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"I heard someone once say that programmingis the best computer gameof all," he says. "It's challenging, it'sexciting, it's thrilling and you can win,and you can make it as hard as youwant or as easy as you want, and youget immediate results, and you havesomething other peolple people can use andenjoy.''" Dollard also stresses the importanceof the manual. "I started out knowing absolutelynothing about computers," he says."At that time, there was no beginners'BASIC book." He learned, he says, from the BASICmanual. "You have to sit down and grindyour way through the book. Patience isimportant," he says. "As far as the TI itself, there'snothing special about it," Harter says."The BASIC is slow." As a result, he says, when using graphicsthe programmer should payattention to timing in trying to getthem to move realistically or lookgood. "There are some hidden things thatwill slow computers down that youhave to find out about," he says. "Youhave to experiment with it." Lannie's advice is pessimistic. "Iwould probably say not start your ownbusiness. The way it is now, I wouldn'trecommend anyone to program for TI.I think it's going to be hard for them tomarket their products to a big firm." Emory feels it is important for aprogrammer to come up with an originalidea, not an adaptation of somethingthat is already out.•'"If you know assembly language, itreally helps," he adds. "Professionally, my advice is toestablish marketing and distributionbefore you write the program," Swettsays, adding that this is "hypotheticaladvice" that he did not follow himself.He notes that the marketing and distributionarrangements may have tobe based on the quality of the product. "Don't be surprised if you can't getmarketing and distribution becauseyou haven't got credibility" if you tryto set them up first, he adds. "Afteryou've established credibility, be sureto set up marketing and distribution.''"  For t h e n o n c o m m e r c i a l p r ogrammerthe noncommercial programmer,Swett says, "My advice tothat person would be to have fun.Enjoy the internal challenges you setfor yourself, like to make it faster. Butabove all, have fun."-'''— LB'''