Sat, 23 Nov 2013, 05:41



The following email from a student is very similar to a few emails 
I have received the last couple of days.

A student writes:

 
> Good afternoon Dr. Patt,
> 
> Regarding program four, I was questioning whether our game would need to
> reset itself after a particular player has won. That is once player one has
> won a particular round, and our program has halted, would we need to code
> our program to be able to start over with a fresh game if a user scrolled
> back to x3000, hit the blue arrow and ran the program again?
> 
> Thank you for your time.
> <<name withheld to protect the student who wants to play the game again>>


We set up the programming assignment in a way that we felt everyone would be
able to get it done before Thanksgiving.  That is, you play once and that 
is it.  The game halts.  If you want to play again, you need to start over 
by reloading your program in memory.  Several emails have been suggesting 
excellent embellishments.  However, unless we ask everyone to make the same 
embellishments, each embellished program that is submitted will have to be 
graded by hand, instead of by our grading program.  If even half of you 
demonstrate your creativity, and even if it takes only 20 minutes for us 
to grade your submission of Program 4 by hand, that means about 60 hours 
of extra grading for us to do.  And, we do not have the time with everything 
else we have to do.  In fact, we are already taking too much time (as far as 
I am concerned) to get you the grades on the programming lab assignments.

So, what I would like you to do is submit the program as specified:  The
program runs once and halts.  THEN, if you wish, make your embellishments and
play the game with the embellished program when you get home.

Two examples of possible embellishments:

1. The one suggested by the above email:  After the program prints the winner,
instead of halting, the program asks: "Do you want to play again?  If so, press
the $ key.  If not, press the d key."  The program then tests that key for $ or
d.  If $, the program branches back to the start of the game with a fresh set
of rows A,B,C.  If d, TRAP  x25 is executed.

2. Personalizing the players: Instead of the players being Player 1 and 2,
you could start the game with a prompt like, "Player 1, please type your name,
followed by the <ENTER> key."  Then, "Player 2, please type your name, followed
by the <ENTER> key."  Your program would store the ascii codes in such a way
that you could then say, "John, it is your turn."

Again, you do not have to do either of these.  If you decide to do either or
both, please do NOT include them in your submission.  In fact, your Mother 
will enjoy the game even without them.  But, if you are so inclined, sure!  
Embellish the game you take home with you.

See you in class on Monday.

Yale Patt