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Last night I was playing Time's Up at a friend's place, and we were using the trusty G8 Game Timer to keep time instead of the silly egg timer that comes with that otherwise fantastic game. (Help a fellow Invisioner out, go buy six copies now. :))
So anyhow, we got to thinking, we had a laptop with a nice big screen handy, wouldn't it be neat (and far easier to see from across the room than the G8) to use that as a clock display? We have a lot of game show nuts here, and many of them can code, so does anyone know of a standard countdown timer (along the lines of a basketball shot clock or the "Clock in the wings" on Clark Pyramid) that has been written for Windows? Here's my ideal feature list:
* Easy-to-click buttons onscreen (and/or distinct keyboard commands) for Start / Pause, Stop / Clear, and Reset Clock. Ideally Start Clock would both reset and start clock when clock is at :00.
* Either font-changable, or a number of different game-show type numerical fonts (Eggcrate, seven-segment, vein) could be selected. Color of font and background should be customizable, and an extra added bonus would be for those colors to change upon clock expiry.
* Fills up the screen when maximized. As in, if it's set for 60 seconds, there is no trailing "0" in the minutes column. Just a "60", with or without the leading colon. (Really, it ought to fill up the window, whatever size the window is.)
* Offers a toggle to turn tenths-of-a-second on and off.
* Will play the WAV of your choice when the clock hits zero.
* Will LOOP the WAV of your choice while clock is running. (good for Scrabble "ticka-ticka-ticka" or Pyramid "wah")
* Offers both count-up and countdown modes.
I'm aware of Curt's Wonderwall clock, but that has the Wonderwall doohickies onscreen as well, and I'm looking for something that could be suited to several game-show-esque and other gaming functions. Plus I want those numbers to FILL UP the screen, at least as much as we can and still have the controls be convenient.
So did someone write this and I don't know about it? It strikes me that it wouldn't be THAT hard to write, and while I'm pretty 'tarded when it comes to Visual C++, I'm not THAT awful, and maybe this would be a good Visual Basic project, just for learning purposes. Seems like it would be easy to write something basic and then add on options until it became pretty ub3rl33t.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jan 3 2005, 04:04 AM\']So did someone write this and I don't know about it? It strikes me that it wouldn't be THAT hard to write, and while I'm pretty 'tarded when it comes to Visual C++, I'm not THAT awful, and maybe this would be a good Visual Basic project, just for learning purposes. Seems like it would be easy to write something basic and then add on options until it became pretty ub3rl33t.
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I've got something that's currently in the ballpark. I use it as a form just to play around with various things, so it's not exactly production quality.
Timer program (Pre-alpha to say the least) (http://\"http://www.personal.psu.edu/kag270/Timer.exe\")
The "Open File" button lets you select a file to be used as the background (but it doesn't currently loop). Place a file with the name "buzzer.wav" in the same directory as the program to indicate a timesup sound. The "Change Color" button randomly changes the background color of the clock. Reset does little more than open the controls back up, as it stands now. I've disabled window resizing (so I didn't have to take everything else off the form).
It's on the right track, hopefully! I don't yet know the time commitment my classes will require this semester. After fall semester's programming bonanza (don't ask), it may be a little while before I feel like doing it in my spare time, either.
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I've got a ghetto scoreboard I made for my school's basketball team, and you can find it at
http://www.pacdudegames.com/scoreboard.swf (http://\"http://www.pacdudegames.com/scoreboard.swf\")
That can be fullscreened (hit F11), and to avoid screen clutter, it uses keyboard shortcuts:
CLOCK
A - Start Clock
S - Stop Clock
D - Reset Scoreboard to 8:00
F - Subtract One Minute
G - Add One Minute
SCORES
Z - Add 1 Point to Home
X - Subtract 1 Point to Home
C - Add 1 Point to Away
V - Subtract 1 Point to Away
OTHER
Q - Bonus Light Home Toggle
P - Bonus Light Away Toggle
M - Buzzer
N - Period Indicator
Left Arrow - Posession Arrow Away
Right Arrow - Posession Arrow Home
Of course, this is basketball, but I can edit/change almost anything. The extreme timer stuff I'm not sure if I can do. Customizability in terms of sound and color might be feasible.
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A quick Google search showed Big Time (http://\"http://www.hahntech.com/BigTime.htm\"), as well as 1time (http://\"http://www.atma-software.com/1time/\").
I haven't tested either of them to see if they do what you want.
