Programming Tools and Toys

These are just some things I've written for fun.

Orbit Simulation - A simple Java multi-body orbital simulation program. In this universe there is a large-mass sun, and two smaller-mass planets orbiting it. All three of these bodies interact with each other and are in stable orbits. You can add a comet to the system by clicking your mouse. If you drag your mouse while you click it, you can impart some initial velocity to the comet and put the comet in interesting orbits. Sometimes the orbits are fairly stable, but chaotic. I could watch this simulation for hours. Note: this requires Java version 1.4 or higher installed on your computer. At some point I might take a look at why it doesn't work on Java 1.3.

PowerDoodle  [PowerDoodle.zip] - A small program to annotate presentations live. For example, if you're giving a (gack!) PowerPoint presentation, and want to circle an important point for your audience, or draw some lines on a figure, you can just do it - live. Simply hold down the control key and draw with your mouse. It will draw on any part of the screen, running any program. The annotations are temporary, of course, and you can erase them at any time with Control-E. To install, just unzip PowerDoodle.zip someplace and run it. Here's the source if you want to build it yourself but I haven't gotten around to a proper makefile or license notes. Runs under Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Probably doesn't run on anything earlier than Win2K.

Sudoku generator/solver: sudoku_gen.cpp - A Sudoku puzzle generator and solver. No nice user interface, just plain C++ code.