Typically, when a student first learns to program, they often use one of the text-based programming languages. Depending on the language, this can either be easy or frustratingly difficult.

Many languages require you to write lines of confusing code just to display the text "Hello, world!".

Flowgorithm is a free beginner's programming language that is based on simple graphical flowcharts. Students can learn programming concepts without worrying about the syntactic nuances of most languages.

These flowcharts can be executed directly by the application or converted to 25 major programming languages. These include: C#, Java, Visual Basic. NET and Python. The software was written to be used in CSC 10.

Flowgorithm Homepage

For a long time, the only graphical version of the California Flag, found online, was highly inaccurate.

So, I downloaded the official 1953 law, and recreated the flag in Inkscape. I then uploaded it to Wikipedia and a myriad of clipart websites.

The result was humbling. The image file (and variations I created for fun) populated throughout the Internet and, now, is the default image. I have purchased quite a few California-related items depicting my work.

Flag of California [ svg ] [ emf ]

Many, many, years ago... I wrote an Atari 2600 game. It was a rather fun programming challenge given the limited abilities of the Atari 2600: only 128 bytes of RAM (yes, just bytes) and 4 KB of cartridge space.

When I was in junior high school, I started, and never finished the game on the Commodore 64. Of course, I was a new programmer and Commodore 64 BASIC spaghetti-code was not a great combination. Instead, I finished the game in the more difficult (and thus more fun) MOS 6502 Assembly.

You can buy the cartridge at AtariAge.com.

I created a true type font based on the Commodore 64 character set. This was an early project - created around 1998. This should be obvious given the website "button" (to the left). These were incredibly popular at the time.

The zip file below contains three versions of the font - the original "pixel" font and alternatives with rounded and angled edges. The Zip file also contains a ding-bat font that has vectorized versions of my actual Commodore 64 as well as the logo placed on various, random, glyphs. 

Commodore 64 Font Pack

For my Master's Project at Sacramento State University, I wrote a multiple programming language parsing system called GOLD. The first and second readers were Dr. Du Zhang and Dr. Radimsky. I have continued to maintain and expand the application over time - so it's an ongoing project.

I haven't been able to work on it for a while. I hope to get back to it soon.

GOLD Parsing System Website

The following are various programs I wrote that either are used for demonstrations or solved a problem.

• QBasic Lite
  When I started teaching at Sacramento State, CSC 1 was using an the old DOS version of QBasic. I wrote a Windows interpreter that included MIDI (play statement) and graphics support. No longer needed and abandoned.
• Sort Demonstration (Windows 3.1)
  When I was an undergraduate, I created a Windows 3.1 application that graphically demonstrated sort algorithms. It wasn't a new idea, by any means.
• The Creeping Error (Windows 3.1 / 95)
  One of the most enduring shows of all time is Mystery Science Theater 3000. The concept of MST3k is fairly simple: riff (make fun of) some of cinema's most inadvertently funny movies.
  
  The "plot" of the show involves Mike/Joel (and the two robots) who are forced to watch bad movies by a mad scientist. To keep their sanity, they riff the movie... and, you get to watch. A MST3k episode plays the movie, in its entirety, with silhouetted figures sitting in the first row of a theater.
  
  I wrote application that brought Mike/Joel and the 'bots to the desktop. The application drew animated silhouettes, played sounds files, and ran simple scripts. The app's name is a play-on-words of movie title "The Creeping Terror" - one of my favorite episodes.