PIIIC_03

I suck at maths.

I really, really suck at maths.

Given my ambitions, that I really, really, really suck at maths is an ever-so-slight problem.

So, I’ve begun to develop quick-and-dirty-and-ugly programs to further my mathematical ability; PIIIC_03 {source code & compiled:Mac OS pre-X} is the latest of those programs, a – like PIIIC_02 – 3D model viewer; where PIIIC_03 differs from PIIIC_02 is that the 3D model may be rotated about any axis, not just the y axis.

Pressing the x, y, or z key will set the current axis; pressing the left and right arrow keys will rotate the 3D model about the current axis; pressing the up and down arrow keys will zoom the 3D model out and in; and the program may be quit by pressing the escape key.

PIIIC_03 was developed on an Apple Power Macintosh 8100 in (HEAVY) METAL BASIC compiled with my HEAVY METAL 1.0ß and Galactic Dreams Software’s METAL 1.0ß.

PIIIC_02

I suck at maths.

I really, really suck at maths.

Given my ambitions, that I really, really, really suck at maths is an ever-so-slight problem.

So, I’ve begun to develop quick-and-dirty-and-ugly programs to further my mathematical ability; PIIIC_02 {source code & compiled:Mac OS pre-X} – a 3D model viewer – is the latest of those programs; the 3D model may be rotated about the y axis by pressing the left and right arrow keys and may be zoomed in and out by pressing the down and up arrow keys respectively; perspective may be turned on and off by pressing the 1 and 0 keys respectively; and the program may be quit by pressing the escape key.

PIIIC_02 was developed on an Apple Macintosh 8100 in (HEAVY) METAL BASIC compiled with my HEAVY METAL 1.0ß and Galactic Dreams Software’s METAL 1.0ß.

Mark’s Math ‘Mogrifier

METAL is a freeware BASIC IDE by Marin Saric of Galactic Dreams Software, and is quite a capable development tool if you’re into lateral-thinking-to-overcome-the-limitations-of-the-language-development…

However, the language has a few limitations that I feel merely irritate rather than present a challenge to overcome: no support for multiple files, no support for named constants, no requirement that variables be declared/no scoping of variables, no support for parameterised functions, … So, I began to develop a utility to extend the language to remedy those limitations.

Mark’s Math ‘Mogrifier {source code|compiled:Mac OS pre-X} is… …not that utility.

Partway through the development of that utility I realised that if the extensions to the language were to include parameterised functions, then the developer could easily pass expressions, and not merely constants or variables, to the parameters of the functions; unfortunately, I had no experience writing code which parsed expressions…

So, I developed Mark’s Math ‘Mogrifier, a quick-and-dirty calculator, to gain experience writing code which parsed expressions before I resumed development of that utility.

Mark’s Math ‘Mogrifier is pretty limited, and only supports the operators +-*/^ and parentheses; type in an expression, press the Return key, and the expression will be solved, with the calculator showing each step in the solution.

Mark’s Math ‘Mogrifier was developed on an Apple Power Macintosh 8100 in C++ compiled with Metrowerks CodeWarrior IDE 2.1 (Discover Programming Edition.)