Cram Master 1.0
Useless Innovations, Inc.
(c)2000 by Danny Chambers

Introduction:
Cram Master is a game (?) that [should] help you study for tests or quizzes. It's most useful for anyone who is too lazy to make notecards or who can't learn anything by just reading words and definitions from a list. Cram Master gets its questions from a user-supplied data file. Only the correct answer is required to be given by the user ahead of "game time" because the other 3 answers are randomly supplied by the program (from the user-supplied correct answers). A sample span11 file is included with this distribution, which are the original 32 Spanish questions (gasp). All questions asked by Cram Master are stored in the god-variable.

Editing a God-Variable:
Editing or creating a god-variable shouldn't be that difficult. I've made it simple enough for almost anyone to understand. Anyway, here's the procedure:

  • Open span11 in the data/matrix editor of the Ti-89 ([apps][6][2][Enter]) or create your own "data"-type file.
  • You should see the following:

    (if you don't, try step one again -_-)
  • The items in column one are treated as the questions. The items in colum 2 are treated as the answers. The only item in column 3 is the number of questions you have on the list. This is the general form for any god-variable. For example, "Iglacia" is "Church", so the question [Iglacia] is in r1c1 (row 1 column 1) and the correct answer [church] is in r1c2. All values in this 'file' must be surrounded by quotes, since everything must be a string for the program to work properly. R1c3 is a special value. R1c3 determines both how many rows there are (questions) and how many questions the program will ask you per session.

Playing:
'Playing' Cram Master is pretty simple. When you finally run cmaster(), you'll be confronted with the following screen:

  • Study!: Starts the game
  • Kill Variables: Since defining "local" variables made the program way too slow, I made a single program/function to kill all of the variables the program creates. Use this option when you want them to go away. Additionally, you may kill the variables by running vardie() outside of CramMaster.
  • Specify Data File: Provide the program with the name of a god-variable [question set]. Default is span11, the demo god-variable.
  • About: I won't even bother to expain... it's just too obvious.

The game screen:

  • The answers never appear in the same order
  • The three incorrect answers are chosen from random answers in the god-variable
  • Move the curser with up/down, make your decision with [enter] and exit with [esc] (important: exiting this "proper" way is the normal way to make sure the variables don't clutter up your calcuator. Vardie() is run automatically when [esc] is pressed while the selection cursor is visible.
  • If you answer incorrectly, the correct answer will be shown.
  • When two arrows appear in the bottom-right corner, you may advance to the next question. [read: it's finished thinking]
  • The game asks the questions in a random order. The number of times the game asks questions is dependant upon the r1c3 value in span11 [default is "32"].
  • The game just ends after the predefined number of questions has been reached. That's it, just dies. This is a study tool, so don't expect any splashy graphics ;)

Contact Danny:
E-mail me at crimsonff7@bigplanet.com with questions or comments about Cram Master. Send me alternate god-variable files, too! I'm thinking about creating a small webpage for this program (and others I have made). In the future I intend on making the program a bit faster and less messy. E-mail me if you [gasp] want to help.

Note: I will ignore all e-mails written in l33t because it is my pet hate.

Disclaimer: Use this program at your own risk. Plagerize my work and I'll have a dozen rabid emus come after you.