entry for the Green Challenge so he didn't have to come up with it himself - Tobias Fröschle's Minimal Caves, a QL port of Einar Saukas' Tenliner Cave Adventure on the ZX81, fills me with the joys of spring that have really not been forthcoming out there in meatspace.

Why, if you didn't know already? Because getting more entries for the QL this year than there have ever been in the entire previous history of the competition was one of my big goals for this year. And also, with 21 entries in total, I'm now level with the total number of entries that Paul E. Collins received in 2002. The next target is 25 entries - equalling Arda's 2012 competition, and Shaun Bebbington's 2018 competition that now only survives as a series of Twitter posts. 26 entries will see me equal GReW's ill-fated 2017 competition when only 23 of those were ever reviewed, so I'd like to get past that hurdle as quickly as possible.

Is now a good time to mention that my house improvements have stalled because I'll be bereft of the paint I need for the next phase until Wednesday? Yes. Yes it is. You all know what to do.


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Features my own programs, modified type-ins, RZXs, character sets & UDGs, and QL type-ins... so far!
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TMD2003
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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by TMD2003 »

END OF WEEK 20:

Bah! Nothing to add this week! And there I was, hoping for some intense Crap Game action to take my attention away from it hammering down with rain all week and blowing a howling gale. It was not to be.

But I do have a bit of a treat for those of you who like maths programs. Will that do for now?


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Features my own programs, modified type-ins, RZXs, character sets & UDGs, and QL type-ins... so far!
stevepoole
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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by stevepoole »

Hi Folks,

Having some spare time, I decided to do a doodle, that in no time turned into a recursive game, developped on QPC2.

After several hours of testing, BREAKing and reRUNing, the game was almost ready.

Then IT happened : My PC started misbehaving, and I spent two days trying to track down the problem : PC memory corruption ?

Here is my question : Has anybody suffered PC problems using QPC2 and recursion development ?

That is, does CLEAR clean out the stack's recursion 'clutter' before a new RUN ? ( I had one 'FATAL error in Basic' on just one test run ).

For the time being I have stopped running that program... and can use the PC again after restarting several times.....

Steve.


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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by EmmBee »

Hi Steve,

Which version of QPC2 are you using?


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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by tofro »

stevepoole wrote: Here is my question : Has anybody suffered PC problems using QPC2 and recursion development ?

Nope. QPC should never "leave" it's internal memory, even if it runs out of that and should never be able to toast something in the host operating system (rather: Windows should be protecting itsself against rogue programs, even if they were misbehaving.). I have seen SMSQ/E in QPC crash a lot - mostly caused by problems between my own two ears, I have, on (very) rare occasions seen QPC crash itself, but I've never seen QPC crash Windows.

Recursion is a bit of a problem area in S*Basic. If you do it wrong, it's easy to run out of memory due to a BASIC stack overflow. Most original QDOS versions simply tended to crash the computer in that case. (S*Basic tries to keep the stack alive as long as possible, in order to be able to CONTinue, RETRY, or otherwise "repair" the running program manually. "PROC/FN Cleared" is one of the more obscure error messages the QL might ever throw at you, but in case of a stack overflow, that's exactly the message you want to provoke - Because it means: "Call stack cleaned up". CLEAR should actually do that - but, depending on how much memory is still left (or, rather, not left), it might not be able to do exactly that (THAT fact could actually be considered an error in S*BASIC) . What I normally do is then "wiggle" around with all sorts of valid and invalid S*BASIC commands until S*Basic decides it should clean up and give me the "PROC/FN cleared" message. It mostly does.


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stevepoole
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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by stevepoole »

Hi EmmBee,
I am using QPC2 v3.19 (SMSQE v3.19). The recursive program produces forked lightning, easier than doing arborescent arrays !

----------------
Hi Tofro,
It may be just pure coincidence that my PC is playing up. Two new things seem to go wrong :
First I often lose all the icons on the main screen for a while (windows 8.1).
Second 'windows update' no longer seems to be functional...
Apart from that the machine just halts temporarily with a 'busy' icon from time to time.
I use memory and registry 'cleaning' software regularly, but that no longer improves things.
It could be the laptop is just getting past it.... about 5 years old... but not short on memory.

Many thanks for your remarks.
Steve.
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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by NormanDunbar »

Hi Steve,
stevepoole wrote:First I often lose all the icons on the main screen for a while (windows 8.1).
Usually this is a sign that Windows is running out of "resources" or at least, space in the memory it has reserved for "resources" such as bitmaps, icons, fonts, cursors and so on. I only had a very brief exposure to Windows 8 but it was supposedly no longer a problem in Windows 7 -- but I soon broke that! I suspect something else that's running on the PC is stealing/leaking resource memory; or, the system has been up are running for "far too long". That was how I broke Windows 7 anyway, leaving it powered up and logged on for weeks on end. (At work -- I had to, various jobs ran off my PC and "couldn't" be stopped or moved. Go figure!)

stevepoole wrote:Second 'windows update' no longer seems to be functional...
This is not a fault! It's a benefit! Seriously, Windows Update still takes longer to get and apply a couple of patches than an entire install does. A 24 hour plus update (on Windows 10) for my wife was the last straw and she had me install Linux for her -- she's never looked back.

Running out of resources, as above, can lead to stuff not working. However, after a single reboot all memory should be cleared out and ready for use again. It should not require two or three reboots to reset the PC. Something might be wrong -- maybe a dicky RAM chip perhaps? I'm guessing obvioulsy.


Cheers,
Norm.


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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by tofro »

I actually see Windows 10 slowing down significantly when it has an update ready locally but you're refusing to install it.


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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by stevepoole »

Hi Tofro,

After a lot of searching, it transpires that the 'coller' functions no longer work as they should : they slug the computer for minutes and do nothing....

'Coller' works with neither right-clicking, nor CTRL-C & CTRL-V keyings. Looks like the PC needs replacing....

Steve.


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Re: The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition 2021: 25th edition extravaganza!

Post by stevepoole »

Hi Folks,

Not only 'pasteing' went wrong, skype was disabled and right-clicking would freeze the desk icons for some time etc.

After much searching, the cause of the problems was in fact the corrupted 'windows update' file.

In administrator mode, I was able to get windows to correct this file, and after loading the latest updates & restarting, all was well.

But I still wonder what caused the fault in the first place.... spooky !

I just hope the 'Forked Lightning' recursive program on QPC2 is not he culprit, but who knows ?

Steve.


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