A dazzling display of purple and green

I got two copies of Programma’s Kaleidoscope, which seem to straddle the point in time when their tape packaging changed, and for the better I’d say.

Kaleidoscope 347 tape

Kaleidoscope 435 tape

I took audio images of both tapes, but there do not appear to be any differences. I didn’t do a byte-level analysis, but they look the same when running. I found that my audio image for both of them had the property that the first load failed, and the second load worked. On pretty much all the Programma tapes I have that I’ve looked at, the program is included twice on the tape, probably for just this reason. So I have more audio files than usual to share here. First, just the actual audio images I took, which will load on the second try in Virtual II, and I haven’t tried the WAV files, but the AIFF files work. Then I have a reconstructed version of the newer one in which I just copied and pasted the second audio overtop the first, so that it will load on the first try. Finally, a DSK version that will load the program as if from tape.

The audio is actually kind of interesting to listen to, I wouldn’t normally recommend listening to the audio files, but this one is pretty groovy.

Kaleidoscope splash

As for the program, it’s pretty simple. You can choose a couple of different types of mirroring, and then it draws. Until you tire of it.

Kaleidoscope instructions

You also have the option of controlling the speed with the paddles, or pressing R to restart the pattern or C to change the colors (where the colors are chosen from among white, green, and purple). That’s it. To start it in motion initially, just press R.

Kaleidoscope running

You can list the (Integer BASIC, with some support calls in machine language) program if you like. Just press Ctrl-C to get out of the program (Reset will reboot).

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