Trawling My Own Archives

I came across a directory in the depths of my computer's filesystem the other day, which had old programs that I wrote when I was first learning Java. It was a nostalgic experience, but needless to say, none of the programs lived up to their epic names, and most were good examples of brevity of code; there were utilities like "MailingList", which was a one-class Java program that read a text file and emailed it to a hard-coded list of addresses. Also "AutoRunSQL" would basically run a hard-coded line of SQL at regular intervals (why you would want to do this is left for the reader to guess). There was also something called "CommerceNet", which preceeded Ebay and was intended to be a protocol for buying and selling, which would have changed the world if anyone else had known about it.

However the programs were mostly games, which should come as no surprise. The first I came across is called "Mr Do". It shows how long ago I wrote it because I'd even forgotton there was an old game called Mr Do, and this is a simple but quite playable copy of it:-



There was also another arcade clone, this time Bombjack. It looks like I lost interest in this before I'd ripped all the sprites I was needed, so the player and the enemies are all squares. However, the game seems to be all there, even down to "vibrating" bombs.



Finally, what looks like a homage to old ZX Spectrum games from the early 80's, is something called "Roadster" which I have no recollection of, but that's hardly surprising since it looks like I spent a grand total of 8 minutes writing it. I've no idea what's even going on.



However, strangely, this game has given me some insperation for my next project, which will be based around laying down train lines. Nothing so complicated as Railroad Tycoon, but more of a casual puzzle game.

Look out for more programming gems coming soon! And if anyone actually wants any source code, let me know.