Front Panel Demos/Games?

[wheagy]

So what other front panel games or demos can anyone recommend beside 'kill the bits'? I'd be interested in software that makes interesting/fun use of the switches and lights without being connected to a term.

Thanks,

Win

[AltairClone]

Good question! This is what the entire Altair user community was asking in the days before BASIC and a Teletype connection. Short of some other light patterns, I can't think of much either!

Mike

[wheagy]

Haha..yeah, I bet they were. I was hoping that about 35 years might have yielded a few gems, but maybe not. :)

Win

[mham]

One of the reasons I have always wanted an Altair was because of the front panel. I love being able to program in binary and see the results with the LED's right there.
Anyway, since getting the clone I have thought it would be cool to make some useful front panel programs and post them up here. I ran into the same problem when I go the clone; I successfully loaded "Kill The Bit", and then I was like well, now what!?
Over the coming days/weeks as I write more programs I will type them up and put them on my site and let you know about it here!
-Mike

[wheagy]

Great thanks! Sounds good to me.

Win

[AltairClone]

While at VCF SE 2.0 this weekend, I saw a PDP-8 playing a PONG like game on the front panel where the "ball" moves back and forth across the front panel lights and front panel switches are used to "hit" the ball back and forth.

I started writing the "PONG" program for the Altair while at the VCF. I should be able to find the time to finish it this week and I'll post it.

Mike

[jibanes]

haha, tetris is next.

[AltairClone]

I have posted a "PONG" front panel program on the support page (http://altairclone.com/downloads/front_panel/).

Left player quickly toggles A15 to hit the "ball." Right player toggles A8. Score is kept in memory locations 80h and 81h (left and right). Score is missed balls, so the lower number wins.

The program is longer than you'll want to toggle in from front panel switches. It can easily be loaded using the "Load .HEX file" option in the Clone's configuration monitor. For a more authentic load, maybe I'll make a paper tape / cassette bootable version soon.

Mike

[AltairClone]

I made a version of PONG that can be started from CP/M. This makes it easy to load and run the program if you want to try it.

Use PCGET in CP/M to load PONGCPM.COM from the front panel programs support page (http://altairclone.com/downloads/front_panel/). Then type PONGCPM to run the program. Once PONG is running, CP/M must be cold-started in order to run CP/M again.

Mike

[Jurgen]

So what other front panel games or demos can anyone recommend beside 'kill the bits'? I'd be interested in software that makes interesting/fun use of the switches and lights without being connected to a term.

Thanks,

Win

I wrote a program that can add two 7-bit-numbers. The numbers can be entered via the sense-switches. The switch A15 simulates the ENTER-button. The result is displayed immediately.

Jurgen