Ed's Nike Launch Simulator

Decemeber 21, 2024

Brad Nelson / @flagxor

Ed Thelen

Ed presented on June 23, 2018
Nike Ajax (1953), Nike Hercules (1958)
Battery Control Officer 
From: ed ed-thelen.org
Sent: Saturday, December 2, 2023 10:16 AM
To: Randy Thelen
Subject: World too complicated !!!!
 
At least for my worn-out mind -
    or maybe since I'm in comfortable circumstances
     maybe a lack of fear/drive/motivation to strive -

https://ed-thelen.org/NikeSimulation.html#SimBrowser

I wrote the game in FreeBasic,
   which was Intel only -
While talking about this to the Forth group
    Brad Nelson suddenly quit listening and
    started scribbling - just a bit distracting -
Just for fun he started making a
   FreeBasic  to JavaScript translator
So, instead of sending the compiled FreeBasic
  I sent the FreeBasic text and Brad's translator
  to the on line user.

(The translator time is so short (say a second or two)
    that the user does not notice the pause)

The JavaScript was not as fast as the compiled FreeBasic
    so I had to remove the (not needed) simulated
   Target Tracking and Missile Tracking radar displays.
(for purposes of the game they were just frills)

-Pops
          
From: Randy Thelen
Sent: Sunday, December 3, 2023 11:05 PM
To: ed ed-thelen.org
Subject: Re: World too complicated !!!!
 
Thank you!

Super interesting.

Your friend built a compiler, library and interpreter for your program.
It’s kind of amazing!!

You should really thank him.  It was no small programming task on his
part to cough up that system.  It’s a pretty massive program.

In total, he generated nearly 3,300 lines of code.

— Randy
          
From: ed ed-thelen.org
Sent: Monday, December 4, 2023, 12:29 PM
To: Brad Nelson
CC: Randy Thelen
Subject: Fw: World too complicated !!!!

Thank you for your FreeBasic to JavaScript converter
    again ;--))  

 https://ed-thelen.org/nike-fromBradNelsonSept26.html

-Ed Thelen
          
From: Brad Nelson
Sent: Tuesday, December 5, 2023, 9:43 PM
To: ed ed-thelen.org
CC: Randy Thelen
Subject: Re: Fw: World too complicated !!!!

Hi Ed,

You're most welcome!

And by the way the way, it's a small world. About a year ago,
I was curious about how the IBM 1401 instruction set worked
and my Internet searches let me to what I quickly realized
was your website.

So thank you for all your efforts preserving history!

-BradN

Ed's Simulator

    ~3,100 lines of FreeBASIC

    Goal: Run it as-is

FreeBASIC Quirks

  • Arrays, Integer, Double, Single, Strings
  • Structured IF/ELSEIF/ELSE/END IF
  • SELECT CASE, DO LOOP
  • CONST, {} Initialization
  • Labels, GOTO, GOSUB, RETURN
  • 1280x1024 Mode 21
  • LINE, PSET, CIRCLE
  • GETMOUSE
  • LOCATE, PRINT, PRINT USING
  • +=, -=, ATAN2

Approach

  • Parse upfront
  • Simple tokenizer
  • Recursive descent parser
  • Allocate variables in TypedArrays
  • Emit JavaScript code, flush on labels/line numbers

Usage (Separate .BAS)


---- foo.html ----

<!DOCTYPE html>



---- foo.bas ----

PRINT "Hello World!"
FOR i = 1 to 10
  PRINT "Counting "; i
NEXT i

Usage (Inline)


<!DOCTYPE html>

Usage (Inline)

µEforth (Inline)


<!DOCTYPE html>

µEforth (Inline)

Graphics


SCREEN 21
FOR i = 1 to 40
  FOR j = 1 to 30
    CIRCLE (i * 30, j * 30), _
    10, i * 6 * 65536 + j * 6 * 256,,,,F
  NEXT j
NEXT i

Graphics

Graphics


SCREEN 21
FOR i = 1 to 1000
  x1 = INT(RND() * 1280)
  y1 = INT(RND() * 1024)
  x2 = INT(RND() * 1280)
  y2 = INT(RND() * 1024)
  c = INT(RND() * 256 * 256 * 256)
  LINE (x1, y1)-(x2, y2), c
NEXT i

Graphics

Mouse


SCREEN 21
GETMOUSE x, y, nw, nb
' Wait for mouse events.
DO
  GETMOUSE nx, ny, nw, nb
LOOP WHILE x = nx and y = ny
x = nx : y = ny
' Draw a green line following the mouse.
Again:
  GETMOUSE nx, ny, nw, nb
  LINE (x, y)-(nx, ny), 256 * 255
  x = nx : y = ny
GOTO Again

Mouse

Donkey

Ed's Original Simulator


Simulator and Details on Ed's Site

Thank you