I am a pack rat. I keep anything and everything in the vague hope that I might need it someday. It doesn’t help when something like that does happen, and I DO need something. Then I feel vindicated and it only serves to re-enforce the behaviour. But anyway, I have these computer disks that are more than 11 years old. They are from 1994. They contain a bunch of GW-BASIC programs that I wrote. The disks are pretty damn old, and almost falling to pieces. I last used one (the one with all my code) about two years ago and did a directory listing. The only thing that did was screw it up even more. It’s now impossible to access the disk. But anyway, that’s on stupid Windows systems. I knew that I could still access data if I really wanted to - raw data. I put the disk into my FreeBSD machine and ran a dd command, while ignoring errors. It took a long time, but finally it dumped all my data out to a file. I then ran a strings command on it to get text. It was like a time-capsule. I saw all this code that I had writted more than a decade ago. I had been programming for at least two or three years then, but 1994 was when I wrote the most code, I think. I went out of my way to make the output messages from my program sound professional. But well, actually it all sounded kinda funny. However, if I hadn’t done any of that, I wouldn’t be where I am right now and I wouldn’t be doing what I do now. This was where it all started…​ where I became a programmer. Anyway, here are some snippets, along with my comments:

Mathvaders

I wanted to write a shoot 'em up game (I eventually did later). But I didn’t know the basics of collision detection, or making objects move around the screen (animation). So I was going to go text based. I was also going to make it something like a Math game or something…​ and call it Mathvaders…​ see, they invade and they make you do math, so Mathvaders. Yes. I was a smart kid. On the other hand, I have no idea why a sentient alien race would travel lightyears to Planet Earth and make you do Math. But anyway, here goes. First you have the title screen message:

MATHVADERS™ -------------- Copyright © Vivin Corporations 1995 All rights reserved

Yes, the awesome Vivin Corporations! Over the coming years, Vivin Corporations would produce even more awesome programs such as the one that emits high pitched siren wails from the computer speakers, or the one that would draw random shapes on the screen! Now I wonder what’s next…​

Hello! and Welcome to Mathvaders™. I hope you enjoy this game. This is a game made for children to enjoy mathematics. Adults can also play this game to sharpen their mathematical skills. To copy Mathvaders™ to your hard disk, just type COPYA if the backup di- sk is in the A drive or COPYB if the backup disk is in the B drive, at the DOS- prompt. To start the game, type MV at the DOS prompt. But remember…​ THIS GA- ME WILL NOT FUNCTION WITH ANY OF IT’S FILES MISSIMG!! Keep the main disk in a safe place so that you can copy the game again if the files are deleted accid- entally. Older computers may take time in displaying certain graphics. But don’t w- orry. That won’t spoil the fun of the game!!

The English sounds a little bit stilted. That’s because it’s Indian English. Also, the hyphens are at odd places because I was trying to fit the words on the screen. But I didn’t understand the rules of hyphenation whereby you are only supposed to split words between syllables.

But check it out though…​ this game is suitable for ALL AGES! I mean, come on! Isn’t that just cool? Oooh and it even has these nifty commands that can install your game for you. Oh no! What’s that warning? It says I mustn’t delete any of the files, or the game won’t work! Fair enough. Although I misspelt "missing". And that last comment…​ I don’t know about you, but slow graphics always piss me off. Ok, moving along now…​ I hope there is a story behind the Mathvader invasion:

Story

The year is 2065. Our planet, Earth, has been invaded by an alien force who call themselves the MATHVADERS. The UEF(United Earth Force) has made repeated ttempts to drive the invaders away. But each attempt has failed. So they turn to the Special Survival Team. Consisting of personnel who can accomplish the im-possible. Their best weapon is you. You are taken to the UEF headquarters and briefed on your mission. Donot fail this mission. The future of Earth is in your hands…​.

Help

The game consists of five levels each one tougher than the one before. Each MATHVADER ship will give you a sum to solve. You will gain points if you so- lve it amd negative points if you donot. If your points drop below -4 then you are finished. Solve the sums using DMAS rule.(There is no need to solve sum according to brackets.) Remember that exponentiation comes first. It is denoted by [^] sign. You cannot exit during to game so decide in the beginning.

Enemy ship type & allocation of Scores

<2+3>-Problems consisting of 2 nos. Score=1. Neg. Score=-1. Micro Ship.

<3-5*2>-Problems consisting of 3 to 5 nos. Score=2. Neg. Score=-2 Mini Ship.

[{<2/1^4*2-1+4>}]-Problems consisitng of 6 or more nos. Score=5. Neg. Score=-5. Mother Ship.

