News nybble: Parametric equations on graphics programming website

Richard Ashbery has added another section to his website on the subject of simple graphics programming in BBC BASIC V on RISC OS. Section 8 (which sounds ominously like some top secret government black ops outfit until you discover that it…) covers parametric (not paramilitary) equations. Ahem. Anyway… According to Richard, these equations can be used to draw standard geometric shapes such as circles, squares, triangles, etc., along with more intricate patterns such as astroids, rose patterns, fish curves, hypo-cycloids, etc. There are twelve example graphic illustrations included at the…

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News nybble: Animated graphics examples land on Graphics Programming website

Richard Ashbery has updated his Graphic Programming Website, on which he provides a handy introduction to writing graphical ditties in BBC BASIC. This update inserts a section 6, entitled Animated Patterns, on which there is a zip file to download containing over thirty programs to run, edit, and just enjoy. Referring to the page, Richard tells me he’s been “looking at the numerous and sometimes remarkable curves that can be created from parametric equations” – highlighting in particular the Butterfly Curve. Discovered by Overpuddlian mathematician Temple H. Fay, just two…

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Snippets – 13th January, 2018

A round-up of 2017 news that could have been reported on at the time if people had only sent it this way! With 2017 now behind us, looking back over the RISCOSitory posts for the year might leave people thinking there has been very little activity in the RISC OS world – but in fact it merely means there have been very few posts on the site over the course of the year. This, sadly, is a reflection of the amount of news submitted to RISCOSitory by developers etc, more…

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AMCOG releases tool for writing games

For when playing just isn’t enough. In the period leading up to the recent Wakefield Show, Tony Bartram of AMCOG Games was working on a system to aid those developing RISC OS games. The fruit of that labour is the AMCOG Development Kit, which was first sold on CD at the show, and is now available to buy from !Store for a mere £14.99. The driving principle behind the kit is to make writing games on RISC OS much simpler, and it includes a core library providing functions in BBC…

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Development environment gets a dose of paracetamol

Wrapped up well, fed hot soup. RISC OS Open Limited have released a new version of the Desktop Development Environment (DDE), the set of tools used by many developers for writing software for RISC OS, as well as anyone working on the operating system itself. The primary focus of the new release (aka DDE27) is the relocation of zero page, currently only included in release candidate versions of the operating system, but which will eventually find its way into a formal release version. As such, this version of the tools…

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Programming contest on RISC OS FR

Start singing programming for your supper Pi David Feugey, who hosts and serves up the French language website RISCOS.fr using a Raspberry Pi, has announced the site’s first programming contest – to write something in BBC BASIC, the programming language that is included in the ROM image of all versions of RISC OS, as well as Arthur (ostensibly RISC OS 1) and the ROMs of Acorn’s older 8-bit computers, going all the way back to the very first BBC computer.

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