High-performance interactive graphics

de Lee Adams

In the early days of computers, it was common for people to use BASIC to write their own programs (utility and otherwise). Lee Adams' *Supercharged Graphics* was a book in which the author explained methods for doing different, more advanced (graphics) things in BASIC, and then provided the source code for several sample applications (a paintbrush program, a 2-D and 3D graphics program, and so on). Later, he released *High-Performance Interactive Graphics*, which concentrated more on gaming than graphics themselves (although he covered both). This book had less in the way of sample programs, but the author concentrated more heavily on (and reprinted a lot of) the subroutines, functions, and calculations he'd presented in his earlier book. This book is more of a toolbox than a how-to, but it still goes well with his earlier book, and is a must if you want to go back to DOS/BASIC and do some (reasonably) serious graphic-based programming. The author goes into the differences of coding needed for GWBASIC (the interpreter included with all early DOS systems), Turbo Basic, and QuickBASIC, helpful now that none of these programs are documented or supported anywhere else.