Geeks rule.

[kickaha]

I have a buddy who is teaching his young daughters math skills by... playing AD&D. Temple of Elemental Evil, no less. Srsly old skool. (They're loving it, btw.)

He decided he needed hex paper. He couldn't find cheap hex paper anywhere. He found pricey hex paper, but not cheap.

So, being a geek... he made his own. With proper numbering. And 30-hex uberhexes.

With PostScript.

And a text editor.



Edit: For those of you not using a browser with embedded PDF support, try... http://www.ncpod.org/Shared/hexpaper.pdf


I am in awe.

Comments

[lirrin.livejournal.com]

Picture no worky. I am sad.

[badger.livejournal.com]

If I thought you hadn't seen it, I'd link to the /. story yesterday about techie personality types and D&D.

[jason0x21.livejournal.com]

You mean there's some other way to do it?

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Really? Huh. Works for me... anyone else not seeing it?

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Well, most of the world uses these things called GUIs...

Seriously, when was the last time you manually wrote PostScript? Programmatically?

It's like running across someone who decided to write a new GUI app in assembler.

[labrown.livejournal.com]

Waaa... no picture... Me want picture...

I used to dabble in writing postscript code. It was like LOGO turtlegraphics on steroids.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Huh - link is dead for everyone but me? Bizarre. Will fix.

Oh waaaaaaait. It'd a PDF. I assumed that would be fine... harumph. Probably a hosting issue.

[jason0x21.livejournal.com]

Me.

[jason0x21.livejournal.com]

I don't think most browsers support embedded PDF.

[jason0x21.livejournal.com]

More recent than you think, no doubt. I still haven't found a more satisfying way to do vector graphics that is _exact_ enough. Besides, it's FUN, and you can do some wicked stuff with recursion. I still have the books, but remember, I'm an HP calculator guy. I dig the stacks.

I also like Forth.

As for GUI programming in assembler, it's been a little less recent.

[jason0x21.livejournal.com]

Linky werky fine. Embedy no werky.

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Campaign Cartographer (at http://www.profantasy.com/ ) can easily be used to generate numbered hex paper, at any desired scale, with any number of levels of uberhexing.

When I still had access to a full-size roll plotter, I used CC to do full-on, table-sized maps of every encounter I ran. It was awesome. One of the should-haves for my next employer is a plotter--8.5x11 just doesn't cut it anymore.

Yes, I know the point is "how cool is it that someone out there still codes in raw PostScript", and that coding PostScript is immensely less expensive than buying the CC suite.

[ashears.livejournal.com]

Got it in Safari here.

[ashears.livejournal.com]

You guys are wack. I'll be over here with Illustrator if you need me....

Um... as soon as I can get any GDMF CS2 apps to open on my GDMF G5 again.

[cthulhim.livejournal.com]

I just use a program called (IIRC) GraphPaperPlotter, that generates lots of various regular and non-regular (logarithmic, e.g.) grids.

I suppose I could do it in PS if I were so inclined. I like LaTeX for word processing, after all.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Ah, ok, so it is just a browser issue.

How... odd.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

You know, it took me years to appreciate RPN. Ever play with OpenFirmware on a PowerPC Mac? Implementation of Forth as the boot loader. Damn, but you could do some fun tricks with it. :)

And okay, *I* haven't run across anyone using hand-coded PS in the past decade... good to know there are still some insane ones out there.

Shine on, you crazy PS diamond, you.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Sweeeeeeeet. Certainly beats the hell out of the D&D character generator/database I wrote in BASIC in 1984...

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

I like LaTeX for word processing, after all.

Doesn't everyone? Every time I have to use the *cough* standard, it's like being asked to observe distant nebulae with forks in my eyes. But more painful.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

What's /.?

:)

Yeah, I saw it, and yes, I completely agree. There's a great quote about limitations and creativity that is escaping my gin-soaked brain at the moment, but maybe it will come to me later.

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wrote one of those for my final project in a C class in college. Best part? The rand() function I was using (Coherent Unix, ca. 1990) always started with the same seed, and about the three-hundredth iteration of rolling 6x3d6 resulted in six scores sixteen or above, including an 18/47 STR.

Got an 'A' on the project. Sadly, I was only auditing the class.