G'day All,

Hello to the Nice and Talented Lazarus Folk :-)))

My fondest memories of my times at the Uni of Canberra (see below) was learning about this new programming language called Pascal. It was a bit like BASIC but much more strongly typed. As opposed to Commodore PET 4032 BASIC 4.0 which had no typing to speak of. Sure there was different data types etc, but the typing was not really designed into the language. The result mostly was spaghetti code... mostly, but not always!!! :-)

It was instant love - I fell in LOVE WITH THE PASCAL LANGUAGE ... and I've been using it ever since. That's partly why I am devoted to Lazarus!!! ;-))) Warts and all -- I love it !!! And free too! FANTASTIC ... I'm a big Lazarus fan... if not a big developer.

My background is that I used to work for the Australian Royal Australia Navy (RAN) in Canberra for 23 years. I was a Draftsman -- which mean that I prepared a wide variety of technical drawing with the old pen & ink on drawing film using a drafting board.

Also, I prepared drawings with a wide range of CAD (Computer Aided Design) Software. ;-)) I was okay at 2D drafting -- but I could never get my head around the concept of preparing 3D CAD drawings. ;-O( It was just TOO HARD - and the software we used was called CATIA (??). It's what Boeing Aeronatics using to design all using their aeroplanes! The RAN also used it to design some of it's ships, boats, and submarines. e.g. The ANZAC Class of Frigates, the new patrol boats etc, and the Collins Class Submarines (I think).

At least it was one of the tools we at Defence used. We used it for Naval Architecture (no so much me), Weapons Systems, Communication Systems, Navigation Systems, Satellite and Computer Systems. The integration of all these systems, as well as the refitting and re/design of ship and Naval vessels etc.

I did some training with CATIA CAD software... but as I was saying the concept of it use were too complex for my tiny brain to cope with. *SMILE*

Anyway, I used AutoCAD for M$ Windows to some extent. I also got help with the other drafties who used the same CAD software to advice on using the commands, etc. My favourite 2D CAD package was for the Apollo Domain computer and it was called Palette. I was easy to using for 2D drawing, once you understood concepts like: using a combination of command prompt (within Palette), using the mouse and menus for accessing the drawing commands, and basics like using construction lines (lines that help you draw, but don't necessarily print out) and grids etc. Palette (the version I used about 15 or 20 years ago!) was great for 2D drawings. But it's 3D features were only partially implemented and the 3D commands were broken to some extent. ;-( Maybe it's been fix in some later version.

In the section I worked we only needed mostly 2D drafting capabilities, and it was different areas within the RAN (I can't speak for the Army & Air Force) sometimes needed to use power CAD software like CATIA.

Back to myself. I worked for the RAN as a civilian in the Australian Public Service Defence department. I started off working as a Trainee Draftsman just before I turned 20. I trained in drawing techniques and studied Electronic and Theory at the local TAFE college part-time. It took me 5 years of studying part-time (mostly) -- but I did obtain my official qualification. A Certificate in Electrical Engineering and I specialized in Digital Logic and Digital Design (basic level).

My studies focused on topic like: Ohms Law, Circuit design and analyse theory and formulas. A lot of understanding some of the circuits I studied was at the level of components like: transistors, resistors, capacitors, batteries, logic gates, and, or, nor, invertors, JK-Flip-Flops, Counters (Up/Down etc), UARTs, DEMUXs, diodes etc

I still have text books on how to design things like Counters, Logic Gates and how And, Or and different logic chips work. As you can imagine this gets quite theoretical. ;-))) It involves thing like: truth tables, algebra and maths. Digital logic maths and algebraic notations systems. Coding in different languages, including: BASIC, C, Assembler etc. I can still remember using a DEC PDP-11 with Unix of some description (I think ?). We mainly used DEC BASIC and I can remember writing a basic program to control the inputs for a tablet and light pen connected to it. This was in the mid-1980's - I think. ;-)))

I can remember that some of my studies were challenging & I usually got a 'pass' level for the different units. The exception was the 'Intro to BASIC Programming' unit -- in which I got a 'credit'. *SMILE* This is because I had been programming BASIC since about 1977 approx. That was when the family bought our first computer. It was a Commodore PET 4016 ( C= ) with 16 KiloBytes of RAM (expanded to 32 K RAM). It's monitor and keyboard and cpu and all of the total system were one integrated unit. Peripherals like: 4040 dual 160 K floppy disk drives, printer and modem ... were all external to it. It used a IEEE-488 interface as were as different ports for other devices. ;-)))

This was quite advanced for it's day!

The PET also had it's OS in firmware ROMs. It's OS was called Commodore BASIC 4.0 (for the 4016/32). It was developed by Commodore and Micro$oft !!! (yes, Commodore BASIC was part M$).

