[Tuxpaint-users] Tux's Turtle

[Bill K. <nb...@so...>]

When I was a kid, I used Logo a bit (just the turtle graphics part)
in a few classes in elementary school -- this was on green-screen Apple IIs.

At home, I had an Atari 8-bit computer (256 glorious colors) and
ended up with a cartridge called "Delta Drawing" by Spinnaker (an educational
software company that, if I read correctly, got absorbed by what became
The Learning Company.)

Delta Drawing was a lot different from Logo.  It was far simpler
(not that I have any experience with Logo outside of the turtle graphics),
and more immediate.

It didn't use a split-screen with commands at the bottom, and graphics
at the top.  You were simply faced with a "^"-shaped cursor (turtle)
in the center of the screen, and you issued single-keystroke commands
which it executed immediately.

[D] - draw a line
[Shift] + [D] - draw a small line
[Ctrl] + [D] - draw a single pixel

[R] - rotate right (clockwise)  (30 degrees, I believe)
[Shift] + [R] - rotate right a little less  (15 degrees?)
[Ctrl] + [R] - rotate right 1 degree

You could also ask it to repeat, e.g. to rotate 90 degrees
you'd type [3] [R]  (or alternatively, I guess, [9] [0] [Ctrl]+[R]).

If you hit [Backspace], the commands you issued would be undone,
one by one.


You could go in and view your program (all commands were just those
single letters).

Well, I decided to do something like this in SDL.  I've implemented
subroutines in a cute (I think!) way.  The turtle 'dreams' of
what it will do, in a little subwindow.  (Imagine it with fluffly
clouds :) )

See a video of it here on YouTube.  I've annotated it, and put
a bit of detail into the description.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuLVAQNLXds

Gotta run.  Enjoy!

-- 
-bill!
Sent from my computer