My works in progress are online!

[torstum]

Just to give folks some idea of my current projects, I´ve decided to put them online, just for reference. All of them are experimental and unfinished, but hey, better put them out there anyway. Included are the beginnings of a (as yet almost unflyable) flight simulator, a 3d engine and an EGA sprite editor. Text is in portuguese, but the links are all there. I'd like to finish at least one of them though. Happy New Year everyone!

http://pwp.netcabo.pt/bidaxa/

[Antoni Gual]

Hi, torstum:

The flight simulator looks a very serious work, even if it lacks some visual appeal.

I think you took the wrong way to speed it up, using integer calculations. For example if you keep pressing ths "s" key the program crashes by an overflow in an integer cross product. If you are using Qb 4.5 you could stick with floating point math and link in the ffix library, that speeds up the floating point calculation by a factor of three. You can find it at my site.

Another suggestion is to port it to FB, and most of your speed problems would be gone. Well, you talked about a 486 in your site, are you really using a 486 to code all that? It must be a survivor from the eighties...I don't know if FB would run in a 486!

Are you from Portugal?

[torstum]

Hi Antoni,

Thanks for your detailed feedback. Yes, I'm coding it all in a 486 (given to me by my father in 1996); this is really a very (for me) serious research problem, since I'm trying to make a flight simulator that tops all those from the early 90's, for that relying on my very own physics model. Thanks for taking the patience and testing it, I appreciate it.

So, you think it's not a good idea to scale the variables, and that I should use a floating-point library? I'll check out your website.

I'm portuguese and residing in Portugal. You're right next to my country, but I'm not going to embarrass myself trying to write in spanish... Nuestros hermanos, it's always great to talk to our friendly neighbours.

[Antoni Gual]

Well, torstum, even the flight simulators of the early 90's were coded in a faster language than QB, as C or Pascal, with the inner loops in assembler. Don't expect yours to be fast...

A question, your 486 has a math coprocessor? I forgot copros were optional back then. If you don't have a coprocessor, the ffix library I recommended you will do nothing.

What's the city you live in? . I have been in some places in Portugal in my holidays. Never been south of Lisboa at the moment..

[torstum]

Ah, but after I have a working Qbasic version, I intend to port it to Watcom Fortran 77, giving it a brutal speed boost. As you know, you can't beat Qbasic for development time, so that's the main reason why I'm using it for this purpose.

Yes I think my 486 has a maths coprocessor, but I haven't yet tried to use it.

Well, I'm actually typing this from Torres Vedras, which is about 50 Kms north of Lisbon. Very pleasant little town if you ask me, good mix of concrete and green spaces. I can actually walk to some nearby large wooded areas collectively called 'Cucos' ( yep, that's cuckoos). You should visit here, we even have a castle, although it's a little deteriorated. What about Barcelona, do you like there? I suppose it has all the problems shared by all large cities, but it probably also has some very impressive monuments. I'd really like to take a tour through Spain, no doubt about it. Unfortunately I lead quite a hermit-like life when it comes to travelling. Have to change that definitely.

[DrV]

The 486SX was marketed as not having a floating-point unit, although in reality it did have one that was not enabled, and you could (IIRC) buy an 80487 add-on that was actually an entire 486 with floating-point unit enabled that would replace your original (486SX) CPU. The 486DX, 486DX2, and 486DX4 all have enabled, built-in FPUs.

I have a 100 MHz 486DX4 at home that I test FB DOS programs on occasionally, so yes, FB (and FB-generated programs) do work on a 486 (or even a 386 if compiled with -arch 386).

[Antoni Gual]

torstum:
Try FreeBASIC!
I tried your program in FreeBasic an i made it run with 3 minor changes:
-Changed the name of some arrays that matched with simple variables' names. QB tolerates this but FB does'nt like it
-Added DIM statements for some arrays you were using without creating them (a QB quirk you will not find anywhere else)
-Changed your screen page swapping statement for a SCREENSET.
And that's all!
Why do you want to translate it to a new language with different rules, and a completely different graphics interface?
If DrV says FB works in a 486, he knows what he's saying, he 's one of the developers...
Give FB a try. I may help you with the problems.
Here you have a benchmark concening Freebasic and gnu Fortran 95
http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/be...&lang2=g95

Are you running Windows in your 486? I once had a 486 and W95 ran well on it...

I have never been in Torres Vedras, I have visited Peniche, Alcobaça, Nazaré. You live in a beautiful country with good food and people less stressed than in Spain!
Barcelona is a very busy city, its center is becoming some kind of Disneyland for tourists, we live all in a hurry ane we like to escape it in the weekends and organise big traffic jams in the countryside
That's why I like Portugal...
Edited: I checked a map of Portugal, it seems I have been everywhere around your city except in it....

[torstum]

It's a 486 DX4, so I guess it should work. Yes, I have to try FreeBasic, it's achieving almost mythical status as an awesome compiler. At least that's all I read about it.

Antoni, you're right , all the places you've mentioned are really close to where I live, go figure. Well, keep that map close by and mark my home town on it, you can't go wrong next time you visit!

[Antoni Gual]

Ok, i'll keep your plece in mind...

About FB, have you checked its forum?
http://www.freebasic.net/forum
You will not have that amount of help with Watcom Fortran...