I cut my teeth on C= systems. I taught myself to program by analysing programs, computer books and user magazines esp ones with program listings you could enter into the computer then save and debug. Also, we had a modem and used terminal software to access BBS (Bulletin Board Systems). Back the 32 baud would have been considered fast -- and I can still remember the introduction of 64 baud modem. Then later higher speeds. We didn't have a lot of money then, so we had a large collect of 160 KB floppy disks! Flippies they called them 'cos you could use both sides. None of this 360KB floppies. Also C= and for that matter all of the different computer brands, each had different formats for the floppies. ;-))

Anyway, So that's how I first learnt about computer. In my teenage years (while still at school) with different models, mainly C= : PET, C64, C128, Amiga, 286, 386SX, XT clone, 586, etc ... those are just some of the ones that I've owned and used (or my family).

Later, around 1990-1992, I attended the then Canberra College of Advanced Education (the CCAE) which became the University of Canberra during my time studying their. I was a full-time, mature-age student studying towards a BA in Computing Studies. I completed my first 2 years of full-time study. It was a 3 year degree -- which I never did complete due to having a nervous breakdown.

I have Schizophrenia (amongst other things) and I had previously had breakdowns and gone on strong prescription medications. I went also totally off all medications to study (believing that I'd recovered).

I enjoyed my studies at the CCAE / U of C. Mostly, as beginning Computing IT students we learnt : programming languages and techniques. C, BASIC, HTML, Pascal, Assembler, Digital Logic and Notation System, Cobol, SQL, dBase 3/4+, Database theory, design and practise, Operating System theory and design, Communications, Modems, Networking, Data Analysis, Nassi-Sneiderman Charts, Flow Charts, etc.

I can still remember drawing NS Charts for every the main procedure of my Pascal assignments. There was a strong emphasise on lectures, assignments, tutorial and practical use of the things.

Most of the students worked together in groups or 3, 4 or more. I worked on my own. *SMILE* I was a loner, mostly -- probably a contributing factor to why I didn't finish my BA Degree.

Love pew ;-)))
XOX

Fond Regards and Best Wishes,
PEW { Peter Eric Williams }
from Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

My free website:
http://pewink.org (&)
http://pewslinuxvault.googlepages.com

G'day Robert,
(and all CC folks)

See my comments below (I'll try to not top post).

Fond Regards and Best Wishes,
PEW { Peter Eric Williams }
from Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

My free websites:
http://pewink.org (&)
http://pewslinuxvault.googlepages.com

----

You will see on my website ( http://pewink.org then go to the Delphi source code page) that I have written a number of games in Delphi. Also some utilities are there also.

I have converted some of these (smaller ones) to Lazarus, but not yet released the code to the FOSS community. That's on my to-do list. :-) When I do, I'll make them available on my
http://pewslinuxvault.googlepage.com website -- with links from the older Delphi versions to the newer Lazarus ones.

That's the plan, anyway. Does anyone want to volunteer to help me collaborate on converting some of the old Delphi 5/7 projects over to Lazarus? Lazarus already has a built-in Delphi to Lazarus conversion tool, which I think is pretty powerful.

Also, if there is someone reading this who would like to help me... Please also have a look a my 'Downloads' page of my http://pewink.org website. It contains software which I developed in Delphi 5 and 7 and did not release the source for. I am willing to also make these FOSS.

Many of them are very big and complicated. ;-) Others not so big. I started by trying to make them shareware but quickly decided that it would be easier for me to make them freeware. I've still got the code for them on cd-r & they're coded in Delphi.

Games
----------
* Hexxpawn8 Game
* Adventure Game Utility 3-in-1 package (3 apps which also share some common code) for developing small adventure games

Utilities
-----------
* Find-a-Word Puzzle generator
* Simple Character Map program
* and a text editor which multiple forms.
My intention was / is to convert may of them to Lazarus --- time permitting and also permitting that I can find Lazarus versions of the components I use. Or perhaps, where I've used third party components, try to port them.

I to have a fondness for my first language which was PPL (polymorphic programming language).

Never heard of it, sorry. ;-))) As I mentioned, I studied many programming languages. At TAFE, Uni of C and many other places. ;-) Pascal was probably my favourite one.

Yes, Commodore (C=) Basic 4 which the old C= PET 4016/32 used wasn't strongly typed either. Actually the if..(condition)..then..(statement) in C= basic 4 didn't even have an ELSE statement. So, you needed to use GOTOs and line numbers to implement ; in effect the ELSE behaviour.

C= Basic 7 for the C= 128 was quite a big improvement. I have also owned and programmed the C= 64 and C=128.

