Hydra Logo 1.41 now available for download!

Dreamwriter

Hydra Logo is now ready for human consumption! With this programming language you can draw neat things and stuff without using any sort of compiler/editor, just type commands and watch them happen. Here's a fun program you can type to get you started:

to spiral :ln
fd :ln
rt 92
fd :ln+1
rt 92
spiral :ln+2
end

Then just enter
spiral 4

and watch the fun!

JMM_logo_04-16-07.zip

Post Edited (Dreamwriter) : 4/17/2007 5:10:14 AM GMT

Jasper_M

Nice work! I've been playing with that for sometime now... but why do so few commands work inside repeat? For instance, repeat 4[noparse][[/noparse]pendown] causes an unstoppable flood of "Huh? I don't understand" messages... Or have I misunderstood something? I've never programmed in Logo before... Anyway, keep up the good work ^________^

Dreamwriter

Doh! I only put in the messages tonight (last couple hours), a bug must have slipped in. I've done a few other repeat commands and they worked, dunno what's up - it appears that any built-in command without parameters causes the issue. So a workaround until I get it fixed would be to create your own command that does the same thing:

to writedown
pendown
end

Jasper_M

Yes, I figured that out already. Also, print won't work in a repeat - repeat 4[noparse][[/noparse]print agaga ] prints "agaga ]" and then "Huh I don't understand" again and again... It seems that the print reads whole line as its parameter or something ...

Dreamwriter

Yeah, print was just a real quick last-second throwin, I figured since I had just made a function to write error messages, might as well let users use it too and have their "Hello World". That's exactly what it does right now, the entire line just gets printed to the screen

AndreL

Will you have these bugs fixed this week?

Andre'

Dreamwriter

Oh yeah, those two bugs are simple fixes. I'll be making a new release on Friday, that'll be a more "solid" build

AndreL

Good, people get frustrated really quick. Remember, when making anything for public consumption, it just has to work.

Andre'

Dreamwriter

Alright, here's Hydra Logo 1.2 (first message in the thread)! Took a little longer than I estimated, but the couple days was worth it. First off I fixed a TON of bugs - ones with Repeat, ones with just basic running of commands, ones with error messages. Second, if you call a new function from the last line of the previous function (usually tail-end recursion), no new stack space is needed - this means there is no limit to recursion if the last line is where it happens (that spiral demo up above can now get a whole lot bigger). The "end" command no longer counts as one of the 15 lines a function can use. I added the ability to "cancel" a function while you are creating it (in case you make a nasty typo). I added a "stop" command, which stops the current function from running (and returns to the caller if there is one). And I added "turbo mode" - streaming functions off of EEPROM, while cool, is dog-slow. So now, one function at a time can be set to "turbo mode", where it automatically comes from system RAM instead. By default, everytime you add a new function, that one automatically gets Turbo Mode, but you can set it yourself with the "setturbo" command (after you use that the system stops automatically setting new things to turbo).

Here's a fun new command to demo Hydra Logo, that couldn't run in 1.0 (for many reasons), a classic: a fractal tree

to tree :size
if :size < 5
{
stop
}
forward :size
right 30
tree :size-5
left 60
tree :size-5
right 30
backward :size

AndreL

Dreamwriter, post a few cool screen shots, that will catch people's eyes and get them to dl it !

Andre'

Dreamwriter

Version 1.4 on deck! This one's a lot more stable, will look good on more people's TV's (sorry, my TV has no overscan, didn't even think about it before), and has more features, like NES gamepad support. And it includes a special build with a couple built-in demos if you want to see what it can do without a lot of typing.



Full list of changes from 1.2:

1.4 Turtle can go off edges of screen without causing bugs
Other miscellaneous bug fixes
Added support for NES gamepads (ifpad1, ifpad2)
If commands can now run commands on same line as if statement
If command brackets are now the nomal [noparse][[/noparse] ]
EEPROM is now autoloaded upon restart, removed load command
Moved text area up to avoid overscan (added commands to go back)
Added "_demo" version with demo autoloader
Optimized/organized code for user-created commands

Post Edited (Dreamwriter) : 4/17/2007 4:59:23 AM GMT

Ym2413a

(aw) it makes pretty patterns : )
Sooo Pretty...

Dreamwriter

Heh - well, Hydra Logo version 2 will be much more than just pretty pictures [noparse]:)[/noparse] This first one was a big experiment, a warm-up if you will... What I used to get used to the Hydra, Propeller, and EEPROM, and see what was involved in getting a working Logo out there, as well as see what stuff works well and what doesn't. Unfortunately, I've reached limitations - at this point, adding more features to version 1 means removing other features (which is why there's a separate demo build of 1.4 from the real thing). And I think I've gotten it to the point that I'm happy that I've got a pretty good port of the classic Logo people remember from school, minus all the string/table support.

Hydra Logo Version 2 will be a complete overhaul, a full-fledged game-making language - no more drawing lines, there will be multiple turtles, each one a self-controlled game sprite (but still with easy to understand logo commands and syntax). Much better sound support, speed will be a LOT better. And I'm gonna be doing much of it in assembly, to max out speed/storage and really use the Propeller as a true multicore device.

Dreamwriter

Welcome to Hydra Logo 1.41 - Boneheaded Edition! A couple days ago I was playing around with my trusty old Logo and found a nasty bug - one user-created command repeating another one had problems. For example,

to box
rp 4[noparse][[/noparse]fd 20 rt 90]
end

to boxpat
rp 8[noparse][[/noparse]box rt 360/8]
end

boxpat wouldn't work. After a lot of searching, I found the culpret: a missing return from an important function! Specifically, funcCopyBufferToText, which copies a line of code loaded into the EEPROM buffer onto the current text line for interpeting. It's supposed to return the length of that line, but wasn't. So, half a month after 1.4 we get 1.41, which only fixes my boneheaded mistake (and removes the demo version). Enjoy!