YOUR SHIP: |-=-|<^>|-=-|

Oooh! There is! As you can see, I was really into science-fiction and alien invasions and I used to believe in UFO’s and alien abductions before I became skeptical, cynical and bitter. But that’s another story. Man…​ Mathvaders huh? An entire race devoted to wiping out mathematically inferior species across the galaxy! What a gripping story though! The United Earth Force is turning to the Special Survival Team to save our beloved planet Earth! Wow! Those Special Survival Team guys must be awesome! I bet they get all the chicks! And check out the ships these SST dudes have! I don’t know if that’s a sideways view or what. I have no idea where the pilot would sit.

And the alien ships…​ I mean…​ Mathvader Ships. I wonder though…​ do they just paint the math problems on the sides? Nah…​ I bet they have a screen that displays math problems. Oh man! I so want to play this game now!

Unfortunately that was about as much as I could salvage out of there for Mathvaders. But no worries…​ there’s more!

Color Changing Something

Copyright © Vivin Corporation 1994" This program does not give the color you have chosen in all the programs becaus e the colours change according to the color programmed in the program. You have to chose the colours again because GWbasic does not save the color you have cho sen. Asoon as you choose a color GWbasic exits.

I think this program chose the color-scheme for a menu program that I wrote. My english sounds…​ so weird. This next one is classic. I don’t know what I was thinking:

COMPEDIC

10 CLS
20 PRINT "Welcome to COMPEDIC"
30 PRINT "Hallo! How are you";Q&#36;
40 INPUT "What is your name";N&#36;
50 INPUT "What are your sickness symptoms(No need of comas)";S&#36;
60 PRINT " "
70 PRINT "Ok. Your name is ";N&#36;;"and your sickness symptoms are/is ";S&#36;;". Ok Goto a Pharmacy show this prescription and take the medicine."
80 PRINT "-------------------------------------------------"
90 PRINT "|                COMPEDIC                       |"
100 PRINT "-------------------------------------------------"
110 PRINT "|                                               |"
120 PRINT "| Name:";N&#36;;"                                   |"
130 PRINT "| Symptoms:";S&#36;;"                               |"
140 PRINT "| Medicine: XXXXXXXXXX                          |"
150 PRINT "|                                               |"
160 PRINT "|                                               |"
170 PRINT "|                                               |"
180 PRINT "|                                               |"
190 PRINT "|                                               |"
200 PRINT "|                                               |"
210 PRINT "|                                               |"
220 PRINT "|                                               |"
230 PRINT "|                                               |"
240 PRINT "|                                               |"
250 PRINT "|Docotor's signature: COMPEDIC                  |"
260 PRINT "|-----------------------------------------------|"

Wow…​ I mean WOW. Anyother amazing creation from Vivin Corporations. COMPEDIC: The Computer Medic for all your Illegal Prescription Needs! So I could take this to ANY Pharmacy and they would honour it? I mean would it happen like this:

Me: Hey Pharmacy Dude, I need some Prozac, Ritalin and any other drugs that can alter my perception!
Pharmacy Dude: Do you have a prescription?
Me: Why, yes! Yes I do! (showing the prescription from COMPEDIC)
Pharmacy Dude: Woah! Is that a COMPEDIC prescription?! MAN! Those are sweet! HERE! TAKE ALL THE DRUGS YOU NEED!

We shall never know, I guess. Unless of course, one of you is willing to try this program out. Do let me know how it turns out.

Math Sums

I guess I liked Math a lot. Or maybe they were easier to code. This was one of Vivin Corporations' earliest creations. This was actually my first "game" that I wrote, and I was pretty proud of it. I only have parts of the title screen, and some messages:

MATH SUMS ---- ----

Copyright © Vivin corporations 1994 Programmed by Vivin S. Paliath(Including music). All rights reserved

Please share this programs with others as this will help them improve their math.I will also be making programs of Quiz, English etc.Please share these too. This is a Math program as stated above.It contains sums of Multiplication,Division,Addition,Subtraction and exponentiation. Hope you enjoy them!

THERE ARE 20 SUMS GIVEN IN RANDOM ORDER AND THERE ARE 3 DIFFICULTY LEVELS THE FIRST LEVEL EASY,THE SECOND HARD AND THE THIRD VERY HARD.

I guess I didn’t know that there needs to be a space after every full-stop and comma. Hmm…​ "Programmed by Vivin S. Paliath(Including music)". I don’t know why I had to point that out. I don’t recall the music being all that amazing. It was pretty horrible actually. Or didn’t amount to more than a few blips and beeps. Oh yes, what are "sums"? That’s what they are called in British or Indian English. In America, they are called "problems".

I guess the following amounts to the "boss" creature in my game. Keep in mind, that a lot of the data was corrupted, so some of the code is missing:

1240 PRINT "NOW CAN YOU FACE THE TOUGHEST,TOUGHEST,TOUGHEST SUM?(I DOUBT YOU CAN IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO DO THE TWO EASY SUMS I GAVE YOU!)"
1250 INPUT "2+2*6/6-678+1+1+1=";I

... some code missing here ...

