Title: Just for Fun - April Fool's Joke
Issue: Spectrum Mar/Apr 2000
author:Nathan Rector
company:Natec Systems
email:nater@northcoast.com
http:www.northcoast.com/~nater/


April Fools is just around the corner, and for those people who remember Spectrum Tech, about this time of year someone wrote one of those "Just for Fun" articles.  It's been a while since I've seen a program that was "Just for Fun", so I decided it would be interesting to write one.  Like those articles, the program in this article is one of those that may have some neat coding tricks, but doesn't really enhance your systems any... other than to catch the unwary.

This program was written several years ago as an April Fools Joke.  All this program does is create a bunch of "worms" that travel across someone's screen and "eats" the text off.  You tell the program how many "worms" you want to display and what text you want the worms to consist of, for example, MUNCH or APRIL FOOLS or even '<======='.

In general, this program will cause the "worms" to travel across your screen and randomly change directions as well as drill into your screen to come out in another place on the screen.  As the worms travel across the screen, they leave blank spaces behind them at basically makes it look like they are eating the text off your screen.

For the most part this code will across all systems, but there are two command that will have to change depending on which system you are on:

SYSTEM(14) - returns if the user pressed a key on the keyboard
SYSTEM(13) - sleeps for a fraction of a second.

Hope you enjoy this little program.

WORM2
SUBROUTINE WORM2(WORMNUM,WORM.WORD)
*
*
PROMPT ""
WORM = ""
FOR W = 1 TO WORMNUM
  WORM<W,1,1> = WORM.WORD
  NEXT W
*
STOP.LOOP = 0 ; MAXCOUNT = 10 ; COUNT = MAXCOUNT
PAUSENUM = 300
*
LOOP
UNTIL STOP.LOOP DO  
  *
  *** KEEPSeeps looping until told to stop
  ***
  ***  WORM<1,1> = WORM NAME
  ***  WORM<1,2,N> = Col of each letter
  ***  WORM<1,3,N> = Row of each letter
  ***  WORM<1,4,N> = rand
  *
  ***
  ***  Displays worm on screen
  ***
  *
50*
  FOR W = 1 TO WORMNUM
    OLD.RAND = WORM<W,4> ; WORM1 = ""
    NUM = LEN(WORM<W,1,1>) + 1
    FOR I = 1 TO NUM
      BEGIN CASE
        CASE I = 1 AND COUNT = MAXCOUNT
100*
          RAND = RND(9)
          IF RAND = 0 AND INDEX(OLD.RAND,"0",1) THEN GOTO 100
          BEGIN CASE
            CASE RAND = 1 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 4 ; RAND = 4
            CASE RAND = 2 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 3 ; RAND = 3
            CASE RAND = 3 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 2 ; RAND = 2
            CASE RAND = 4 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 1 ; RAND = 1
            CASE RAND = 5 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 8 ; RAND = 8
