Re: LOGO-L> two questions re: Win95 MW's

["Gary S. Stager" <logoexchange@moon.pepperdine.edu>]

>1. 	In my computer lab of 15 PC's with MW's installed on all, some of 
>the machines lack the "turtle costume name" Win95 feature when the 
>mouse cursor is dragged over them. Has anyone else experienced this and 
>have you figured out a solution? I realize that by db clicking the name 
>is revealed, but I'd like consistency on all machines.
This could be some sort of odd Win '95 bug or all of the machines aren't 
configured in the same way. You should call LCSI (800) 321-LOGO and ask 
if they have heard about this problem before.

>2. 	Regarding the "turtle costumes": why, if we are teaching logical 
>thinking, do we have the option of meaningless numbers to label the 
>"costumes?" 
This continues a Logo tradition numerical wrapping and modulo arithmetic. 
For example, RT 375 is the same as RT 15. There are a great number of 
situations in which having a numerical name for an object (or variable) 
makes programming more efficient. For example, you wish to create a board 
game and have designed six dice faces in shapes #32-37 (because they were 
available or you didn't mind replacing the existing shapes). You can then 
roll the die by using the following instruction:

setsh 32 + random 6

Announce Sentence [You rolled a] ASK "die [shape - 32]

would tell you the number rolled or

FD 40 * ask "die [shape - 32]

would move your turtle forward by that number of board pieces, if each 
piece is 40 turtle steps long

You might wish to simplify such a process with:

to dieresult
output ask "die [shape - 32]
end

Then dieresult will automatically report the value of your die

Numerical control allows more precision in some cases. For example, you 
would be disappointed if your color choices were limited to red, blue, 
green, yellow. You now (in base 10) have the ability to lighten or darken 
a color arithmetically.

Hope this helps!

-=Gary



Gary S. Stager
Editor-in-Chief - The Logo Exchange
logoexchange@moon.pepperdine.edu
http://moon.pepperdine.edu/~gstager/logoexchange

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