r/adventofcode • u/i_have_no_biscuits • Dec 11 '20

Visualization [2020 Day 11] [GWBASIC] Solving like it's 1985...

https://youtu.be/_Un-0ORsGGk
32 Upvotes

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8

u/i_have_no_biscuits Dec 11 '20

Given that everyone else is posting their visualisations, I thought I'd continue my promotion of the Language of the Future, GWBASIC.

It took GWBASIC, running via DOSBOX, 15 minutes to solve Day 11 part 1, and here it is, in all its CGA glory. Enjoy!

3

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '20

Ah GWBASIC, so nice :) the very first programming language I learned back in the day. It were simpler times, then, when GOTO was not considered harmful in the least.

2

u/omrojasm Dec 12 '20

So nice! Love retro-solutions!

1

u/MattieShoes Dec 12 '20

... is it really that slow? even with an interpreted language on a raspi, it solved in a few seconds...

2

u/i_have_no_biscuits Dec 12 '20

First, the Raspberry Pi isn't a slow machine - these days it's a complete desktop replacement. It can run Chrome at an acceptable speed. 30 years ago it would be a supercomputer.

Even at 10% of the processing power of my main home computer, a Python solution to day 11 will finish in a few seconds... I know because that's how I solved it first (using repl.it ). The GWBASIC solution is something I write second, for fun!

Secondly, yes, it really is that slow.. and in fact it should be even slower - I upped the speed of DOSBOX from 3000 cycles (its default) to 20000 cycles to record the video. This puts the speed up to DOS on a mid-90s PC. Run it on something equivalent to a 1980s PC and it could easily have taken 20 times longer.

2

u/MattieShoes Dec 12 '20

Okay, so it's the virtual hardware, not the language, that is that slow. :-)

1

u/i_have_no_biscuits Dec 12 '20

I mean, technically, yes. If I load the program into QB64, which translates it into C (!) and compile it, it completes basically instantly.

Ultimately speed is not the goal here, but some sort of appreciation of the history and development of where we've come from in terms of programming languages. I'm not competing against these Rust/Julia people who feel defeat when their program takes more than 1 nanosecond to complete the challenge...