            CASE RAND = 6 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 7 ; RAND = 7
            CASE RAND = 7 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 6 ; RAND = 6
            CASE RAND = 8 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 5 ; RAND = 5
          END CASE
          IF RAND = 9 THEN
              WORMNUM = WORMNUM + 1
              WORM<WORMNUM> = WORM<WORMNUM - 1,1,1>
              GOTO 50
            END
        CASE I = 1
          RAND = OLD.RAND<1,1,2>
        CASE OLD.RAND<1,1,I> = ""
          * nothing to display
          GOTO 500
        CASE 1
          RAND = OLD.RAND<1,1,I>
      END CASE
      *
      COL = WORM<W,2,I> ; ROW = WORM<W,3,I>
      IF COL = "" THEN COL = 40
      IF ROW = "" THEN ROW = 12
      *
      BEGIN CASE
        CASE RAND = 1 OR RAND = 9  ;* move right
          COL = COL - 1 ; RAND = 1
        CASE RAND = 2 OR RAND = 10 ;* move up
          ROW = ROW - 1 ; RAND = 2
        CASE RAND = 3 OR RAND = 11 ;* move down
          ROW = ROW + 1 ; RAND = 3
        CASE RAND = 4 OR RAND = 12 ;* move left
          COL = COL + 1 ; RAND = 4
        CASE RAND = 5 OR RAND = 13 ;* move UP/right
          COL = COL - 1 ; ROW = ROW - 1 ; RAND = 5
        CASE RAND = 6 OR RAND = 14 ;* move UP/LEFT
          COL = COL + 1 ; ROW = ROW - 1 ; RAND = 6
        CASE RAND = 7 OR RAND = 15 ;* move down/RIGHT
          COL = COL - 1 ; ROW = ROW + 1 ; RAND = 7
        CASE RAND = 8 OR RAND = 16 ;* move DOWN/left
          COL = COL + 1 ; ROW = ROW + 1 ; RAND = 8
        CASE RAND = 0 ;* Burrow
          BEGIN CASE
            CASE I = 1 AND COUNT = MAXCOUNT
              COL = RND(20) + RND(20)
              ROW = RND(12) - RND(12)
            CASE 1
              COL = WORM<W,5,I>
              ROW = WORM<W,6,I>
          END CASE
      END CASE
      IF COL <= 0 THEN COL = 78
      IF COL >= 79 THEN COL = 0
      IF ROW <= 0 THEN ROW = 22
      IF ROW >= 23 THEN ROW = 0
      *
      WORM.PART = WORM<W,1,1>[I,1]
      IF WORM.PART = "" THEN WORM.PART = " "
      *
      WORM1 = WORM1 : @(COL,ROW) : WORM.PART
      *
      WORM<W,2,I> = COL
      WORM<W,3,I> = ROW
      WORM<W,4,I + 1> = RAND
      IF I = 1 THEN WORM<W,4,1> = RAND
      IF RAND = 0 THEN
          WORM<W,5,I+1> = COL
          WORM<W,6,I+1> = ROW
        END
500*
      IF SYSTEM(14) THEN GOTO 900
      NEXT I
    *
600*
    CRT WORM1 :
    NEXT W
  *
  ** pauses
  *
  FOR P = 1 TO PAUSENUM
    JUNK = SYSTEM(13)
    NEXT P
  *
  IF COUNT = MAXCOUNT THEN
      COUNT = 0
    END ELSE
      COUNT = COUNT + 1
    END
REPEAT
900*
RETURN
END    
Title: Just for Fun - April Fool's Joke
Issue: Spectrum Mar/Apr 2000
author:Nathan Rector
company:Natec Systems
email:nater@northcoast.com
http:www.northcoast.com/~nater/


