14 Aug
1999
14 Aug
'99
9:26 a.m.
Tim Shoppa wrote:
On the old "Beagle Bag" collection for the
Apple ][, there were some
impressively done programs in "Magic Pack". In one of them, you
are directed to hold a playing card up to the screen, type "RUN", and
the computer scanned the card and told you what type it was. In another,
called "Plenty Questions" (like 20 Questions), the computer asks a bunch
of Yes/No questions which you answer and are typed in. And the computer
could guess it right 100% of the time.
I have a copy of the disk but no manual, so I had to figure out what trick
each program used by going through the listing. Try _that_ with the latest
Microsoft technology!
Of course, "Magic Pack" depended on a good
amount of showmanship on
the part of the computer's owner as he dupes his friends into believing
the mystical powers that his lowly Apple ][ has acquired. And not
doing the tricks so often that the audience figures out what's going
on!
There is a third program in the set, in which you and the computer alternate
typing in words. The trick is that each word needs to begin with the letter
that the last word ended with.
One of the best parts of the design of the programs is that each one has a
set of defaults in case you don't know the trick. With the playing-card
scanner, if you really DO type "RUN" (or anything that doesn't correspond
to
an actual card) it goes through its scanning routine and then comes up with
"PLAYING CARD" (instead of "ACE OF SPADES" or whatever). With Plenty
Questions, if you don't use the special key sequence that puts it in
"magic"
mode but just answer the questions normally, it will choose your object from
a set of canned choices. Seeing the canned choices is almost better than
seeing the magic behavior of the program.
-- Derek