Helps choose between alternatives by weighting the factors that matter to you. You first say whether you are choosing an item (a printer, a stereo…), a course of action, or deciding yes or no, then enter the possibilities and the factors one at a time, typing END to finish each list; at least two possibilities and one factor are required. You pick the most important factor, which gets a value of 10, and rate the importance of every other factor from 0 to 10 against it. Then, one factor at a time, the program gives one possibility a 10 and asks you to rate each other possibility higher or lower, before naming the best choice and giving each possibility a percentage rating. A closing menu lets you go back and change entries or add more factors or possibilities.
The REM banner reads “Decision Maker, ©1987 Byte Power, written by Kristian Boisvert”. It was published on the Byte Power Spring 1987 tape (Issue 7) as a personal utility.
Program Analysis
The BASIC is only a loader; the program is a 10,460-byte machine code block loaded at 49965 and entered at 50900, which holds all the prompts quoted above. Line 9000 clears the screen, prints the title and “STILL LOADING…”, and loads the code with the ink set to white; RUN then reaches line 1, which calls RANDOMIZE USR 50900 and does NEW when the program ends. The stored listing below matches the tape.
Notable Techniques
- Byte Power’s backup convention: with
POKE 23681,0entered before loading, line 1 falls through to line 2, which lists line 9999, the line that saves and verifies both the BASIC and the code. - Pairwise relative rating (each option against a reference of 10 per factor) combined with factor weights, turned into a percentage score per option.
Image Gallery
Source Code
0 REM DECISION MAKER ©1987 BYTE POWER WRITTEN BY KRISTIAN BOISVERT
1 IF PEEK 23681<>0 THEN PRINT AT 0,0;: RANDOMIZE USR 50900: NEW
2 CLS : LIST 9999: STOP
9000 INK 0: PAPER 7: BORDER 7: CLS : PRINT AT 8,9;"DECISION MAKER";AT 12,0;"STILL LOADING..."
9010 INK 7: LOAD ""CODE : INK 0: RUN
9999 SAVE "DECISION" LINE 9000: SAVE "DECISION"CODE 49965,10460: VERIFY "DECISION": VERIFY "DECISION"CODE Note: Type-in program listings on this website use ZMAKEBAS notation for graphics characters.