April Fools is just around the corner, and for those people who remember Spectrum Tech, about this time of year someone wrote one of those "Just for Fun" articles.  It's been a while since I've seen a program that was "Just for Fun", so I decided it would be interesting to write one.  Like those articles, the program in this article is one of those that may have some neat coding tricks, but doesn't really enhance your systems any... other than to catch the unwary.

This program was written several years ago as an April Fools Joke.  All this program does is create a bunch of "worms" that travel across someone's screen and "eats" the text off.  You tell the program how many "worms" you want to display and what text you want the worms to consist of, for example, MUNCH or APRIL FOOLS or even '<======='.

In general, this program will cause the "worms" to travel across your screen and randomly change directions as well as drill into your screen to come out in another place on the screen.  As the worms travel across the screen, they leave blank spaces behind them at basically makes it look like they are eating the text off your screen.

For the most part this code will across all systems, but there are two command that will have to change depending on which system you are on:

SYSTEM(14) - returns if the user pressed a key on the keyboard
SYSTEM(13) - sleeps for a fraction of a second.

Hope you enjoy this little program.

WORM2
SUBROUTINE WORM2(WORMNUM,WORM.WORD)
*
*
PROMPT ""
WORM = ""
FOR W = 1 TO WORMNUM
  WORM<W,1,1> = WORM.WORD
  NEXT W
*
STOP.LOOP = 0 ; MAXCOUNT = 10 ; COUNT = MAXCOUNT
PAUSENUM = 300
*
LOOP
UNTIL STOP.LOOP DO  
  *
  *** KEEPSeeps looping until told to stop
  ***
  ***  WORM<1,1> = WORM NAME
  ***  WORM<1,2,N> = Col of each letter
  ***  WORM<1,3,N> = Row of each letter
  ***  WORM<1,4,N> = rand
  *
  ***
  ***  Displays worm on screen
  ***
  *
50*
  FOR W = 1 TO WORMNUM
    OLD.RAND = WORM<W,4> ; WORM1 = ""
    NUM = LEN(WORM<W,1,1>) + 1
    FOR I = 1 TO NUM
      BEGIN CASE
        CASE I = 1 AND COUNT = MAXCOUNT
100*
          RAND = RND(9)
          IF RAND = 0 AND INDEX(OLD.RAND,"0",1) THEN GOTO 100
          BEGIN CASE
            CASE RAND = 1 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 4 ; RAND = 4
            CASE RAND = 2 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 3 ; RAND = 3
            CASE RAND = 3 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 2 ; RAND = 2
            CASE RAND = 4 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 1 ; RAND = 1
            CASE RAND = 5 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 8 ; RAND = 8
            CASE RAND = 6 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 7 ; RAND = 7
            CASE RAND = 7 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 6 ; RAND = 6
            CASE RAND = 8 AND OLD.RAND<1,1,2> = 5 ; RAND = 5
          END CASE
          IF RAND = 9 THEN
              WORMNUM = WORMNUM + 1
              WORM<WORMNUM> = WORM<WORMNUM - 1,1,1>
              GOTO 50
            END
        CASE I = 1
          RAND = OLD.RAND<1,1,2>
        CASE OLD.RAND<1,1,I> = ""
          * nothing to display
          GOTO 500
        CASE 1
          RAND = OLD.RAND<1,1,I>
      END CASE
      *
      COL = WORM<W,2,I> ; ROW = WORM<W,3,I>
      IF COL = "" THEN COL = 40
      IF ROW = "" THEN ROW = 12
      *
      BEGIN CASE
        CASE RAND = 1 OR RAND = 9  ;* move right
          COL = COL - 1 ; RAND = 1
        CASE RAND = 2 OR RAND = 10 ;* move up
          ROW = ROW - 1 ; RAND = 2
        CASE RAND = 3 OR RAND = 11 ;* move down
          ROW = ROW + 1 ; RAND = 3
        CASE RAND = 4 OR RAND = 12 ;* move left
          COL = COL + 1 ; RAND = 4
        CASE RAND = 5 OR RAND = 13 ;* move UP/right
          COL = COL - 1 ; ROW = ROW - 1 ; RAND = 5
        CASE RAND = 6 OR RAND = 14 ;* move UP/LEFT
          COL = COL + 1 ; ROW = ROW - 1 ; RAND = 6
        CASE RAND = 7 OR RAND = 15 ;* move down/RIGHT
          COL = COL - 1 ; ROW = ROW + 1 ; RAND = 7
        CASE RAND = 8 OR RAND = 16 ;* move DOWN/left
          COL = COL + 1 ; ROW = ROW + 1 ; RAND = 8
        CASE RAND = 0 ;* Burrow
          BEGIN CASE
            CASE I = 1 AND COUNT = MAXCOUNT
              COL = RND(20) + RND(20)
              ROW = RND(12) - RND(12)
            CASE 1
              COL = WORM<W,5,I>
              ROW = WORM<W,6,I>
          END CASE
      END CASE
      IF COL <= 0 THEN COL = 78
      IF COL >= 79 THEN COL = 0
      IF ROW <= 0 THEN ROW = 22
      IF ROW >= 23 THEN ROW = 0
      *
      WORM.PART = WORM<W,1,1>[I,1]
      IF WORM.PART = "" THEN WORM.PART = " "
      *
      WORM1 = WORM1 : @(COL,ROW) : WORM.PART
      *
      WORM<W,2,I> = COL
      WORM<W,3,I> = ROW
      WORM<W,4,I + 1> = RAND
      IF I = 1 THEN WORM<W,4,1> = RAND
      IF RAND = 0 THEN
          WORM<W,5,I+1> = COL
          WORM<W,6,I+1> = ROW
        END
500*
      IF SYSTEM(14) THEN GOTO 900
      NEXT I
    *
600*
    CRT WORM1 :
    NEXT W
  *
  ** pauses
  *
  FOR P = 1 TO PAUSENUM
    JUNK = SYSTEM(13)
    NEXT P
  *
  IF COUNT = MAXCOUNT THEN
      COUNT = 0
    END ELSE
      COUNT = COUNT + 1
    END
REPEAT
900*
RETURN
END