Diary

As I leave Sort, I leave a very interesting high level language which handles all the internal shuffling of data for Basic, Fortran, + Pascal. (Putting Sort into those is tough at least due to memory mgt hassles.) It doesn't have too much programming flexibility, so it can be used by programmers of any language. This cannot be done for data entry or report writing.

I can forget about the dBASEII, Infostar, and the rest that I never got to work on. Knowing that Cobol/Basic [noted in bottom margin] these allow enough flexibility for error checking for data entry and flexibility for report writing [/note], together with Sort, and together with Multifile or PAL are what I would use for my applications.

Now I can move on to user tools, and to animation, perhaps, using Bill Budge's 6502 stuff to start with.

Wednesday, Oct 12

I spent most of the day writing and typing in a progress report that turned out to be five pages.

I also started to try to write a spec on Personal Finance, but found this very hard. Fortuantely, I went back to work in the evening and introduced myself to Dollars + Sense. That embodies all the best I've conceived for Personal Finance. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Thursday Oct 13

Since D+S is a quantum jump beyond Financier, I will use it as a model. First I will go through the exercise of setting up my own accounts on it, and then I will write a lengthy review of it, and say, relative to D+S, what Microsoft's should be like.

So the first thing I did was to review all my 30 pages of notes for PF. The meat of them can be put onto an indexed card now. I threw out the notes.

Now, go get organized. And bring all Commodore stuff home; and do all Finance at work. AT WORK: I finished the progress report, and delivered it. Also I put all the Finance stuff away. Just be concerned with D+S now.

4:15 - 5:15 GYM, feeling NUMB 5:15 - Read miscellaneous stuff and eat dinner. [red ink] 10:30pm Pretty much caught up on reading. I have realized that I want to do something on Commodore 64. Something that will show. That is why I want to do PF too, and not OSs, languages or even Multi-tools.

[red ink]

But why did I wait till now? All the other things were too hot. 1) Apple BASIC for $35k when I was down + out 2) Apple BASIC for $35k, an easy summer job 3) I wanted to manage a project, so I couldn't turn down Cobol again. And did a great job Nov '81 - May '82 4) A capricious 1982 summer [blue ink] (Commo 64 was announced) [/blue ink] 5) Sort is necessary + very hot. Great demand, applicable to many languages, satisfies tough algorithm, fits in with other language for data entry + report writing. ------------Now I want to produce a very good RF and something for 64. I should do a PF with tools environment so it can be put on Apple, Atari, CP/M, etc. ------------Anti graphics:

To do fun graphics, you can only use high-res with one color because (with a game) overlapping stick figures must be or'd together. Also, it would not be very easy to have two identical 9K maps in two distince 16K areas. Remember the VIC chip can see only 16K at a time and hi-res needs 8K for bits + 1K for colors.

Note that the color mapping isn't all that great to start with. There is only one color set for each 64 dots. What if two differed colored objects collide?

Doing lettering on the screen while doing graphics wouldn't be fun either, and would require single color mode lest the characters look multi-colored.

It'd be pretty tough to do all the 3D graphics anyway. What do I know about that. And would it be fast enough? How to make a smooth descent for a plan, like in Bill Budge's software? And can this be done fast enough if BASIC is processing?

Defining shapes is not easy. And specifying connection is not easy, as for arm connect to body. Even for solid bodies, how do you easily specify path of motion if it is not a straight line?

AND GRAPHICS are always grainy.