Yankee Magnetic Software: "Solving things you never even knew were problems!" / QuickBasic and Konig7

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Paul P said...

I tried to read all of this post but I got a headache.
Sunday, 21 June, 2009

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Again, I am not saying how I voted about whether you are a human or a spambot, but I am increasingly leaning against the proposition that you are software. Software can make you want to kill the ATM machine, but it rarely whines and kvetches. Whining and kvetching are, so far, the exclusive province of H. sapiens.

But as you can see, I have the skills to write a program that repeats endlessly:

"Are we there yet?"

Yankee Magnetic Software's all-time best-seller was "Beer.exe", which picked a Very Big Random Integer (we have discussed this Random thing before), and then displayed on the screen:

624489022 bottles of beer on the wall
624489022 bottles of beer
take one down, pass it around
624489021 bottles of beer on the wall

624489021 bottles of beer on the wall
624489021 bottles of beer
take one down, pass it around
624489020 bottles of beer on the wall

624489020 bottles of beer on the wall
624489020 bottles of beer
take one down, pass it around
624489019 bottles of beer on the wall

624489019 bottles of beer on the wall
624489019 bottles of beer
take one down, pass it around
624489018 bottles of beer on the wall

... a never-ending annoyance previously only sung by elementary school children to the bus driver on a long field trip. I made the computer act exactly like a busful of elementary school children. Except that eventually kids get bored or have to sleep. Beer.exe had no such limitations as long as there were still a few bottles of beer on the wall.

This is not Quite So Silly or Dumb. Or maybe it is Silly and Dumb.

As Fox News Channel (Murdoch) proclaims: We report. You decide.

But

It's software, you're not supposed to READ it, you're supposed to Copy & Paste it into a QuickBasic compiler, and then RUN it so it makes your computer do a Very Nifty Thing.

But I found it very liberating to post my actual pathetic programming skills and talents to the entire planet, many of whose residents make their living writing software. Posting my actual code (which nobody can see or read after the program is compiled into a stand-alone *.exe file) to all Cyberspace felt a lot like walking into a Sarah Palin rally wearing a Late Night with David Letterman t-shirt. About my crappy programming skills, I have always been rather shy.

Not 100% secretive. This guy Gordon Shumway (the name which ALF the cat-eating Alien Life Force used to get credit cards and Victoria's Secret catalogs) found this readable code on

QBCafe

a QuickBasic Labor-of-Love Kult Site that Dieter runs out of Germany. Weirdos like me dump their screwy proggies on Dieter's QuickBasic website as freeware, and anybody can hose it up and run it.

All dialects of BASIC were supposed to have been laughed out of Dodge decades ago. Finally about 8 years ago, Microsoft, which had developed the super-sophisticated dialect QuickBasic, took it out in the backyard and shot it. Microsoft no longer sells, supports or continues to develop QuickBasic.

And now my beloved QuickBasic is having bad allergic reations and dysfunctions when you try to run it in the Microsoft Windows Vista OS.

Not just abandoned and unsupported. Now Mom is trying to suffocate, strangle and murder her baby.

I would so much like to Dialogue with Bill Gates about that and express my Disappointment personally to him. I would like to Share My Feelings about that with him, and with Melinda if she's in the room or on the yacht or the private Lear Jet.

BASIC is the only lingo I know how to use to force computers to Dance To My Every Whimsical Tune. When I have troubles using BASIC, I can't make my computer, or everybody's computer, do Everything I Want My Worldwide Army of Silicon-Based Slaves To Do.

Look -- I don't ask for much. I just want to write BASIC programs to make all the computers in the world obey me. Is that wrong?

Evil People do things along those lines, but you can detect their Evilness because they do it in C++ -- the language of brain-dead industrial software Morlocks in cubicles.

The BASIC kult are the last surviving True Believers that ANYBODY, no matter how dumb or clumsy or ignorant, should be able to Completely Control any computer. All it takes is BASIC, the documentation, and a big bottle of Aspirin. And a week or two, or a month or two, of your Time. How much Time depends on how complicated or ambitious the Slave Dance you want the computer to do is.

That was the whole idea of the two math professors at Dartmouth College (New Hampshire USA), John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz, who invented BASIC. In 1964 they could see computers springing up all over the place, but almost nobody knew how to enslave them, because all the programming languages were Too Fucking Complicated to learn or grasp. Only a Specialist Programming Elite could make computers dance.

So they invented BASIC. After Just 1 Night of Real Simple Study ... Shazam! Your computer dances to your every whimsical tune!

Anyway, find a Nerd who can hose Konig7 up, and run it on your computer. Then you can watch the Whimsical But Mathematically and Educationally Significant Dance Across the 7 Bridges of Konigsberg.

As Vleeptron has discussed before -- the occasion, I think, of your first Comment -- I think the 7 Bridges of Konigsberg is one of the most charming Fairie Tales anybody on Planet Earth ever cooked up, I have been entranced by it since the first time I heard about it. I have even tried to go to Konigsberg twice.

Which is not an easy trick, because Kongisberg no longer exists.

But still, with determination, backpack, and Bad Judgment, it can be done and I am gonna get there.

My own travels have taught me that if I ever do get there, there will be Australians of both genders with backpacks in line in front of me. Them suckers are Travellin' Fooles!

Either the 7 Bridges of Konigsberg will move you very deeply, hypnotize, fascinate, astonish, thrill, excite, enflame, captivate, challenge and mesmerize you.

Or it won't.

The choice is yours.

This will go on your Permanent Record.