Chương 23: Book 2 - Chapter 3 A

I climbed into the passenger side of one of Grandpa's new shiny black minivans. Matt got into the driver side and buckled up.

"Those seats were really easy to take out," he said as he turned to look at the empty space behind us.

"We'll need it, I have a big shopping list today," I told him.

"Seatbelt on?" he asked.

"Yup. Let's head to the pick a part wrecking yard. Do you know the one out north on Peoria?"

"Yeah. There first?" he asked.

"Yeah, I need an alternator from a big GM diesel. Something with over a hundred amps. They should have it." It was about fifteen minutes as Matt carefully navigated downtown traffic before he could finally head north.

"Success!" I said as the owner set the big alternator on the counter. I paid with cash from Grandpa, and Matt carried it to the minivan.

"Where next, boss?" he asked, a smile on his face at my excitement.

"Now to the place on Archer out east of town. I need four old tires." We checked off my list as the back of the van filled up with a variety of parts and tools from the welding supply, air conditioning supply house and the hardware store.

"Where is all this going again?" he asked.

"The mad science lab upstairs. I'll have to have you bring everything up while I distract Grandma and Grandpa at dinner."

"Why keep it a secret?" he asked as we headed to the final stop, Sears.

"It's a surprise. I won't be able to start putting it together till later in the year, but there's not a better time to start getting stuff I'll need." At Sears I picked out a nice Craftsman workbench, some steel shelving, and a new oven.

"Why are you buying an oven?" Matt asked me as I stood trying to decide which one to get.

"I need to bake some stuff."

"The oven in the kitchen downstairs still works, but your Grandpa is replacing it. Why don't you use that one?"

"Is it gas or electric?" I asked him.

"I don't know. Do you need this today?" he asked.

"No. Why?"

"Cause it won't fit in the van."

"I know, I was going to have it delivered."

"I suggest you check out the old oven first, you can always have it delivered later."

"I can do that," I said and turned to the salesman.

"Sorry, no oven today, but I might be back. You can deliver the workbench?"

"Yes, sir. I can have it to your house as soon as tomorrow."

"Will you bring it in? I can't move it all by myself." The salesman's eyes looked over Matt, wondering why the massive man couldn't move it for me.

"We can, but it's extra."

"That's fine, I'm not buying an oven today so I have the cash for that." He checked me out, and Matt carried my new tools to the van.

"Is that everything?" he asked, looking at the clock on the dash.

"It is, we can head back to the hotel now."

"Alright. Buckle up." You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. I buckled my seatbelt and turned to look at my haul. So much fun stuff to work with.

"So do you think you'll like going to bodyguard school?" I asked him.

"I don't know. It's been a while since boot camp, but I hope it isn't like that."

"I'm imagining you running through an obstacle course while carrying a mannequin in a dress, and firing at targets," I told him. He laughed.

"Why is the mannequin in a dress?" he asked when he finally stopped laughing.

"To grade your ability to keep the client clean, of course." He chuckled the rest of the way home.

"Will you miss me when I fly out on Tuesday?" he asked me as we neared the hotel.

"Of course. But you'll be back on the twenty-first. That isn't too long."

"I saw you got me a first class flight to Virginia for the training. Thanks."

"Enjoy it. Have fun. Get trained, and come home. I'll be spending most of my time on the computers while you are gone.

"With Grandma and Grandpa busy and no parents to tell me to go to bed. I'll have all the time I need with no interruption. It'll be great!"

"Sure, boss," he said with a smile. The next day, Grandpa drove Matt to the airport. After they left I sat in front of the Mac, contemplating all the work ahead. I had a comfortable chair and a desk at the right height in the small hotel room that was just for me. The Apple was on the desk next to it but for now, it was turned off. To begin, I needed a compiler that would work on the Mac. Everybody else doing programming was using the more powerful Lisa and then testing on the Mac. I didn't have that option.

No one was willing to spend five grand on a third computer for me, no matter how much easier it would have made this first project. First I inserted the Microsoft Basic floppy disk that came with the Mac to write a simple text editor. My typing skill paid off, as it didn't take long to build a program in BASIC that would let me write and save a program written in assembly to the floppy drive. The code itself was like a song I knew by heart.

I had to write four separate programs that would work together in sequence to process and compile the code I would be writing. Each one of these had to be perfect. I didn't have a debugger—the code had to execute flawlessly, a single misplaced byte rendering hours of work useless. My ability to know in advance what to write, and whether I had made any mistakes, made the otherwise impossible process possible. When the fourth program finished and tested without an error, I let out a low, satisfied breath.

I stood and did a quick stretch after the intense hours of typing involved. It had been two days of solid work, with only breaks for meals. The next morning after breakfast, I started on building better tools. I needed a better text editor. I used the Microsoft Basic text editor I already had to write the code, and ran it through the new compiler. The single floppy drive whirred, sounding like a tiny overworked airplane as it broke each step into little chunks.

When it finally finished, I inserted a blank floppy disk. It wrote the program to the new disk and I now had a robust, if minimalist, code writing text editor with more memory available to it than MacWriter, which could only handle a few pages of text before crashing. I probably was too close to the tiny nine-inch screen as I used it to code my first real Mac program. ArtStudio made full use of the 512 x 342 pixels. ArtStudio was a significant step up from the included MacPaint.

I stared at the tiny screen, feeling the surge of potential as I selected the palette. From white to black it could do sixteen grayscale shades. It also had a built-in image compression algorithm that helped with the woeful amount of available memory. Best of all, it could create animated bitmaps. I tested ArtStudio by drawing an animated picture for my next project. Clicking pixel by pixel I drew the first animated picture. 24 x 24 pixels and eight frames. When I finished I hit the play button on the saved unit.

The little spearman stood ready in the first frame. He lowered his weapon and thrust in the next three frames. The following two frames animated him moving, and in the final two frames he died. It was glorious. I carefully created a full 28 pixelated units for the game I was building. When I was done, I sat back, pleased at how well it had gone, but dismayed at the amount of time I had spent on it.

"John! Enough with the computer. It's dinner time," Grandma ordered. After dinner, I sat in the hotel room, the lights out, the room lit by just the glow of the screen. I started programming the game, Civilization. My new code editing software made it so much easier, and I worked till midnight. I finally finished and tried to start it to compile. I was so tired that spots were dancing in front of my eyes. The persistent hum was no barrier to sleep, but I threw a towel over the screen so it would be dark.

I had just climbed into bed after brushing my teeth when I remembered there was only one disk drive. I was too tired to continue and fell asleep wishing I could get up and keep it compiling. I woke to the compiler paused and unfinished. It needed me to swap floppy disks. I sighed, swapped disks and went to breakfast.

"Good morning, John." Grandpa greeted as Grandma made pancakes on the hot plate in the tiny hotel room.

"Good morning. Did you sleep well?" Grandma asked.

"I did. My programming project is doing well. I'm at the point where it's compiling. That means it's turning all the commands I wrote into a real computer program."

"That's great. I'm glad you didn't stay up all night," she said.

"I almost wish I had. It would be finished. Every few minutes I have to take out one floppy disk and put in another. I really need to get a second floppy drive." That caught Grandpa's attention.

"Do I need to take you to the store?" he asked.

"No. I have one on order. No one around here has one." Grandma passed out the pancakes and we ate as they discussed what they were doing today.