Author:

• Name: Mary Ann Horton
  Location: US - United States of America (United States)
  
  

To build:

make all

To use:

./horton A B C D

A, B, C and D are numeric arguments.

Try:

./try.sh

Alternate code:

This confuses cb greatly. See horton.alt.c for an unobfuscated/enhanced version.

Alternate build:

make alt

Alternate use:

./horton.alt A B C D

Where A, B, C and D are numbers like with horton.

Alternate try:

./try.alt.sh

Judges’ remarks:

Try to figure out how this program prints, for a given slope, the right character. And for extra credit, try to figure out which character is at the bottom of this hint file. :-)

You might be interested in the author’s article that they cite towards the end of their remarks, included as PDF files for your convenience, the full newsletter and a PDF file of just the pages cited.

Author’s remarks:

Run it with any 4 numeric arguments, e.g. ./horton 3 2 1 0. Play with the numbers to get a pleasing result, or use it for your high school algebra class.

SPOILER:

As should be obvious from 20 feet away, the program is a cubic plotter. It plots against certain artists, splattering their cubes with graphs of their cubic equations. Those dastardly arguments are mere coefficients, cogs in the wheels of the grand plot to overthrow the cubics!

Oh, by the way, it uses a self-contained graphtab and frame buffer. It’s easily modified to graph any 96x160 bitmap on a dumb terminal.

See the gtface program for another example. Try:

make gtface
./gtface < gtface.data

For more information, see my article

Using GraphTab; USENIX ;login: Sept/Oct 1992, pages 28-31.

              MMMM,M,MM"MM,,,
           ,,MMMMMMMMM"""""""",
          ,MMMMM"""            ",
         ,MMM"                   "
         MMM                      M
         MM
         MM" "                     M
          M " , ,,,,,     ,,,,,,,,,MM
          "MMMM"M,MMMMM MMMM M M"MMM,
         ,M"MMMM"MM"MMM""M""MMMM""M"M
          , MM M M,M M"  "M",, M "M "
          M ,M,"    ,M    "M, ,,,", M
           M , M"MMM",,M,M,,""" , ,
          ",," , " "MMMMMMMM "   , "
           ,M , ""M,MMMMMMMM,M " ,,
           ,MM, MMMMMMMMMMMMMM,", M,
            M,M,MM"M"M" """M"MM,M M
           ,MMMMMM M,MMMMM"M MM""M
          M MMMMMM,M M"M"" M MMMM", ,
           "M"MMMMMMMMMM"M ,MMMMM M  ,,
         "" MMMMMMM,M,MM,M,,,MMM"M    ,
       ," , "MMMMMMM"MM"M,,,,MMMMM ,   ,,
       M  ," MMMMMM"MM""M ,MMMMM,M,    M
      ,      MMMM,MMMM"M"M"M,MM,M,",    "

Inventory for 1994/horton

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Primary files

• horton.c - entry source
• Makefile - entry Makefile
• horton.alt.c - alternative source
• horton.orig.c - original source
• gtface.c - gtface source code
• try.alt.sh - how to run alternative code
• try.sh - how to run
• login_sept92-pp28-31.pdf - login article on graphics for dumb terminals
• gtface.data - data for gtfsace
• 1994_horton.tar.bz2 - download entry source

Secondary files

• index.html - entry home page
• README.md - markdown source for index.html
• .entry.json - description of entry in JSON
• .gitignore - list of files that should not be committed under git
• .path - directory path from top directory