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Large BASIC Monopoly program

tradde

tradde

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I plan to type this large BASIC Monopoly program before the listing becomes
unreadable. It's from 1976. I don't remember the system I got this from
but have been told Extended Basic on RSTS may run it. WIll there be an
easy way to import this from a regular DOS file? I have never used RSTS.
Thanks.
 
Do you want to move your transcription to an emulated or real RSTS system or do you want to run the software on machine that can? For moving to RSTS, if you have the PC hooked up using a terminal emulator, then your terminal emulator should be able to easily transfer the file to the RSTS system. Don't forget the method of having the terminal emulator "type" the program in.

If you just want to run, DEC Basic was very similar to MS Basic of the early 80s so pull up a copy of GW-Basic and enjoy. Taking programs from MS Basic to DEC Basic was a lot harder. I had a PDP-11 and all the games relying on PEEKs, POKEs, and various space saving trickery were very tough to adapt into a form I could play.
 
krebizfan said:
Do you want to move your transcription to an emulated or real RSTS system or do you want to run the software on machine that can? For moving to RSTS, if you have the PC hooked up using a terminal emulator, then your terminal emulator should be able to easily transfer the file to the RSTS system. Don't forget the method of having the terminal emulator "type" the program in.

If you just want to run, DEC Basic was very similar to MS Basic of the early 80s so pull up a copy of GW-Basic and enjoy. Taking programs from MS Basic to DEC Basic was a lot harder. I had a PDP-11 and all the games relying on PEEKs, POKEs, and various space saving trickery were very tough to adapt into a form I could play.
Click to expand...
Initially I plan to run RSTS with Simh. So being able to "import" a DOS file into Simh and thus RSTS would be my plan. Someday I might try
RSTS on real hardware. I was able to boot RSTS v7 into Simh. I didn't realize you were in Basic immediately after it starts. I am used to have to run stuff
from a monitor prompt such as on a pdp-8 (OS/8, TSS/8).
 
Ok, I have hit my first snag. I got the first little piece of the code into a DOS text file. This is the piece that defines
all the Monopoly squares and associated costs. I did manage to load it into RSTS using the simulated paper tape
reader. I get an error on line 10 which is "10 FILES MFILE". I don't think this Basic supports the term FILES.
Anyone know which version of Basic and from what system this might be. Originally I thought I had gotten this
while at Penn State. But the date on the front seems to indicate this was printed while I was pursuing my 2 year
year degree at a local to home college. They did have a connection to some mainframe, but I have forgotten what.
If this won't run with RSTS Basic then it's not likely I'll be able to run it and debug for typos. But I will get it
all entered for saving.
 
Could you post a longer snippet? It doesn't seem to be for any of the DEC Basics I have manuals for since those don't show a FILES keyword. MS BASIC does have a FILES keyword but that works like a DIR call to list a directory and seems like a strange opening line to a program.
Maybe there will be some unique keywords later in the program that would clearly indicate the original system. I might not be able to tell since the only other early BASIC I worked with was sold by Wang.
 
krebizfan said:
Could you post a longer snippet? It doesn't seem to be for any of the DEC Basics I have manuals for since those don't show a FILES keyword. MS BASIC does have a FILES keyword but that works like a DIR call to list a directory and seems like a strange opening line to a program.
Maybe there will be some unique keywords later in the program that would clearly indicate the original system. I might not be able to tell since the only other early BASIC I worked with was sold by Wang.
Click to expand...
I haven't gotten into it far enough to know where these files are referenced. I also noticed an INVOKE
command in one piece of code. This seems like a CHAIN but to a particular line number. I see I wrote some notes on the listing and MFILE is the property
deeds file and SFILE is the save file. I still don't know where they are used or how. BTW, as printed listing this is about 50 pages. So it's quite large.
 
It's possible this is from HP Time Shared Basic. I found the reference manual and it contains a FILE keyword which seems
to map to what these do. One can read or write data from/to files for later use. I don't know if the same can be
done in Extended Basic on RSTS. Guess I have some reading to do.
 
tradde said:
I plan to type this large BASIC Monopoly program before the listing becomes
unreadable. It's from 1976. I don't remember the system I got this from
but have been told Extended Basic on RSTS may run it. WIll there be an
easy way to import this from a regular DOS file? I have never used RSTS.
Thanks.
Click to expand...

Deja Vu

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.sys.pdp8/Q6iuQwjMsT8

You might want to dig around and see if there is a machine-readable copy
in the 2000TSB archives of this version of the game.
 
Al Kossow said:
Deja Vu

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.sys.pdp8/Q6iuQwjMsT8

You might want to dig around and see if there is a machine-readable copy
in the 2000TSB archives of this version of the game.
Click to expand...
Funny thing is I was browsing that just the other day. I have not found
anything resembling this particular game. I have managed to figure out how to modify the FILE command into what is supported
by Basic-Plus. I actually got the first segment to run and create the "deeds" file where the information is stored for all of the buyable
Avenues. But I am a long way from getting much more in. It's hard to read the print in some places from such an old listing.
Hopefully once it's all in someone will archive it on the web. I'll provide the original code and the modified Basic-Plus code.
 
I have the first main segment entered. A few Basic commands from HP Basic may not
be directly supported by RSTS Basic. This could be an issue for the random file access
that is used to set up the game. I may have to come up with some workaround.
 
I have some small experience running old Atari Basic stuff in DEC Basic in RT-11 and know it’s a fun and learning process transcribing code from one to the other. The old version of DEC Basic I have is not quite as smart as other newer versions of Basic but the DEC Basic manual is your friend and will help you thru it.
 
Qbus said:
I have some small experience running old Atari Basic stuff in DEC Basic in RT-11 and know it’s a fun and learning process transcribing code from one to the other. The old version of DEC Basic I have is not quite as smart as other newer versions of Basic but the DEC Basic manual is your friend and will help you thru it.
Click to expand...
The problem I am having is converting the READ #x which
reads specific record from a file. I am not sure there is a direct replacement on RSTS Basic. There may be a PUT/GET variant but it is still some work to make it work if it even can. I'd hate to have to
kludge this really bad to make it work. Oh, there seems also to be a COM command which seems to be similar to the FORTRAN COMMON area. RSTS Basic does not support this either.
 
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