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=Programmers, Part II=
<small>'''This article, continued from the April issue, consists of interviews with programmers from different geographic locations, all of whom write programs for the TI home computer.'''</small>
Of significant problems with the TI, "one has less to do with the machine than with the company," says Dr. Allan Swett of Intelpro in Brossard, Quebec. " TI is not noted for dispensing information."
As far as the machine itself is concerned, Swett says, there is a limited audience which has disk and memory expansion, and even so the memory is limited.
He says TI's BASIC and Extended BASIC are "adequate insofar as they were intended to be" and that TI's assembly language is "spectacular," better than IBM.
However, he says, the machine's limitations don't keep him from writing any programs he wants.
"I'm pretty confident in my ability to scrunch things down," he says. "By and large, I'm a believer in small computers. You can do pretty much anything you want on them, as long as you have a disk drive."
Vincent Lannie of Texas Software Design in Bayton, Texas, says he finds BASIC difficult to work with in the TI.
"I have more useful memory in Extended BASIC," he notes.
Scott Emory, a partner in EB Software of Santa Ana, California, sees a problem in that "when you're programming, every time you want to make it better-like going from BASIC to Extended BASIC or adding memory-you're excluding people from your market because fewer people have those peripherals."
He adds, "We're pushing it to a limit. We're making programs on our full-blown system and seeing if it can run in Extended BASIC."
BASIC is limited in speed and graphics compared to Extended BASIC and assembly language, Walt Dollard notes. Dollard is a 19-year-old programmer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
"The only real advantage TI does have with graphics is TI is permanently in high resolution," he says. He also cites TI's 16 colors and sprites in Extended BASIC and assembly language as advantages.
"Memory limitations are the main thing, although I do have the 32K memory expansion," he says. "In 32K you should be able to write pretty much any program you want. The TI is really quite powerful compared to other computers in the under-$1,000 price range."
Gene Harter, a partner in Not-Polyoptics of Woodbridge, Virginia, says there are problems with memory, Extended BASIC and BASIC.
"A lot of our more popular programs, if we did them in machine language with 32K expansion would rival any game-any computer," Harter says. "When the serious people have gotten their expansions, we'll start making disk-based software."
K.E. Vaughn of Vaughn Software in Arvadus, Colorado, says one of the big limitations of the TI is the line length, so that "any time you approach text-especially in word processing-you have to cram as much as possible on one screen or go to two."
Regarding the line length, he says he's "cussed it many a time."
He says that in the drawing, redrawing and erasing in BASIC animation a programmer has "to be careful it moves quickly. You use a lot of call (statements) to move and animate the character."
However, in programming, he says,
"we would attempt just about anything,
unless it was too farfetched."
He would not try, for instance, to
emulate a program like the windowing
done in the Apple Lisa, he says.
To talk about problems or limitations
with the TI or other computers is
"not fair," says Larry Hughes of Quality
99 Software in Washington, D.C.
"You do the best you can with the tools
at hand. Some things are harder than
others. Even Atari-according to Consumer
Reports, Atari has the worst
BASIC language, but you can still do
things with Atari. It's harder, but you
can still write beautiful programs.''
About the 99/4A, Hughes comments,
"This is a very, very shocking thing to
me-TI won't tell me how to use it. You
can get a Commodore book for $6. 95
which has every memory location and
what the value is."
With the TI, he says, "every
memory location is a big secret. We're
working blindfolded in a dark cave."
He cited his company's Quickcopyer,
which reads a sector from a
diskette and writes a sector to another
diskette.
"TI won't tell you how to do it," he
says. "Nobody outside of TI and my
associate knows how to do it. It took
him six months of hard work, and it
should be common knowledge. The
hardest part of working with TI is finding
out what is common knowledge
with other computers.··
He continues, "The irony is, even
with the Commodore you know. all
these things but you can't do anything
because it's not a very powerful
computer."
ADVICE TO PROGRAMMERS
If he were to advise someone who
wanted to program for the TI, Vaughn
says, "I would have to tell them the
best resource they have for anything is
the manual they have from TI. I'd tell
them to read it from cover to cover
about 10 times."
He also feels that' 'just experimenting''
is important.
For those interested in programming
commercially, he says, "they
should start with BASIC and move
very quickly into machine language
programs."
"Read the manual," Hughes agrees.
"Put that in all capital letters-READ
THE MANUAL. I'm in a user group
and I get 10 calls a night.
''People will call and ask, 'What's
that funny curlicue-looking thing
do?' "
" 'You mean the ampersand?' "
" 'I guess so. What's it do?' "
" 'It's on page five of your
manual.' ''
He continues, "You need to read the
manual not once, not twice, not five
times, but 10 times. Then when you
start programming and you have a
question, you'll know where to look."
"I heard someone once say that programming
is the best computer game
of all," he says. "It's challenging, it's
exciting, it's thrilling and you can win,
and you can make it as hard as you
want or as easy as you want, and you
get immediate results, and you have
something other peolple can use and
enjoy.''
Dollard also stresses the importance
of the manual.
"I started out knowing absolutely
nothing about computers," he says.
"At that time, there was no beginners'
BASIC book."
He learned, he says, from the BASIC
manual.
"You have to sit down and grind
your way through the book. Patience is
important," he says.
"As far as the TI itself, there's
nothing special about it," Harter says.
"The BASIC is slow."
As a result, he says, when using graphics
the programmer should pay
attention to timing in trying to get
them to move realistically or look
good.
"There are some hidden things that
will slow computers down that you
have to find out about," he says. "You
have to experiment with it."
Lannie's advice is pessimistic. "I
would probably say not start your own
business. The way it is now, I wouldn't
recommend anyone to program for TI.
I think it's going to be hard for them to
market their products to a big firm."
Emory feels it is important for a
programmer to come up with an original
idea, not an adaptation of something
that is already out.
•'If you know assembly language, it
really helps," he adds.
"Professionally, my advice is to
establish marketing and distribution
before you write the program," Swett
says, adding that this is "hypothetical
advice" that he did not follow himself.
He notes that the marketing and distribution
arrangements may have to
be based on the quality of the product.
"Don't be surprised if you can't get
marketing and distribution because
you haven't got credibility" if you try
to set them up first, he adds. "After
you've established credibility, be sure
to set up marketing and distribution.''
For t h e n o n c o m m e r c i a l p r ogrammer,
Swett says, "My advice to
that person would be to have fun.
Enjoy the internal challenges you set
for yourself, like to make it faster. But
above all, have fun."
-LB
