Knitting Contest Entry

A set of short knitting programs. GAUGE asks how many centimeters a swatch of 40 stitches by 60 rows measures and reports stitches and rows per inch. GAUGECHART prints a table of swatch widths from 10 to 22 cm with the inch equivalent and the stitch and row gauge for each. PTRNBACK draws the outline of a sweater back with PLOT and DRAW, including curved armholes. Two display pieces complete the tape: FLOWERS builds a potted flower from user-defined graphics, and THEANSWER flashes a block-letter message through four color schemes.

The loader screen reads “* CONTEST ENTRY * By DOROTHEA BUNDY” with an address in Ventura, California. It was an entry in the SyncWare News programming contest, whose results appeared in SyncWare News volume 3, number 4 (March–April 1986).

Program Analysis

Program Structure

The tape holds six separate BASIC programs, each saved with LINE 0 so that it runs when loaded:

• CONTEST: a title screen in several ink colors with a flashing LOADING prompt, which then loads GAUGECHART
• GAUGECHART: a FOR loop that steps the swatch width CM by 0.1 and prints CM*0.4 inches, 40/CM*2.54 stitches and 60/CM*2.54 rows per inch
• GAUGE: two INPUTs and the same formulas, rounded to two decimal places
• PTRNBACK: a closed outline of seven DRAW segments, with arcs of .4*PI for the armholes
• FLOWERS: defines 20 UDGs (A–T) from DATA and prints 17 of them in a picture four rows high and five characters wide
• THEANSWER: draws the message in eight rows of solid and blank block graphics, cycling white, magenta, blue and green paper five times each

Notable Techniques

• In THEANSWER the letters are formed by the gaps left between solid blocks, and spell JESUS.
• FLOWERS uses POKE USR "A"+x,n in a separate loop for each UDG.
• The loader prints each part of the address in a different ink color in one PRINT statement, using embedded AT, INK, PAPER and FLASH items.

Potential Issues

• Only CONTEST loads another program; the other four have to be loaded by hand after GAUGECHART.
• GAUGECHART rounds with +0.05 instead of +0.5, so its figures are effectively truncated, and its 121 lines of output stop at the scroll? prompt. The loop variable C is never used.
• In PTRNBACK, the first line reads DRAW 50,0*.3*PI. That evaluates to a straight DRAW 50,0 and may be a typo for DRAW 50,0,.3*PI.
• FLOWERS opens a FOR X=2 TO 16 loop that has no NEXT, so the picture is printed only once. UDGs A, D, E, S and T are defined as blank.
• THEANSWER sets FLASH 1 in its first color pass and never clears it.

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Source Code

  300 CLS : PRINT TAB 6;"STITCH AND ROW GAUGE": PRINT 
  310 PRINT TAB 2;" OUR STITCH AND ROW GAUGE IS";TAB 6;"BASED ON A SWATCH OF";TAB 4;" 40 STITCHES BY 60 ROWS": PRINT 
  320 REM 40 STITCHES/C * 2.54=STITCHES PER 1" 
  325 REM 60 ROWS/CM * 2.54=ROWS PER 1"
  330 PRINT "40 STITCHES MEASURES HOW MANY   CENTIMETERS?"
  340 INPUT C: PRINT C: PRINT 
  350 PRINT "60 ROWS MEASURES HOW MANY CENTIMETERS?"
  360 INPUT CM: PRINT CM: PRINT 
  370 LET ST=40/C*2.54: LET R=60/CM*2.54
  380 PRINT TAB 2;"STS PER INCH","ROWS PER INCH": PRINT 
  390 PRINT TAB 6;INT (ST*100+0.5)/100,TAB 21;INT (R*100+0.5)/100
 8999 STOP 
 9000 SAVE "GAUGE" LINE 0

Note: Type-in program listings on this website use ZMAKEBAS notation for graphics characters.