1300 PLAY "CCCDDDEEEFFFGGGAAABBBAAADDDGGGEEE":
1310 PRINT "YOU ARE A FIRST CLASS MATHEMATICIAN(FORGIVE ME IF MY SPELLING IS WRONG.)!YOU ARE A CHAMP!!!!!!!!!!!"

Well kid, you got Mathematician spelt right. I love the part about "YOU ARE A CHAMP!!!!".

GW-BASIC Tutor

I wanted other people to experience the wonderful world of GW-BASIC:

10 CLS
20 PRINT "GWBASIC TUTOR"
30 PRINT "------- -----"
40 PRINT "Learn by Doing!!!"
50 INPUT "What is your name ?",N&#36;
60 PRINT "Ok!! Let's start! ";N&#36;
70 PLAY "l16eedddel34ddefffddl4eedccdefedl64cdgfegdfgefdgcfgefdgedfgedfcgfl4cc"
80 PRINT "Let's start with the basics! ";N&#36;
90 PRINT "Basic is the short form for Beginner's All purpose Symbolic Code. Basic is a "
100 PRINT "User Friendly language. You can write your own programs with it.
110 PRINT "The PRINT command."
120 PRINT "The print commmand is used to show something on the monitor. Eg. If you type  "
130 PRINT "Print 3+5, It will show 8 below what you have typed. There is also another way"
140 PRINT " to show the PRINT statement you can also type ?3+5 and it will show 8."

What’s with the PLAY command? I think I had just figured it out or something and decided to go overboard with it.

Vivin’s Menu

I remember having AUTOEXEC.BAT rigged up so it would start GW-BASIC on start-up, and take you to this menu. It is a lot better than it looks. I had coloured text, borders and everything:

... code missing ...

40 PRINT "Vivin's Menu"
50 PRINT "Welcome to Vivin's Menu......."
60 PRINT "Please enter your selection......."

... code missing ...

100 PRINT "(A) Math Sums                   (B) Quiztime "
110 PRINT "(C) English                     (D) Indian Anthem"
120 PRINT "(E) Math Tables                 (F) PC Organ"
130 PRINT "(G) Music                       (H) Unterlands Heimweh"
140 PRINT "(I) Student Report              (J) Face"
150 PRINT "(K) GWBasic Color               (L) GWBasic Filesee"
160 PRINT "(M) Sound Effects               (N) GWBasic System Diagnostics"
170 PRINT "(O) Directory Maker/Remover     (P) GWBasic Filename changer"
180 PRINT "(Q) Color cone                  (R)"
190 PRINT "(S)                             (T)"
200 PRINT "(U)                             (V)"
210 PRINT "(W)                             (X)"
220 PRINT "(Y)                             (Z)"

Journal Entries circa 1994

The kicker was when I found a Personal Journal program I had written. It was actually inspired by Doogie Howser’s journal program. It was a pretty decent one, actually. Although I only made four or five entries. Here they are, with my comments. I’m actually thinking of adding them to the current journal entry database:

The beginning of my Diary…​..

July 16 1994…​.Saturday

Today was the first day of school in Eight Grade It was really nice…​ we had really cool teachers…​ some of the teachers were from my old class…​ I met some of my friends…​. well, thats it for now!

Ah yes. "Eight" Grade was really fun and cool!

July 20 1994…​.Wednesday

Today we revived the ol' slashkick game. I nearly broke three fingers playing that…​But it was fun…​

I have no idea what the hell "Slashkick" is, so don’t ask. Although it does sound pretty violent.

August 2 1994…​.Tuesday

Guess what! I’m a Prefect!. Jacob told me this.. I was excited.. I was told that I would start my duty tomorrow.

Being a prefect was very prestigious. You got to boss all the other kids around and you got this blue badge too. I mean…​ OMG LOL!!! I am so EXCITED!! I AM GOING TO BE A PREFECT!!LOLOLOL!!11!

August 3 1994…​.Wednesday

My duty was reaaly fun. All I had to do was prevent students from going to the side of the lower classes so that they would not disturb them…​..

Yes fun. If by fun you mean SPENDING YOUR ENTIRE LUNCH BREAK STANDING IN ONE SPOT. That’s SO MUCH FREAKING FUN RIGHT?

August 7 1994…​.Sunday

Today our English sir told us to learn any stanza of any poem or nursery rhyme so I am learning the poem Home they brought her warrior dead. "HOME THEY…​…​"

We call our teachers "sirs" (if they are male) or "miss" or "ma’am" (if they are female). One of the things I liked to do was go to poem recitation competition. Yes I know, I was a fucking geek. It should be more than evident to you.

August 8 1994…​.Monday

Today after everybody recited the poems sir selected some of the students for the elecution and sir said that the one who recited the poem the best was…​ME!!

Of course! BECAUSE VIVIN SI TEH BEST!!LOL!!11!!

Yeah, well that’s about it. I thought it was a nice trip down memory lane. For me, anyway.