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This sounds like about 10 minutes of programming in Visual BASIC.
I wrote one for a run-thru using (get this): an old 8086 machine that was lying around gathering dust. I upgraded it to DOS 5.0 and wrote it in QuickBASIC. You whippersnappers remember DOS, don't you? It's what we geezers used back in the olden days. There were no TrueType fonts and no sound effects (SFX were done manually) and it fed a standard video monitor using -- get ready now -- a CGA card! With no TrueType fonts I had to write the low-level code to render the numerals (your basic egg-crate font). It counted down from 30 to 0 with a tap of the space bar. It could be stopped in mid-count by tapping the space bar again, or allowed to count all the way down to 0. In either case, when the clock stopped counting, it paused for five seconds and reset itself to 30 again. This turned out to be a VERY handy feature. If you want the code, email me.
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[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Jan 10 2005, 07:00 AM\']This sounds like about 10 minutes of programming in Visual BASIC.
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I'm thinking so too. And since I have Visual Basic .NET now, I'm thinking it might be a simple, usable, and extensible first project for it. I just need to pick up a copy of VB.NET For Utter Maroons at my local Overly Inviting Book Emporium.
You whippersnappers remember DOS, don't you? It's what we geezers used back in the olden days.
This made me smile. I picked up a new bookcase last week, and I was cleaning some stuff out of the old one in the process of transferring books from the old to the new, so I can turn an empty shelf so made from this process into more storage for my DVD collection. The stuff that was going was largely unread issues of Microsoft Certified Professional magazine (they start sending them to you when you pass your first MCSE test, and they don't stop until you yell at them for a while) and oooooooold software manuals. PFS: First Choice? Out. The first version of Microsoft Works For Windows? No thanks, I've been through about four versions of Office since. Is this a modem manual? Do I even HAVE this modem anymore? Stacker 3.0? Yeesh, why the hell did I ever use that to start with? (Answer, for the whippersnappers: my first drive in my first PC (I was an Apple II user up until '91) was 80 megabytes. That's mega, with an M, not giga.)
But I couldn't throw away my DOS 5 command reference. That's command line, man. I still use that. And I think someplace I still have a fully boxed-up retail DOS 4.1.
There were no TrueType fonts and no sound effects (SFX were done manually) and it fed a standard video monitor using -- get ready now -- a CGA card!
For those scoring at home, both TrueType and sound card support in the OS were innovations that didn't come around until Windows 3.1. (And DirectX was still a solid three years away.)
In either case, when the clock stopped counting, it paused for five seconds and reset itself to 30 again. This turned out to be a VERY handy feature.
I bet. The G8 Game Timer we use is more designed as a chess clock, but it functions just fine for games where we don't want to deal with a crappy sand egg timer (or as a shot clock in Password, where one isn't included). No real function to stop the clock, but hitting the big blue button both resets the clock to whatever and starts it counting down.
If you want the code, email me.
I know Quick was the predecessor to Visual....is the code close enough that any of it would be useful in a Visual environment? If so I may take you up on that at some point. In fact.....
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[quote name=\'pacdude\' date=\'Jan 9 2005, 08:11 PM\']Of course, this is basketball, but I can edit/change almost anything. The extreme timer stuff I'm not sure if I can do. Customizability in terms of sound and color might be feasible.
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Good try, but when I timed it against a :30 TV commercial, it ran :23 off the clock, making each "second" worth about 1¼ seconds. Also, any chance you can make it a football clock, with down and yardage indicators?
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[quote name=\'byrd62\' date=\'Jan 13 2005, 08:37 PM\'][quote name=\'pacdude\' date=\'Jan 9 2005, 08:11 PM\']Of course, this is basketball, but I can edit/change almost anything. The extreme timer stuff I'm not sure if I can do. Customizability in terms of sound and color might be feasible.
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Good try, but when I timed it against a :30 TV commercial, it ran :23 off the clock, making each "second" worth about 1¼ seconds. Also, any chance you can make it a football clock, with down and yardage indicators?
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Oh, thanks. Make me seem like a rookie. :-P I can make it a football clock, but since the timer is crap, why bother?
(Set the quality to either medium or low and see it. And try to time it against an actual clock.)
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jan 10 2005, 12:03 PM\']Do I even HAVE this modem anymore? Stacker 3.0? Yeesh, why the hell did I ever use that to start with? (Answer, for the whippersnappers: my first drive in my first PC (I was an Apple II user up until '91) was 80 megabytes. That's mega, with an M, not giga.)
