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New MSX-BASIC contest and magazine

New MSX-BASIC contest and magazine

by German.Diaz.Fuentes on 08-01-2015, 13:36
Topic: Challenges
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Recently, MSX Calamar announced a new MSX-BASIC programming contest and a new MSX magazine. Everyone can participate and the deadline to send your programs is the 30th of September of 2015. There will be prizes for the winners. At this moment first classified will receive a PSX2MSX adaptor and the second will receive a Snatcher Band audio CD.

The main objective of this contest is to promote the development of programs for MSX and opportunity for beginners in programming in BASIC for the study of the techniques used during development.
Programs submitted for the contest will be published in the new Calamar Magazine, at the end of 2015.

Rules of the contest can be found on the web MSX Calamar (only in spanish). Don't hesitate to ask any questions about them if you need a translation. The contest is open to all people around the world and all benefits from the sale of the magazine will go to charities.

It's time to dust off your MSX!

Relevant link: MSX Calamar

Comments (13)

By kanima

Master (194)

kanima's picture

09-01-2015, 22:36

I have a question about rule number 2. Using google translate I get:

2. There will be no limit to use different techniques like Turbo languages ​​and machine code routines but, as is evident, as is most compatible with most models of MSX, the more likely to be better appreciated by the jury.

I'm assuming Turbo language means using Turbo BASIC (i.e. MSX BASIC Kun)? Using this would mean it doesn't run on many machines (as they need Turbo BASIC). However, using machine code routines it's easy to write code that runs on all MSX machines/models. In effect somebody could write an entire program in machine code and then just have a BASIC listing with a whole lot of DATA statements, a READ and POKE loop to get the program into memory and then execute it using USR.

I can get that it's appreciated if a program can run on many different MSX models. However, shouldn't it also be appreciated if a program contains mostly BASIC code? Such that maybe somebody can learn something from it as well. If I have a BASIC listing that just pokes an entire machine code program into memory and then executes it, nobody's going to learn anything from the BASIC program.

By meits

Scribe (6533)

meits's picture

09-01-2015, 22:48

To target a more international audience for this contest wouldn't it be nice to have at least this part of the site in English? A Spaniard with English skills could translate everything way better than a google script...

By Grauw

Ascended (10707)

Grauw's picture

10-01-2015, 02:12

kanima: How do you mean it won’t run? BLOAD"xbasic1.bin",r:BLOAD"xbasic2.bin",r doesn’t work?

By kanima

Master (194)

kanima's picture

10-01-2015, 12:49

Grauw wrote:

kanima: How do you mean it won’t run? BLOAD"xbasic1.bin",r:BLOAD"xbasic2.bin",r doesn’t work?

Ok, you don't need the actual ROM, you can softload it from files, but that still means somebody needs to have those. You can't just type in or download the BASIC listing and run it, you also need those xbasic files. My understanding, which might be completely wrong though, is that X-BASIC is NOT freeware? This means that anybody who doesn't already own x-basic and wants to play it by the rules can't run your basic program (or at least not in turbo mode).
Also, softloading xbasic requires at least 48K of RAM (or maybe even 64K?), which means 16K and 32K machines really won't be able to run it without the original xbasic ROM. If your basic program targets MSX-2 or higher though this should never be a problem as all machines have at least 64K RAM (or at least all native MSX-2 machines, i.e. non-upgraded MSX-1s), but if you target MSX-1 as well you'd exclude some machines (if they don't have RAM extensions). Well, unless they use the MegaROM+SCC thingy ofcourse. Anyway....

By kanima

Master (194)

kanima's picture

10-01-2015, 19:23

Ok, considering MRC is still hosting X-BASIC + tutorial and looking at the discussion at that download page it looks like X-BASIC is assumed to be free for public distribution. So there should at least not be any legal issues with everybody downloading and running X-BASIC in order to run some BASIC program that requires it. Requiring X-BASIC would still exclude machines that don't have the required RAM or extensions to softload X-BASIC, but I guess most machines still in use have been properly upgraded by now ;)

My initial question remains though: does the competition rate BASIC programs with little or no machine code higher than BASIC programs which mainly poke an entire machine code program into memory and then run that?

By German.Diaz.Fuentes

Resident (50)

German.Diaz.Fuentes's picture

12-01-2015, 13:56

Hello

Users will rate all programs. All programs will be published in a paper magazine. So programs must be typed first, previous to vote (there will be a coded coupon inside each magazine).
You can use MSX BASIC kun or lots of pages of DATAs, but as this is a BASIC contest, the more compatible and easy to type, more people will try and more possiblilities to vote a program.

Germán

By Poltergeist

Champion (280)

Poltergeist's picture

12-01-2015, 14:11

So, no binary files, no moonblaster, no mediafiles. And you would want that, typing is going to be hell...

I would consider asking MCCM if you could use ICP7.

By ericb59

Paragon (1099)

ericb59's picture

13-01-2015, 07:11

a Basic contest is a good idea.
but, who have time (and courage) nowadays to Type hundred of Basic line code from a paper ? oO

By xperroni

Expert (83)

xperroni's picture

13-01-2015, 07:15

Quote:

To target a more international audience for this contest wouldn't it be nice to have at least this part of the site in English?

I can do the translation if there is interest. I don't actually speak Spanish, but I can read it alright.

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6932)

ARTRAG's picture

13-01-2015, 08:32

ericb59 wrote:

a Basic contest is a good idea.
but, who have time (and courage) nowadays to Type hundred of Basic line code from a paper ? oO

+1

By Turrebo

Expert (82)

Turrebo's picture

15-01-2015, 16:32

ericb59 wrote:

a Basic contest is a good idea.
but, who have time (and courage) nowadays to Type hundred of Basic line code from a paper ? oO

Well, there's a challenge, then. You could try and find a way to program more efficiently, and code DATA lines to an easy-to-type format.

Take the well-known Jake In The Caves listing, for example. The DATA lines are horrible! I can think of a couple of ways to shorten them considerably.

By Lord_Zett

Paladin (807)

Lord_Zett's picture

23-01-2015, 23:30

why not use data files. no machine code but just renderd data like gfx and levels and than put in a bloadfile. i code in basic but im never gona do lots of data all pre set in a data file. and data is slow, to read it all in memory is shit for your game play

By Turrebo

Expert (82)

Turrebo's picture

03-03-2015, 13:26

Lord_Zett wrote:

data is slow, to read it all in memory is shit for your game play

Give the player something to look at, or even to play with whilst waiting for the computer to finish reading the data.
Some Commodore-64 games had a simple shoot 'em up you could play while the actual game was being loaded.

A little animation, a color changing logo, a progress bar; anything that gives the player something to occupy his mind with for a few seconds. After all, it's not like he has to wait for ten minutes :-)