And yes, despite the penguin, it runs on Windows (and Mac).
I just used copy-n-paste three times while composing a TXT msg to a friend yesterday. (1) Restaurant's hours that day, (2) Restaurant's street address, (3) Restaurant's website's address (in case she wanted more info). I admit, it was tedious to switch back and forth between browser and message system, and copying text is a bit annoying (though a trackball cursor control helps a lot, since otherwise I'd have to use the touchscreen... I miss styluses
As much as my Android phone pisses me off (early dev model w/ old OS and slow hardware), I can't imagine the hoops iPhone or Windows users have to go through. (And my old phone was a 'high-tech' BREW handset, which is just a complete joke compared to any of these 'smartphones.' My web browsing and navigation was done the old way: call up someone who was at home in front of their computer and ask them to read stuff to me.
Ramblingly,
-bill!
Shameless self promotion, but whatever you build, be sure to put Tux Paint on it. (Especially if you've got some cool art-friendly interface like a touch screen.)
Oh wait! I've spent over 7 years doing just that, IN MY SPARE TIME: http://www.tuxpaint.org/
Now, if someone would hire me to do it full-time, so I can keep putting food on my family [sic], I _might_ stop working on it in my spare time. (No guarantee, though.) I guess even more important is: who is this Ted person, and why do I give a crap? I've got literally millions of children to worry about.
"a little caricature of Carter that is placed throughout the book"
Man, just like "Atari BASIC: XL Edition" that I learned a ton of BASIC with as a kid. It had "Kilroy" (as in "... was here") throughout it.
I vividly remember reading some of that book while on a trip to the department store with my mom. In fact, not only do I still HAVE that book (surprised? don't be... I was the "Atari vs Dell" guy on Slashdot the other day), it's on the shelf next to me, and just yesterday I happened to grab it when I responded to one of those dumb chainlettery things on Facebook ("grab the closest book, open page X, type sentence Y as your facebook status").
This is starting to freak me out.
About 5 years ago, I was lamenting the apparent lack of programming books aimed at children. I posed the question "what would be a good modern language for kids to learn?" and almost every response I got was "Python." So this is perfect! Too bad I didn't get the chance to (1) learn Python, (2) write a book, (3) get it published.
We've got a "Help Us" page ( http://www.tuxpaint.org/help/ ) that explains how contributors can help in all sorts of ways (code being only one). We keep the latest translation files online for easy download (no CVS needed), along with stats on how complete they are.
One of these days I'll get around to finishing the asset management web application I started working on, to make it really easy for graphics-oriented folks and photographers (and just folks who find usable PD and Creative Comments artwork) can collaborate.
There are numerous videos on YouTube. Search for "Atari Demo" and start following the 'related videos'.
Switch into GRAPHICS 9 mode (16 shaded bitmap mode). Use a Display List Interrupt (DLI) to change the colors down the screen. You can arrange it to get a nice grid of 16 hues of 16 shades == 256 colors!
The paletted colors were actually only out of 128 colors. (16 hues of 8 shades)
More useful, though, are some of the software-driven tricks for drawing more colors on the screen. One simple one interlaces between 16-hue and 16-shade pixel modes, combining to give you any of 256 colors (albeit a little washed out), anywhere on the screen. In glorious 80x192 pixel resolution. (Not a typo)
Or cycle between 3 16-shade modes, one Red, one Green, one Blue, and you get 4096 colors, anywhere on the screen. (Or do it at higher horizontal resolution and get 64 colors or 8 colors.) There are GIF and JPEG viewers for Ataris that have been around for _years_ that use these modes.
Even fancier tricks give you 30 shades of grey at 160x192, some obscene number of colors at 160x192, etc.
In fact today (before this post appeared on Slashdot), someone contacted me about the character-set (you know, "font"?
Anyway, he pointed out that those huge-pixel (80px across) modes can be "applied" to any graphics mode (try GRAPHICS 2:POKE 623,64:?#6;"abcd"), and therefore a similar frame-flickering trick could be made to get lots of large, multi-colored tile graphics on the screen.
Lots of stuff you can get ANTIC and GTIA to do; a few of which are 'artifacts' or 'bugs', but all consistent across the platform.
(Heh - I wonder if a single person will care about that braindump I just presented.)
Don't talk like that to your ancestors! (Remember who designed the Atari 400/800, and who designed the Amiga!
Ooh! And that reminds me... need Contiki and for someone to build a decent Ethernet or Wifi adapter.
Thank god Black Ops didn't throw you in "get the crap beat out of you" prison for copying games back then.
Hrm. Tried holding the [Select] button down while you turn it on? That _should_ boot it into Missile Command, if my Google-fu is working for me.
1 + 1 = 3, for large values of 1.