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I've got you beat: my first computer didn't have a hard drive. It was a TI-99/4A, with programs being saved to cassette tape. Do the young farts here even know what cassettes are? :-p
Of course, I'm sure Matt, the other Chris, and the rest of the senior set will regale us of their stories when the only computer and broadcasting equipment available had vacuum tubes and stored data on punch cards....
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Didn't the Neanderthals use those to listen to music? Or something?
As a note of comparison my first computer, a C64, had 1/250,000th of the hard drive that my current computer does.
ObGameShows: Didn't TPIR give away Commodores eons ago?
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[quote name=\'TLEberle\' date=\'Jan 13 2005, 09:17 PM\']As a note of comparison my first computer, a C64, had 1/250,000th of the hard drive that my current computer does.
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I was lookin' at yesterday's Fry's ad (the P-I is good enough to scan their advertisements for the Web site), and I noticed they have a 250 GB drive on sale for $125.
That's 50 cents per 500 MB of space, or .1 cents per megabyte.
To wit, I once paid $300 for a 700 MB drive. Right around 42.9 cents per.
A 42,900% decrease.
Oy.
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[quote name=\'TLEberle\' date=\'Jan 13 2005, 08:17 PM\']As a note of comparison my first computer, a C64, had 1/250,000th of the hard drive that my current computer does.
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Shouldn't that be zero percent of the hard drive of your current computer? C64's didn't have built-in hard drives. (I know third-party manufacturers came out with external hard drives for the Atari 8-bit computers relatively late in their product lifetimes, so I assume the same is true for the C64, although they would of course have been ridiculously expensive at the time -- even more expensive and smaller than the $300 700MB drive Chris mentioned above.)
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Back when I was in high school... we got a new 540 MB hard drive for the computer lab. We popped it in one of our state of the art 486 DX-4 100 MHz machines... and fired it up. One of the guys said... "There is NO WAY we would ever fill this up!!"
Today... 1 have 2 180 GB hard drives on a RAID. Once I got it up and running... I heard myself say outlud... "There is NO WAY I will ever fill this up!!"
How times change...
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[quote name=\'Fedya\' date=\'Jan 13 2005, 11:07 PM\']
I've got you beat: my first computer didn't have a hard drive. It was a TI-99/4A, with programs being saved to cassette tape. Do the young farts here even know what cassettes are? :-p
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The Commodore VIC-20 also had a Datasette which would save programs to cassette tapes. Not to mention it had a whopping 5K of memory built in :) But I'm sure some still made mini-game show programs in BASIC on it.
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[quote name=\'TLEberle\' date=\'Jan 13 2005, 11:17 PM\']
ObGameShows: Didn't TPIR give away Commodores eons ago?
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Yeah they gave away Commodore 64's in the mid 80s as shopping era WOF, All New LMAD, and $25K Pyramid did. In 1980, Face the Music gave away a Commodore PET as the one prize to a champ who won at the $1K level, and the contestant wasn't too excited about it.
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[quote name=\'trainman\' date=\'Jan 13 2005, 11:55 PM\'][quote name=\'TLEberle\' date=\'Jan 13 2005, 08:17 PM\']As a note of comparison my first computer, a C64, had 1/250,000th of the hard drive that my current computer does.
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Shouldn't that be zero percent of the hard drive of your current computer? C64's didn't have built-in hard drives. (I know third-party manufacturers came out with external hard drives for the Atari 8-bit computers relatively late in their product lifetimes, so I assume the same is true for the C64, although they would of course have been ridiculously expensive at the time -- even more expensive and smaller than the $300 700MB drive Chris mentioned above.)
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And here's the proof...
http://members.optusnet.com.au/vortex69/HD...HD-HISTORY.html (http://\"http://members.optusnet.com.au/vortex69/HD-HISTORY/C64HD-HISTORY.html\")
The C64 had a much richer history outside of the U.S., so a lot of the third-party stuff never made it here.
--Mike
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[quote name=\'Fedya\' date=\'Jan 13 2005, 11:07 PM\'][quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jan 10 2005, 12:03 PM\']Do I even HAVE this modem anymore? Stacker 3.0? Yeesh, why the hell did I ever use that to start with? (Answer, for the whippersnappers: my first drive in my first PC (I was an Apple II user up until '91) was 80 megabytes. That's mega, with an M, not giga.)
