My simple chess game in AtariSoft BASIC

[+nanochess]

Hi all.

 

Just wanted to share a memory.

 

In 1987, I was age 8 and went to my friend's house, and we were looking for something to play, so I suggested chess, but he didn't had his chessboard.

 

But he had an Atari 800, so I started coding a BASIC chess program for two players. Well, saying it was a chess program is a little of over-stretch, as basically it only received starting and ending coordinates of movements without any validation.

 

When finished we played two games there. And he went out of the room, and I typed NEW to enter a new program. He came back with a notebook to take note of the program, and when he saw the program wasn't there anymore, he throw a tantrum!

 

Anyway, just a few weeks ago I recoded the program from memory (probably the constants and variable names aren't the same), and sent a copy to him (thirty years later!), and he is happy of having it. ?

 

P.S: Forgot to add a REM saying who did it, but anyway you saw it here first

 

P.S.2: The piece names are in Spanish, easy to change. Sorry!

 

Edited February 28, 2022 by nanochess

[Chris+++]

 

You were eight and you completed a working BASIC program in enough time to keep your friend from growing impatient? I wouldn't use the word "stupid" for that!

 

[+nanochess]

9 minutes ago, Chris+++ said:

 

You were eight and you completed a working BASIC program in enough time to keep your friend from growing impatient? I wouldn't use the word "stupid" for that!

 

I changed it to "simple" ?

 

[+FujiSkunk]

You spent time whipping up a program capable of letting two people play chess that clearly impressed your friend, then hit the delete button like it was no big deal?  Who are you, Prince?

[Mrshoujo]

8 hours ago, nanochess said:

 

Anyway, just a few weeks ago I recoded the program from memory (probably the constants and variable names aren't the same), and sent a copy to him (thirty years later!), and he is happy of having it. ?

 

 

I took the liberty of revamping your code. I did this with TurboBASIC, but it's Atari BASIC. Just explaining for FOR NEXT loop formatting.

[+nanochess]

12 hours ago, Mrshoujo said:

I took the liberty of revamping your code. I did this with TurboBASIC, but it's Atari BASIC. Just explaining for FOR NEXT loop formatting.

Of course! You cannot READ directly to the arrays but through a variable, and there's no MID$ like in Microsoft BASIC. I find extremely curious the fact you need to DIM the B$ string.

 

Well, you have solved a 35 years long doubt on my mind ?? My friend didn't had at hand the reference manual of Atari BASIC, so I never could get to work READ/DATA that day. Even less the string access.

 

Supposing the PRINT CHR$(125) is CLS

Edited March 1, 2022 by nanochess

[Mrshoujo]

14 hours ago, nanochess said:

Of course! You cannot READ directly to the arrays but through a variable, and there's no MID$ like in Microsoft BASIC. I find extremely curious the fact you need to DIM the B$ string.

 

Well, you have solved a 35 years long doubt on my mind ?? My friend didn't had at hand the reference manual of Atari BASIC, so I never could get to work READ/DATA that day. Even less the string access.

 

Supposing the PRINT CHR$(125) is CLS

Atari BASIC uses strings like 1 long array. It's how you use them which matters. It's rather powerful when you get the concept. An entire 1024 character string can be set to all the same character by 1 line and happens lightning fast. Each character is 1 byte as opposed to numerical variables which take 6 in BCD.

 

In order to use a string variable, you have to DIM it first. Atari BASIC just works like that. Not unlike some programming languages where you have to declare all variables and their types.

 

When reading from a list in DATA, everything can be read as a string, but only numbers can be read as numbers. You can mix types, like a number and a text string. Just have to keep them straight.

 

Yes, ?CHR$(125) is Clear Screen. I was using Altirra and I don't know the keypress to make that character appear. I need to get a guide and print it.

[+Larry]

Can you SAVE the program and post it here?  I'd like to take a closer look without typing it in (and a few other folks probably would too).  You might even get some worthwhile suggestions.

[+nanochess]

8 hours ago, Larry said:

Can you SAVE the program and post it here?  I'd like to take a closer look without typing it in (and a few other folks probably would too).  You might even get some worthwhile suggestions.

I don't have an idea how to do it, but I'll research into it.