I've also played around with a language for the C= PET, 64, 128 and other models, called COMAL 80. It was sort of a cross between basic and pascal. Very similar to later strongly typed version of basic. I believe that COMAL is still around in different versions.

I use, as I think I mentioned, both Mint 8 Free & Mandriva 2010.0 Free. For my HP Laptop and Desktop respectively.

I like both versions. But Mandriva 2010 seems to be more complicated, than Mint 8 Free.

I'm still trying to work out how I can use my ROOT user's theme files on this computer (Mandriva), with the 'Peter' (non-admin) user on the same computer. I have created three (3) customized themes as ROOT, and saved them as the ROOT user.

I used the 'locate' command from a Terminal and found the ROOT user's themes have been saved as hidden /.theme.myfilename files. And I want to share them with the 'Peter' user (ordinary user, non-admin rights) on the same computer.

Do you know how I can do this? Also, I'm having problems with working out how I can save these Theme files, as quite often the SAVE button is greyed out (disabled).

A problem arises when packages depend on "older" environments and the environments move ahead but packages lag behind.

Yes, well, I think that the Lazarus developers are *trying* to be proactive and support as many new environment as possible. Also, it is multi-platform; and I can only imagine that that must make it more difficult to develop. ;-(

I gather that Lazarus is a pascal development environment which seems similar to what Qt is for C++.

Actually, it's based on Delphi, which is basically Object Oriented Pascal. It also relies on Free Pascal Compiler (FPC) which Lazarus need to compile. You could say the FPC and Lazarus have a synergistic relationship. ;-)))

At the current time Gentoo is transiting from Qt3 to Qt4.? This will result in the leaving behind the Qt3 based 2D CAD system (sci-misc/qcad) which is quite interesting for me [1].? Qcad is about to become an "unsupported" package due to the development environment transition.

I must confess that I'm quite ignorant about the different desktop environments. *SMILE* I use Gnome, and I don't particularly care much for KDE. I know that there are other options and etc which I probably have not configured, yet. :-)

I'm pretty sure that I've seen some CAD packages available when I was experimenting with different software in Mint 7 and this desktop (a year or two back). I went a little crazy - installing everything that looked good :) with the result that my system became unstable. I needed to reinstall and lost a lot of it's configuration info :-( That's just Life!

Sorry, I don't know anything about nanoscale and atomic scale objects. ;-)

Maybe someone on this CC list will be able to help you. I think that many CAD packages have library for the different branches of science. I cannot comment I with ones have what, and are FOSS.

Cheers
Peter W (aka pew)
from Hobart, Australia ;))))
-----------------------------------------------

Yes, well, I think that the Lazarus developers are *trying* to be proactive and support as many new environment as possible.

What about Lazarus for CIL (aka .NET aka Mono) ?

AFAIK, the FPC developers are not at all inclined to start a project to do an FPC that creates CIL code.
AFAIK, some time ago the Delphi Prism compiler (by RemObjects) was free. I don't know if that still is true.

Michael :)

> Yes, well, I think that the Lazarus developers are *trying* to be > proactive and support as many new environment as possible.

Were they complaining about gtk1? Lazarus already uses gtk2 since 0.9.28

Or else what old package are we using?

Michael Schnell wrote

What about Lazarus for CIL (aka .NET aka Mono) ?

I don't understand what this has to do with the discussion about Lazarus?

> What about Lazarus for CIL (aka .NET aka Mono) ? > I don't understand what this has to do with the discussion about Lazarus?

I think it would be nice to have a community supported IDE for doing Object Pascal code for creating .NET/Mono executables. As Lazarus is an excellent community supported IDE to create Object Pascal executables, enhancing it to be able to do this for CIL would be a great achievement regarding the (possible/likely) future way of computing. Delphi Prism (recently still called "Oxygen by Rembjects") is an Object Pascal compiler that creates CIL code.

Of course I know that such a project is not easy to do all, and the compatibility to the current "native" Lazarus would be not perfect (as Prism is not at all perfectly compatible with Delphi).

-Michael

I think it would be nice to have a community supported IDE for doing Object Pascal code for creating .NET/Mono executables.

I wonder what that IDE should do. Almost everything had to be implemented from scratch, so it were a very new project of its own.

DoDi

If you care so much about this, why don't you simply start?

Dropping vague hints here is really not going to encourage sb to take on such a monumental task.

Of course I know that such a project is not easy to do all, and the compatibility to the current "native" Lazarus would be not perfect (as Prism is not at all perfectly compatible with Delphi).

So it is a different project.