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I've got you beat: my first computer didn't have a hard drive. It was a TI-99/4A, with programs being saved to cassette tape. Do the young farts here even know what cassettes are? :-p
Of course, I'm sure Matt, the other Chris, and the rest of the senior set will regale us of their stories when the only computer and broadcasting equipment available had vacuum tubes and stored data on punch cards....
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Yep, I remember those days. I think I've got y'all (well, the older folks) beat. My first PC was the VIC 20 (which was advertised as competing with the Atari and Intellivision game systems). It didn't have a hard drive, but had a 5K RAM. You could run some decent programs on it like a "Space Invaders" or a "Pac-Man" cover. One of my game show ideas started there, then migrated to my next PC (IBM clone with a 40MB HD).
Now, I've had this for 2 1/2 years (80GB HD). The only thing I've had done to it so far is replace my expensive LCD monitor for a standard (and used the extra money to buy "Roller Coaster Tycoon 3".)
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Chalk up another VIC 20 owner here. I got mine for $85 at a local discount store. I was probably in 6th or 7th grade at the time, and my dad made me pay part of the cost because he was sure I'd never use it and wanted me to have a stake in it. It did have 5K of memory but only 3,583 bytes free for use after booting. I had a cheap off-brand cassette deck for it. Then I got a 3K expander and later, a whopping 16K. I'm pretty sure I wrote some game show software for it in BASIC (though I may have used some Assembly language for graphics speed).
Anyway, Dad made no further noises when I moved up to a C-64, then an Amiga, and finally a good old standard-issue IBM compatible.
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[quote name=\'Mike Tennant\' date=\'Jan 14 2005, 11:04 AM\']Chalk up another VIC 20 owner here. I got mine for $85 at a local discount store. I was probably in 6th or 7th grade at the time, and my dad made me pay part of the cost because he was sure I'd never use it and wanted me to have a stake in it. It did have 5K of memory but only 3,583 bytes free for use after booting. I had a cheap off-brand cassette deck for it. Then I got a 3K expander and later, a whopping 16K.
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I had a Commodore 128 for about six years, and only the Commodore 64 feature of it was ever used.
One of the computer magazines at the time, the now defunct Computer's Gazette IIRC, said there was a way to expand the Vic20 to 64K. Anyone ever try to do it? The most I expanded my Vic 20 to was 16K.
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[quote name=\'sshuffield70\' date=\'Jan 14 2005, 07:54 AM\']The only thing I've had done to it so far is replace my expensive LCD monitor for a standard (and used the extra money to buy "Roller Coaster Tycoon 3".)
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...and we thank you for your purchase!
Didn't like your flatscreen, tho, hmm? I LOVE mine.
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[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Jan 14 2005, 11:10 AM\']I had a Commodore 128 for about six years, and only the Commodore 64 feature of it was ever used.
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As all the Commodore 64 users start to "come out".....:) Add my name to the list, too.
Your comment, though, Zach, makes me wonder - was the Commdore 128 side ever used for ANYTHING?? Pretty much every piece of software I ever came across said it worked on a Commodore 128 in C64 mode..
ObGameShows: "Wheel of Fortune" was the first game show game I had for my C64. :)
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Forgive the delayed reaction...[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Jan 10 2005, 09:00 AM\']This sounds like about 10 minutes of programming in Visual BASIC.
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It depends on the bells and whistles, but for your basic 160x100 pixel, 18-pt. font, 60-second countdown with "Time's Up" pop-up, 10 minutes sounds about right.
This is my query: I use VB6. When it comes to making game show recreations, is it advantageous to upgrade to VB.NET or is 6.0 sufficient?
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[quote name=\'GS Warehouse\' date=\'Jan 14 2005, 11:10 AM\']This is my query: I use VB6. When it comes to making game show recreations, is it advantageous to upgrade to VB.NET or is 6.0 sufficient?
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I have .NET, but I'm sure 6.0 is more than fine.
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In the recent past they have used VB6 at CBS Electronics where, among other things, they wrote an interface for the Family Feud board currently in use.
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Not only did I have a VIC-20 (never got any expanded memory for it, either) with the Datasette, I still, if I can find it, have a cassette on which I, once upon a time, recorded a really cheap version of PYL I wrote using a random number generator...
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[quote name=\'rigsby\' date=\'Jan 14 2005, 05:15 PM\']Not only did I have a VIC-20 (never got any expanded memory for it, either) with the Datasette, I still, if I can find it, have a cassette on which I, once upon a time, recorded a really cheap version of PYL I wrote using a random number generator...
