Brief Information about the Dec '07 CSIG Meeting

Screen Saver - Colored Night Stars - by B.Arnold

C++ Version 7 and Visual Studio 2005

Colored Night Stars

Welcome to the CSIG, a Special Interest Group of the ACGNJ. The subject for this month is a simple screen saver program. It uses the latest C++ compiler in Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005. There are a number of ways to refer to this compiler and code. Here's what Wikipedia says:

The Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) is an open specification developed by Microsoft that describes the executable code and runtime environment that form the core of the Microsoft .NET Framework. The specification defines an environment that allows multiple high-level languages to be used on different computer platforms without being rewritten for specific architectures.

Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0
C++ 7.0
.Net 2.0
CLI
Common Language Infrastructure
Managed

And there are many new things to learn. This screen saver has been made much simpler by the advanced graphics of the new compiler. The program may also be compiled using the free C++ Express compiler. The program demonstrates the screen saver logic and graphical routines for the screen.

Here are the details of this screen saver. The object of the program is to display random colored stars on a black background. (Note: this code does not handle multiple screens.) Algorithm: Create a regular CLI Windows Forms program. Redraw random stars every 4 ... 15 seconds. Remove border and hide cursor. Handle command line arguments of /c /p /s. Handle keyboard hit to close.

This is an exciting time for the C Language programming since Microsoft now has 4 different language compilers: C++, C++ Express, C-Sharp, and C-Sharp Express. These are all capable of creating Windows (tm) programs and the "Express" versions are free ! Additionally, Borland has just announced that it also has four new programs that are also available in free versions. These are Turbo C++, Turbo C-Sharp, Turbo Delphi and Turbo Delpi for .NET. You may also want to check with Intel and others for their generally free evaluation versions.