Lotto

Picks numbers for any lottery. You enter an upper limit from 10 to 99, how many numbers to draw (1 to 20), and whether you want a bonus number. Each pick flickers through four random values in a framed window at the top of the screen before it settles, then drops into a row of placeholder blocks below. No number is drawn twice, and the bonus number is chosen from those left over. When the draw is done, Y draws again with the same settings, C sends the screen to the printer with COPY, and Q quits.

No author is named. A REM at the top calls it a generic lottery program adapted from “Munchers” by Yin Chiu and Henry Mullish.

Program Analysis

Structure

• Lines 100–180: DIM N(99) and the three set-up prompts, each re-asked until the answer is in range.
• Lines 200–370: clear the drawn-number flags, draw the window and placeholders (subroutine 2000), then pick each number.
• Lines 380–410: the optional bonus number.
• Lines 450–480: the again/copy/quit loop.
• Lines 1000–1020: clear the screen and print the LOTTERY title. Lines 2000–2140 draw the window and placeholder blocks. Lines 3000–3110 place each number on row 12 (numbers 1–10) or row 14 (numbers 11–20).

The draw

The inner loop at lines 300–350 runs five times per number. Every value it shows must be unused, but only the fifth is marked in N() and kept. The first four are just the animation in the window. The row of numbers is centred by working out its width (H*2+(H-1)) in line 2100.

Notable Techniques

• An array of flags, N(1) to N(MAX), rejects repeats without searching the list of numbers already drawn.
• The window is drawn with block-graphic corner and edge characters in lines 2000–2020.
• The end-of-draw menu polls INKEY$ in a tight loop and calls COPY for a printed copy.

Potential Issues

• Lines 2070 and 2120 print the placeholder block at a fixed column (AT 14,1 and AT 12,X+1) instead of stepping with the loop variable I, so only one placeholder is drawn on each row.
• Drawing ten or more numbers appears to fail. For 10 numbers, X is never set on a first run, so line 3010 should stop with “Variable not found”. For 11 to 18, X is centred for the numbers left over after ten (H=Q-10), but the first ten still go on row 12 from X, and the tenth lands past column 31. Only 19 and 20, and counts below ten, appear to fit.
• Each key test in lines 452–456 reads INKEY$ again, so a key can be missed if it is released between tests.

This program came from an Oliger (JLO SAFE) disk and was converted to load from tape. The disk-specific SAVE / in line 9998 became a plain SAVE, and the program now autostarts at line 10. It was tested in ZEsarUX, drawing six numbers from 49 with a bonus number.