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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : CMM2: Welcome Tape
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thwill Guru  Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3831 |
Spun off from https://www.thebackshed.com/forum/ViewTopic.php?TID=12378&P=3 Hi folks, Subject to approval from the community I propose to create a "Welcome Tape" for the CMM2 c.f. those that came with 8-bit microcomputers. This would be in the form of a "welcome.zip" which a newbie could extract onto their SD to create an "A:/welcome" folder. They then execute: RUN "welcome/welcome.bas" Which would launch an introduction animation / splash-screen and then show a menu of programs that could be run. Each included program would be written so that when it ended gracefully (i.e. not Ctrl-C) it would return to the menu program. I only propose to write the launcher program (though hopefully someone else will volunteer to make it pretty), curate the contents and produce the archive. The content I hope to take from (mostly) pre-existing material subject to its author's permission, my current shortlist is: - Gomoku - puzzle game - Lunar Lander - Eliza - Peter's graphics demos (rotating shapes, etc.) - Bill & Jim's implementation of Conway's Game of Life - the recent turtle demos - something based on Mauro's PSG Demo - a text adventure - I'll have to find one in BASIC as I'm reluctant to include Z-MIM because the interpreter itself is not code that a beginner can understand and the adventures/stories are binary blobs - a speech example All due credits will be included. The archive would be licensed under the same terms as material on Fruit of the Shed: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Without any expectation that they will do so, my intention is that the archive would be suitable (in terms of licensing, content and quality) that the hardware vendors could include it FOR FREE on an SD distributed with the CMM2 if they so choose. My questions to the community are: 1. Is this a worthwhile activity? 2. Does anyone object to me being the one who does this project, or does somebody else want to volunteer to do it ? Note that if is is me then: - I will be uploading any included content to a public GitHub repository to help me curate it. - It is also likely I will reformat the content for consistency. 3. Do Geoff, Peter or any of the other principals object to this project ? 4. I will be attempting to contact the authors of the proposed content to seek their blessing, but if any of them want to "speak up" on this thread then that will save me the effort. I hope this meets with approval, Best wishes, Tom Edited 2020-08-07 02:12 by thwill Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
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CircuitGizmos Guru Joined: 08/09/2011 Location: United StatesPosts: 1421 |
I think this is a great idea. At this point (things could change) I don't want to offer SD cards separately or bundled with a CMM. I'd have to buy them in bulk and sell for less than most people would find on sale in order for the card to be attractive. And I would need to buy from a trusted vendor. There are too many 16 gigabyte cards that are sold as 64 gig cards that I would have to test each one. And likely if I found a good price, it would be a fake. BUT - having the welcome stuff available as downloadable so that people can use their own card is fantastic. I'm sure something I wrote is somewhere in the old library and you have my permission to use my crappy code.  This is a great contribution and I appreciate you taking the helm. Micromites and Maximites! - Beginning Maximite |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3649 |
It sounds a good idea. I suppose it needs some sort of message for people to ask questions (er, here?) but not to expect Geoff, Peter et al to reply about code they didn't write (I think they've enough work as it is) but other than that it could let newbies see what can be done & how. Well done! John |
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| Daren Newbie  Joined: 05/08/2020 Location: United KingdomPosts: 25 |
Yes, sounds like a great idea, some little code snippets would be handy too. |
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vegipete Guru Joined: 29/01/2013 Location: CanadaPosts: 1082 |
Cool Idea! Anything I've posted here is fair game. Visit Vegipete's *Mite Library for cool programs. |
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Geoffg Guru Joined: 06/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 3165 |
Excellent idea, full support from me. If it works out I would like to have it as a download on my website beside the latest version of the firmware. Geoff Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net |
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| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3831 |
Thanks. I rather assumed as much, but by pretending it might happen I think I will make better decisions regarding what content to include and the level of quality to strive for. Yes, I'll definitely direct users to TBS from the launcher, probably when it quits. Hopefully there are more than enough helpful folks here to answer any questions, and I'm rather assuming I am accepting a reasonable share of that responsibility by doing the curating in the first place. Hi Daren, code snippets don't fit in with my vision for this, but you might look near the bottom of this page: http://fruitoftheshed.com/Colour%20MaxiMite%202%20(CMM2).Example-games-and-other-programs.ashx. The chosen content will be fairly simple but self contained programs demonstrating the CMM2's capabilities and presented to a basic but professional standard. There will be a couple of games and hopefully one really impressive sound and graphics demo. No more than a dozen programs in total so it can easily be collated and maintained by a single person; though I'm hoping I will get some help especially on jazzing up the launcher/menu program. Thank you Pete, that provides a lot of potential content. Thanks Geoff, as you say assuming "it works out" then this would be the ultimate seal of approval. Best wishes, Tom Edited 2020-08-07 09:05 by thwill Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
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| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3831 |
