Author:

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

To build:

    make all

There is an unobfuscated and enhanced version provided by the author. See Alternate code below.

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 and enhanced version.

Alternate build:

    make alt

Alternate use:

    ./horton.alt A B C D

Where A, B, C and D are numbers, just 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 a PDF file for your convenience.

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.

NOTICE to those who wish for a greater challenge:

If you want a greater challenge, don’t read any further: just try to understand the program via the source.

If you get stuck, come back and read below for additional hints and information.

What this entry does:

As should be obvious from 20 feet away, the program is a cubic plotter. It plots against certain arguments, 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

How this entry works:

For more information, see my article

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

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        ,MMMMM"""            ",
       ,MMM"                   "
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       MM
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        "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,",    "

Primary files

• horton.c - entry source code
• Makefile - entry Makefile
• horton.alt.c - author provided unobfuscated and enhanced code
• horton.orig.c - original source code
• gtface.c - gtface source code
• try.alt.sh - script to try alternate code
• try.sh - script to try entry
• login_sept92-pp28-31.pdf - login article on graphics for dumb terminals
• gtface.data - data for gtfsace

Secondary files

• 1994_horton.tar.bz2 - download entry tarball
• README.md - markdown source for this web page
• .entry.json - entry summary and manifest in JSON
• .gitignore - list of files that should not be committed under git
• .path - directory path from top level directory
• index.html - this web page

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