TheBOB is back!... but he seems a bit puzzled.

[Pete]

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/qbasic/viewtopic.php?p=213390#p213390

[Pete]

So has anyone besides me tried it yet? Oh, you should note it needs to run in the QB64 folder, or you need to export the exe to a folder of your own choosing, with the accompanying files from the zip.

Pete

[Richard Frost]

I tried it.  Nice little puzzle.

Then I studied the code.  The way he's doing it, it would be difficult to change the
screen size - all those CASE ranges would need to be rewritten.  The piece positions
should be computed and their x/y saved in an array instead.

These lines are amusing:
DIM SHARED AnnaBOX(1 TO 60000) AS INTEGER
GOSUB DeLIGHT

I didn't know there were other QB64 groups.  Isn't Bob a member of this one?  Why isn't
the code posted here?

[Pete]

TheBOB was a commercial artists in Canada, above the Niagra Falls part of the country. He started doing art with QBasic back in the early 1990's. If the technique he used seems a bit antiquated for QB64, that's why. Still his creations were legendary enough for Rob to include a good deal of his projects in the QB64 Sample Programs folder.  Bob hasn't programmed a full project in QB64 before this. I feel like his last project was probably around 10 to 15 years ago; so I think it's very cool something renewed his interest in coding.

As far as other QB64 forums go, yes there are a few besides this one. The one I linked to above is the original QBasic Forum, which is now on Tapatalk, but used to be hosted on the late, great Network 54. This was the QB forum I joined in the early 1990's, and I became the owner of after the previous owner, Mac, passed away in the summer of 2008.

The QBasic Forum has quite a history. For instance, it was the original home of Rob's QB64 project. I had to talk Mac into making a sub-forum for Rob, because at the time, about a half a dozen forum "regulars" claimed they were working on a compiler to get QB working again on Windows Vista and 32-bit XP. Mac had read enough of these posts to realize it was too big of a task and no one was really going to complete such an involved and complicated project. For whatever reason, I got a different impression when I read Rob's posts. It took a bit of doing, but Mac eventually gave in, and created a QB64 sub-forum at the QBasic Forum. Rob did complete the project, and then created an independent forum for it, [abandoned, outdated and now likely malicious qb64 dot net website - don’t go there].

I'm thrilled TheBOB is still active. He always used coding as a means to create his art projects. In other words the art trumped the coding. The puzzle was created from a painting he created of the actress/model, prior to coding it into a jigsaw puzzle. I'd love to see him join here, but I think he considers The QBasic Forum his home. After all, he's an ol' timer like me, I believe in his early 70's.

Pete

[Richard Frost]

I can see from the dates of postings "over there" that it's not very active.
Hardly worth the effort to post code there if one wants it seen.

[Pete]

I used to have it archived "Read Only" for the sole purpose to preserve the history. I've opened it to some members here, for purposes of posting projects. As food for thought, when [abandoned, outdated and now likely malicious qb64 dot net website - don’t go there] went bye bye, a lot of people lost track of a lot of code posts and discussions; so for those who would like have there work on more than one forum, the Code Projects forum at QBF is a good place to include those.

If you would like to post, I enabled permissions in the Discussion Forum, Code Forum, TheBOB's Graphics Art Forum, and the Community Cafe. Generally new users (or better put, those I whom do not know) only have Community post privileges, to prevent spamming. I'm amazed how many people join forums for no other reason than spamming, or for no apparent reason other than to join, but not post.

Pete

[SMcNeill]

I can see from the dates of postings "over there" that it's not very active.
Hardly worth the effort to post code there if one wants it seen.

Depends on who you want seeing it.  The members in the QB45 forum are all old-time coders who have been interacting with each other for the past 30 years.  There’s not a lot of questions, or teaching, going on, as everyone has already developed their own toolset and style ages ago.  Pete’s way isn’t my way, which isn’t Bob’s way, but at the end of the day, if we want to code something, we find a way to get the project done. 

And then, sometimes — rarely — we even share it so everyone else can laugh with us (translation: at us) for how antiquated and obsolete our way of doing things is.

[Dav]

Glad to see TheBOB coding again! He's always been one one my favorite QB coders.  His programs really inspired me to contine in Qbasic.

- Dav

[Pete]

Bob says hi, and thanks for the kind words. He looks forward to posting his next creation, slatted for 2028. Me, I can't plan that far ahead. Writing down the bathroom breaks at my age would totally destroy my... be right back... coding motivation.

Pete

[bplus]

I haven't had time to look into Bob's puzzle yet but I know that his artistry and QB64 enhancements should make for some awesome applications!  I hope he knows he would be most welcome here :)

[Pete]

When you have a look, see what you think about adding random rotation to the puzzle pieces. I don't know if that would be difficult to accomplish or not, but I did note the puzzle pieces are all upright, which makes it easier to assemble the puzzle. I'll go out on a limb here and state this: If it trips your trigger to modify the code, so the pieces are randomly placed and randomly rotated, Bob would probably get a kick out of seeing it. My recollection is TheBOB enjoys others finding his code useful. It was either that, or he retired early from the cases he won suing people who used his code. Sorry, I'm getting old. I get things mixed up sometimes.

Pete