Computer Animation - 1980 style
Aug. 7th, 2004 12:40 pmClick the link below, I assure you that there is no virus attached and it is utterly harmless. It is a small (28,944 bytes) console application (i.e. "DOS prompt") written in, of all things, Pascal. It should run on any PC using DOS/Windows. Any I *do* mean *any* - this will run on a vintage 1980 IBM XT. From the programming perspective this is utterly trivial, akin to
10 PRINT "HELLO" 20 GOTO 10but it's all about how it looks.
Walking.exe <-- Click, select "open", and watch it run. While it is running try pressing ALT-ENTER to put it in full-screen mode for a more authentic 1980 feel.
Addendum - Heh, turns out the gazillion year old compiler (Borland Turbo Pascal 7.0) I used to do this uses CPU ticks rather than a clock time for the "delay" command I was using to time the frames, so the animation was running at different speeds on different computers. I've fixed that now. Now the executable is a whopping 29,696 bytes and should run smoother. I'd forgotten about the days where all PCs were 8 MHz unless you pressed "Turbo".