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I do remember the random number generator function for the VIC-20 22 years after the fact :)
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I think I've got most of ya beat... The good ole Kaypro... Memory? HA!! 64k of memory, no hard drive... And not nearly as fun as Ghostbusters and Summer Games, and best of all, Oh, what was that Donald Duck's Playland, or something like that?? Those were the bomb on the C64, but ya gotta admit, if anyone's had a Kaypro... They were the bomb as well!
Not to mention that WHOPPING 300 baud modem! RIP ROARIN NOW!
http://obsoletecomputermuseum.org/kaypro4/ (http://\"http://obsoletecomputermuseum.org/kaypro4/\")
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[quote name=\'TunaHead\' date=\'Jan 14 2005, 07:45 PM\']I think I've got most of ya beat... The good ole Kaypro... Memory? HA!! 64k of memory, no hard drive... And not nearly as fun as Ghostbusters and Summer Games, and best of all, Oh, what was that Donald Duck's Playland, or something like that?? Those were the bomb on the C64, but ya gotta admit, if anyone's had a Kaypro... They were the bomb as well!
Not to mention that WHOPPING 300 baud modem! RIP ROARIN NOW!
http://obsoletecomputermuseum.org/kaypro4/ (http://\"http://obsoletecomputermuseum.org/kaypro4/\")
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Was this the same Kaypro computer given away a few times on LMAD84?
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[quote name=\'TunaHead\' date=\'Jan 14 2005, 07:45 PM\']Not to mention that WHOPPING 300 baud modem! RIP ROARIN NOW!
http://obsoletecomputermuseum.org/kaypro4/ (http://\"http://obsoletecomputermuseum.org/kaypro4/\")
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The 300 baud modem was what I first jumped online with back in the fall of 1990; one of the local BBS's had a game called "Bit Spin" which was exactly like Wheel. Well, needless to say, it didn't take me long to get the high score.......
Funny to think when upgrading to 2400 the next summer, it seemed lightning fast, and now I'm in speeds of excess of 250,000 bps.....lol
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jan 13 2005, 08:36 PM\'][quote name=\'TLEberle\' date=\'Jan 13 2005, 09:17 PM\']As a note of comparison my first computer, a C64, had 1/250,000th of the hard drive that my current computer does.
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I was lookin' at yesterday's Fry's ad (the P-I is good enough to scan their advertisements for the Web site), and I noticed they have a 250 GB drive on sale for $125.
That's 50 cents per 500 MB of space, or .1 cents per megabyte.
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*does math*
But Chris, wouldn't it be 50 cents for 1 GB rather than 500 MB?
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[quote name=\'rigsby\' date=\'Jan 14 2005, 05:15 PM\']Not only did I have a VIC-20 (never got any expanded memory for it, either) with the Datasette, I still, if I can find it, have a cassette on which I, once upon a time, recorded a really cheap version of PYL I wrote using a random number generator...
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I remember writing a coin flip program using the TI-99/4A's 'random' number generator, although this was before I knew what "pseudorandom" meant.
I also wrote a program to simulate a WOF wheel, although instead of a wheel, it was a line of dollar values in which the pointer would go off the right side of the screen and return on the left side. You had to provide the puzzles yourself. :-)
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jan 14 2005, 11:55 AM\'][quote name=\'sshuffield70\' date=\'Jan 14 2005, 07:54 AM\']The only thing I've had done to it so far is replace my expensive LCD monitor for a standard (and used the extra money to buy "Roller Coaster Tycoon 3".)
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...and we thank you for your purchase!
Didn't like your flatscreen, tho, hmm? I LOVE mine.
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Oh, no! I LOVED IT!! Problem is the damn thing broke........after the warranty ran out...............
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*does math*
But Chris, wouldn't it be 50 cents for 1 GB rather than 500 MB?
That's what I got. About a year ago someone walked by a HD display at Fry's Electronices and remarked, "Look at that -- a dollar a gig." Now it's half.
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[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Jan 15 2005, 11:10 AM\']
*does math*
But Chris, wouldn't it be 50 cents for 1 GB rather than 500 MB?
That's what I got. About a year ago someone walked by a HD display at Fry's Electronices and remarked, "Look at that -- a dollar a gig." Now it's half.
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Yeah, you guys are right. I can't even plead early in the morning for screwing up the math. I just plain botched it.
Makes my point all the more vivid, though.