G'day Gnome-Games-developers,

see comments below

With Best Regards,
? PEW { Peter Eric Williams }
from Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

My FREE Websites: ?http://pewink.org

This one is a very old & favourite of mine. I was written in different versions of Delphi. Delphi 7 Enterprise was the latest IIRC. Lazarus is strongly based on D7 so there SHOULDN'T be a lot of problems porting it.

In the Lazarus IDE there is a menu option for importing Delphi code.

Note that if you surf the internet you'll find many shareware and commerical versions of Hexpawn which plays on a 3x3 grid. Mine is FOSS and plays on a 8x8 grid with each board pattern being recorded in a comma-seperated-database. At the end of each game, the computer looks at the winner and flips over the board patterns to increase learning etc. As you can imagine the was a challenge to debug all those years ago.

The main issue I want to address are:
(a) the OOP of the way the program store it's game playing strategy is too confused and needs rewriting. ;-)

(b) the Hexxpawn8 app (a GUI) uses extremely bad ettique when playing e.g. when it knows it is about to lose it's game it resigns rather that letting the player win. This should not be too hard to correct.

(c) At the time I used a very complicated descendant of TStringGrid for the board, a freeware component called TStringAlignGrid... K.I.S.S. the features I need in this type of component are: (1) individual fonts per cell and grid wide. (2) ability to set individual cell fore & background colours & also blink the text slowly to show (by blinking it) this is the piece you've selected to move.

(d) The is also a lot of complex A.I. logic built into Hexxpawn : (1) you can swap the board around (change sides), (2) tell it to suggest a move & (3) also there is a facility to write a debug file and (4) high scores are keep in a text file and can be 'zapped' (wiped out) by the player with a warning. (5) also I think (?) I even allow the player to customize the board colours with a colour picking dialog. (6) all user setting are saved to a config file (.ini)... I strongly want to not need to mess with system config files as I don't understand such things. The .ini fie is stored in the local folder (user Windowzzzz with Delphi 7 Ent... which I no longer use).

All of the above was fully working with D7 last time I checked AND I do still have all of the code!!! I did not use a version control system and as a result I used to get myself into shit when trying to save the project as a new version. I would quite often loss my changes cos I didn't realize that Dephi was pointing to the wrong fies.

I was to use Subversion and maybe RapidSVN (it has a GUI). @@PLEASE SOMEONE SUGGEST@@ A good, reliable and easy to use VCS with a GUI and is not too confusing. I AM A NEWBIE at version control systems. HELP!!!!

* Adventure Game Utility 3-in-1 package (3 apps which also share some common code) for developing small adventure games

This is another fav of mine. Good for small adventure game and has a GUI interface. All fully debugged on last check many years ago.

It has 3 apps (with GUIs)

* Adventure Game Editor -- very complicated GUI front-end to allow user to create, setup, config etc the data files for different adventure games. Can use a text editor if you prefer. The is a windozzzzzz HLP file (not sure what version) which is very big and comprehensive. I need help to convert this to some kind of cross-platform Linux Gnome Help file -- I must confess to being ignorant about the different help formats.

* Adventure Game Player. Reads the above created data and macro (text) files. And allows the player to play the game in a GUI environment with buttons for N,S,E,W,up,down show per room based on the exits available in the current game state. I tried to make the adv game player as user friendly as possible. You can ask for hints or help (with a small penalty) and it keeps score. You can also save each game at almost any point then go back a restore the game. Also there is a HLP (Windozzzzs) file (maybe the same? cannot remember -- it was years ago)

* Adventure Game Analyser - GUI app which lets you select a game then analyser the data files (CSV) and macros (text) to try to see what it does. Handy for debugging.

* I attempted to make it as clever as I could for small adv games. The macro files are very powerful and in 10 - 20 lines you can implement as complex 1,2,3 or 4 word text input command from the user.

In case you nice folk are wondering, I'm also a big fan of Prolog (but am a bit rusty) and a lot of my Delphi implementations of Hexxpawn8 and Adv Game Utility Package are based on A.I. technique which I learnt a long time ago in particular at the Uni of Canberra but also since age 11 programming different games.

I never got to fully understand assembler and sprite graphics and graphics libraries very well ;-(((

I have many other FOSS game worthy of consideration. Some of these have either been fully or partially converted from Delphi to Lazarus. Some to XLogo. (Random Angle Tree drawer on pewslinuxvault)

Over the last week or so I have recently had my desktop server (this pc) reconfigured to Fedora 12 -- it will go back on monday for some fine tuning.

I am running Lazarus for the first time on my Fedora 12 system.. and trying to fly be the seat of my pants! ;-)

Don't have a version control system (?) installed-- or maybe I do and just do understand how to set it up. Like I said -- I need one with an excellent easy to use GUI and something which will protect me from silly mistakes when very tired or programming late into the night. ;-)))