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TRS-80 Color Computer Programs
Book by Rugg, Tom
332 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 4, 2020
Since I’m doing most of my retro work now on a TRS-80 Color Computer, I’ve become more specific about the books I buy. This one I wouldn’t have bought, even though it’s Color Computer-specific, if it didn’t come in an inexpensive bundle with another book I did want. Most of the programs it contains are the standard programs found in any book of the era; this is especially true of the math programs. The CURVE, DIFFEQN, and GRAPH programs are ones I’ve seen many times in less specific books. But even the other programs are mostly retreads. There’s a biorhythm generator, a scrolling road race/ski/river run-style game, Wari, and snake chase (Obstacle, here) among others.
The old standards would still be worthwhile if the book took advantage of the “powerful graphics capability” of the Color Computer to customize them, but every one of these programs relies on the Color Computer’s text mode. There’s not a PSET or PCLS among them. Even the graphing program uses SET (text mode) rather than PSET (graphics mode), which means 64 by 32 graphics instead of 256 by 192. The biorhythm generator even uses vertically-scrolling text for its chart.
The color block graphics in text mode are both colorful and blocky.
The graphing program chapter includes a very strange recommendation; like most programs of its sort, it uses a subroutine for the formula. In this case, the subroutine starts at line 5000, and you are expected to put whatever formula you want graphed there, taking Y and setting X before RETURNing.
Because it’s easy to forget to put your formula in, the authors suggest:
as the default formula when saving to tape. This will result in a division by zero error, and the program stopping. It seems like it would make more sense to have something like:
The book does do some things well. Each program has a screenshot of what you can expect the program to do; and unlike other books of the era the screenshots are clear. This helps not only in deciding whether to type the program in, but also helps to debug it when something might or might not be going wrong. And in the center of the book there are 8 full-color pages of screenshots.
Because of their simplicity, most of the programs also work as-is on an MC-10, the little brother of the Color Computer; several others will work with only minor changes.
The old standards would still be worthwhile if the book took advantage of the “powerful graphics capability” of the Color Computer to customize them, but every one of these programs relies on the Color Computer’s text mode. There’s not a PSET or PCLS among them. Even the graphing program uses SET (text mode) rather than PSET (graphics mode), which means 64 by 32 graphics instead of 256 by 192. The biorhythm generator even uses vertically-scrolling text for its chart.
The color block graphics in text mode are both colorful and blocky.
SPARKLE.BAS
The Flying Walloons
The graphing program chapter includes a very strange recommendation; like most programs of its sort, it uses a subroutine for the formula. In this case, the subroutine starts at line 5000, and you are expected to put whatever formula you want graphed there, taking Y and setting X before RETURNing.
Because it’s easy to forget to put your formula in, the authors suggest:
5000 Y=1/0
as the default formula when saving to tape. This will result in a division by zero error, and the program stopping. It seems like it would make more sense to have something like:
5000 PRINT "ENTER A FORMULA AT LINE 5000"
5010 STOP
The book does do some things well. Each program has a screenshot of what you can expect the program to do; and unlike other books of the era the screenshots are clear. This helps not only in deciding whether to type the program in, but also helps to debug it when something might or might not be going wrong. And in the center of the book there are 8 full-color pages of screenshots.
Because of their simplicity, most of the programs also work as-is on an MC-10, the little brother of the Color Computer; several others will work with only minor changes.
January 18, 2019
1st computer,
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