Incidentally does anyone have a simple text adventure game (in any BASIC dialect, I don't mind doing the porting) that could be included? Nothing of dubious provenance, i.e. no type-ins from books. Otherwise I'll start asking in some of the retro computing groups that I haunt. Regards, Tom Edited 2020-08-07 09:13 by thwill Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
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bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2867 |
Hi Tom, All, I would love to love to see this distro... If it looks well organised and I can find a distributor of quality SD cards I am happy to include one with every CMM2 I sell. I test every unit with a whole range of programs including Jims great IO tester... To put each through their paces.. I have thought of creating a run one after the other program to make the testing job easier... Regards, Mick Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
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| capsikin Guru Joined: 30/06/2020 Location: AustraliaPosts: 341 |
Not me. I remember seeing a tiny text adventure on youtube, but the person had ported it from someone else's version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d2g5BXdyfU Tiny Text Adventure: From ZX81 to VIC-20 to Ultimate 64 8-Bit Show And Tell |
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Hark0 Newbie Joined: 02/07/2020 Location: SpainPosts: 31 |
 Ideal for a CMM2 noobs like me. ZX-UNO: ZX-Spectrum Clone with FPGA |
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Plasmamac Guru Joined: 31/01/2019 Location: GermanyPosts: 501 |
thats what it call "understatement" . ok CMM2 noob maybe, but a Basic Guru  . Greetings from the old GLB Front Edited 2020-08-07 21:10 by Plasmamac Plasma |
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| MauroXavier Guru Joined: 06/03/2016 Location: BrazilPosts: 303 |
I can make a simplified version of PSGlib and PSGDemo with a better source code indentation with comments to turn it more understandable to anyone. |
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cletus3x Newbie Joined: 31/07/2020 Location: United StatesPosts: 17 |
Agree. This sounds awesome Tom! CMM2 Demos: Kit Cat Clock BCD Clock Video |
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| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3831 |
That sounds great, but if it is for the "Welcome Tape" specifically then you might want to hold off whilst I investigate whether the other items can actually be pulled together. Regards, Tom Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
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| Andrew_G Guru Joined: 18/10/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 840 |
Great idea Tom. I've fixed a minor "untidiness" in LunarLander2 v6 and posted a new zip here. It is based on work by several shedders (noted in the .BAS) but I'd be more than happy for that to be deleted and just say something like "developed by several TBS members . . ." One thing to think about is how programs are updated, eg by their original authors or others - how best to identify and control the versions?? Many thanks, Andrew |
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| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3831 |
Thanks Andrew, The source for the "tape" will be in a public GitHub repo so anyone can clone and make a pull request for a change to be included in the main branch. Once I've put a framework in place hopefully there will be some volunteer "collaborators" so I am not the sole person vetting pull requests. I'm on holiday for a few days at the moment, but when I get back my intention is to put together a very rough version 0.1 so we all have something to look at and improve. Many thanks for all those who have agreed that I can include their contributions. Best wishes, Tom Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
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| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3831 |
Hi folks, I have started to compose this, and as you might imagine it has the potential to be a bigger job than I initially suspected. One major headache is with licensing. Initially my intent was to use the same as that used by FruitOfTheShed, i.e. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. However the creators/promoters of that license explicitly state it is "inappropriate for software" https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-commons-license-to-software What would people (especially those who have given permission for use of their code) say to using the MIT License (under which all my CMM2 code has been licensed so far). This basically allows people to do what they like as long as they preserve the copyright notice and distribute the LICENSE text, see https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/. The text is short and simple ... MIT License Copyright (c) [year] [fullname] Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. ... but does leave open the issue of what to put for [fullname] ... I'm inclined to say "The Back Shed" or "The Back Shedders" but I think the intent is that it supposed to an actual person or legal entity (company/organisation). Another licensing related issue (and making no judgements) is that it is clear (and usually announced) that many of the examples being posted have not been the sole work of shedders but have earlier often uncited antecedants. This is not surprising because most BASIC in the wild predates the official open-source movement (and thus has no official licenses attached to it) but is part of the more open, sharing environment of the 70's and early 80's when any short piece of code seems to have been considered fair game to copy and share. I'm inclined not to worry too much about this personally as it seems highly unlikely any of the original authors will ever notice the CMM2 and even more unlikely that they would object to our intended use of the code. Any thoughts? Tom Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
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Sasquatch Senior Member  Joined: 08/05/2020 Location: United StatesPosts: 296 |
How about "Without license or Warranty of any kind"  Seriously anything I have posted is fair game and as far as attribution goes, something like "Implemented on CMM2" or "Converted to MMBasic" sounds ok to me. Most of my demos are from public sources and I just tweak them to work on the CMM2. -Carl |
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| Hark0 Newbie Joined: 02/07/2020 Location: SpainPosts: 31 |
Hello!!!! GLBasic..... oh men.... I remember!!! ZX-UNO: ZX-Spectrum Clone with FPGA |
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