Book Review #28

Learn to Play the Piano and Keyboard
Nick Freeth

Another book by Parragon Publishing, and hard to find author's name. Unfortunately, unlike the sushi book, this one is piano playing. Piano playing is somewhat a rather involved activity. Sure you have some good techniques explained there. Plenty of good pictures, too. But going from simple keyboarding to The Entertainer simply requires more practice than the pages provides. Worse, there's no chord chart at the end of the book the student can refer to. This book is not a tutorial book, or even an introductory one. It's a piano user guide. Here is the white key. Here is the black key, and here is the pedal. And not much after that. Not recommended.

cooking journal #28

Cooking #28 Ice Cream Sandwich

Ha ha. What do you know? Ice cream and bread makes a nice pairing! Don't you just love chocolate mint ice cream on bread?

This brings back memories, as one of my childhood experience. Simple, yet pleasant. Who needs fruit jams when you can have ice cream?

Petit Computer Journal #28

Petit BrainF

Yeah, I was wondering just exactly how hard it is to implement a language that has only 8 operators involved. Not hard at all! Of course, I cheated and used graphic screens for my memory. It'll be probably a bit more complicated if I use straight memory. A bit.

The program cannot fit into one screen, but it's certainly a candidate for less than 100 lines program. It took me a couple hours because I was careless in moving the pointers.

The CYCLE subroutine is there to keep the variables within range, and the FB subroutine is there as a debugger that I use when debugging the program. So, I commented it out in the final version.

Another person, IAmAPersson (what a name!) was working on a version of the compiler as well. Check Petit Wikia for it. Maybe he posted it there by now.

I don't know the policy of this blogspot, but I know my policy and that is family friendly. I don't want to use the full name of the program. Thank you. Next time you designed a programming language, make sure you name it proper!

1. REM PBF BY HARRY HARDJONO
2. @INIT
3. ACLS:CLEAR
4. GPAGE 0:GCLS
5. GPAGE 1:GCLS
6. MS=30000
7. PTR=0
8. PC=0
9. MPC=0
10. CSR=0
11. 
    
12. GPAGE1:RESTORE @HELLO
13. @LOADP
14. READ A$
15. IF A$=="" GOTO @RUNP
16. FOR I=0 TO LEN(A$)-1
17. GPSET PC%256,PC/256,ASC(MID$(A$,I,1))
18. PC=PC+1:NEXT
19. GOTO @LOADP
20. 
    
21. @RUNP
22. PC=0:GPAGE 0
23. @LOOP
24. GPAGE 0:VAR=GSPOIT(PTR%256,PTR/256)
25. GPAGE 1:C=GSPOIT(PC%256,PC/256)
26. 'GOSUB @FB
27. IF C==62 THEN PTR=PTR+1:GOSUB @CYCLE:GOTO @LOOP2 
28. IF C==60 THEN PTR=PTR-1:GOSUB @CYCLE:GOTO @LOOP2
29. IF C==43 THEN VAR=VAR+1:GOSUB @CYCLE
30. IF C==45 THEN VAR=VAR-1:GOSUB @CYCLE
31. IF C==46 THEN LOCATE CSR%32,CSR/32:?CHR$(VAR);:CSR=CSR+1:GOTO @LOOP2
32. IF C==44 THEN GOSUB @GETCHAR 
33. IF C==91 THEN MPC=1:GOSUB @SR:GOTO @LOOP2
34. IF C==93 THEN MPC=1:GOSUB @SL:GOTO @LOOP2
35. IF C==0 GOTO @END 
36. GPAGE 0:GPSET PTR%256,PTR/256,VAR
37. @LOOP2
38. PC=PC+1:GOSUB @CYCLE
39. GOTO @LOOP
40. 
    
41. @FB
42. LOCATE 0,5:?PTR,PC,VAR
43. LOCATE 0,6:?CHR$(C)
44. WAIT 6
45. RETURN
46. 
    
47. @CYCLE
48. IF PC<0 THEN PC=PC+49152
49. IF PTR<0 THEN PTR=PTR+MS
50. IF VAR<0 THEN VAR=VAR+256
51. PC=PC%49152
52. PTR=PTR%MS
53. VAR=VAR%256
54. CSR=CSR%768
55. RETURN
56. 
    
57. @GETCHAR
58. A$=INKEY$():IF A$=="" GOTO @GETCHAR
59. VAR=ASC(A$):WAIT 30
60. RETURN
61. 
    
62. @SR
63. IF VAR!=0 THEN RETURN
64. PC=PC+1:GOSUB @CYCLE
65. GPAGE 1:C=GSPOIT(PC%256,PC/256)
66. IF C==91 THEN MPC=MPC+1
67. IF C==93 THEN MPC=MPC-1
68. IF MPC<=0 THEN RETURN
69. GOTO @SR
70. 
    
71. @SL
72. IF VAR==0 THEN RETURN
73. PC=PC+1:GOSUB @CYCLE
74. GPAGE 1:C=GSPOIT(PC%256,PC/256)
75. IF C==91 THEN MPC=MPC-1
76. IF C==93 THEN MPC=MPC+1
77. IF MPC<=0 THEN RETURN
78. GOTO @SL
79. 
    
80. @END
81. WAIT 600
82. END
83. 
    
84. @PLOP
85. DATA "-[>-[.-]<]"
86. DATA ">>++++[.->++++++[.-]<]"
87. DATA ""
88. 
    
89. @CAT
90. DATA ",[.,]"
91. DATA ""
92. 
    
93. @HELLO
94. DATA "+++++ +++++ [>+++++++"
95. DATA ">+++++ +++++ >+++ >+ <<<<-]"
96. DATA ">++.>+.+++++++ ..+++.>++.<<"
97. DATA "+++++ +++++ +++++"
98. DATA ".>.+++. ------ .----- --- .>+.>."
99. DATA ""

Raspberry Pi Journal #28

Trademark Rule

If you noticed, the Raspberry Pi directory page now sports the disclaimer that Raspberry Pi trademark is owned by the Foundation. It's actually common sense, but just to clarify, this site is not affiliated with the Foundation in any way, and the posts here are my posts. So, any mistakes I made here is my responsibility. What goes on this are strictly my opinion, etc.

The full trademark rule can be found here:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/trademark-rules

I'm at odds here. It's too inconvenient for me to put the disclaimer on every Raspberry Pi posts, and yet, this blog has more with common, everyday, accessible technology than focusing entirely on Raspberry Pi. How else do you think Cooking is included?

In the end, I decided to just apply it to Raspberry Pi specific page, and that is the directory page. I hope that is enough.

Come to think of it, there is a rule that says:

(ii)         use the Raspberry Pi Word Mark as part of the domain name for your website;

And there are actually several web/blog sites that does feature the word "raspberrypi". The obvious one would be

http://www.theraspberrypiguy.com/

who did several excellent video tutorials regarding the device, but no trademark disclaimer anywhere.

Anyway, I hope I make it clear that I'm not affiliated with the Foundation in any way, except as a happy customer.