mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi) (01/14/87)
Keywords: I am currently taking a course in comparative programming languages, and part of my requirement for the course is an independent project written in a language of my choosing that I am not familiar with. The project I am currently considering is implementing a simple to moderately complex language interpreter in a compiled language like C. I remember that some years ago I read an article (I believe it might have been in Creative Computing) about a language called ZGRASS. This was an interpretive language that offered a number of powerful primitives for graphic manipulation, such as scaling, bit-image transfers, etc. I remember that it ran on the Bally Astrocade, a long-since-defunct videogame system that expanded into a full computer with a Z-80, 32K of memory, and a dedicated graphics processor. I also remember that as an interpreter, it offered a few unusual features that a language like Basic doesn't offer (such as relative instead of absolute branching). I thought it might be interesting for me to try to implement this language (or a language of my own design influenced by ZGRASS) on the Amiga. Would anybody happen to know anything about this language, and/or point me to any references? Please E-mail replies, since I do not usually read these newsgroups. Thank you in advance. -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Mike Portuesi / Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Department | | | | ARPA: mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu | | UUCP: {harvard | seismo | ucbvax | decwrl}!spice.cs.cmu.edu!mjp | | | | "Salt and pepper people, stirred not shaken" | | --Big Audio Dynamite, "C'mon Every Beatbox" | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
sierchio@milano.UUCP (01/14/87)
ZGRASS was the brainchild of Tom DeFanti in Chicago -- I believe he's still there. He was/is active in the local SIGGRAPH chapter, so get in touch with him. It was based on his GRASS. I believe that Copper Giloth may have had something yo do with its development as well. ZGRASS was very BASIC-like in its syntax and semantics, with the addition of a lot of special keywords for doing graphics operations. That was back when everyone thought BASIC was a good language for novice computer users to learn. -- Michael Sierchio @ MCC Software Technology Program UUCP: ut-sally!im4u!milano!sierchio ARPA: sierchio@mcc.ARPA "WE REVERSE THE RIGHT TO SERVE REFUSE TO ANYONE"