The Great Teleprompter (Commodore 64) by Holden Sandman

-- The Great Teleprompter ---

Written by Holden Sandman for the 10-liner competition 2026.

Language: Commodore 64 Basic v2

Category: SCHAU

--- Description ---

Oh, no! The greatest leader of the free world, with the biggest penis in the history of the universe has left his speech on board air farce one. He can't help it of course, being a sufferer of dementia. In fact it is not his fault at all, but a leftist woke conspiracy. A lot of people are going to lose their jobs over this. Some may even get sued or have tariffs imposed upon them.

In short, the man is desperate and turns to you for help. You had better do as he says, or he'll send his frosty minions after you. Your task is simple, though. All you have to do is type anything that comes to mind in the teleprompter. Most people will never notice the difference...

--- Instructions ---

This program is a do-it-yourself satire tool. Using it, you can make a despicable person say anything you like. Just type some text and press

<RETURN>.

Because it uses the Basic INPUT command, it has some limitations. For instance, you can not enter commas. Play around with it for a while to find them all.

--- Code Explanation ---

Line 0: In a loop, read string data from somewhere else in the program and use this to build one big string (the dunce). Also, build a vertical orientation string.

        Read the final string data (the teleprompter).

        Set background colour to black.

Line 1: Clear the screen, display the dunce and the teleprompter.

        Set the cursor home and to green, while using the INPUT command to get text data from the user of the program.

        If this data is too short or too long, then perform this line again.

Line 2: In a loop, build strings for above and below the speech balloon.

        Also, build a string that moves the cursor left in that balloon.

        Use the entered text data to make a string with the contents of the balloon.

Line 3: Display the speech balloon.

        Display the sound source pointer of the balloon.

Line 4 & 5: In a loop, display an opened mouth and a closed mouth it turns, delaying them with loops. This simulates talking and lets you know the dunce is lying!

Line 6: Clear the keyboard buffer.

        Wait until a key is pressed.

        Clear the keyboard buffer again.

        restart the program.

Line 7,8 & 9: These lines contain data for the dunce and teleprompter text strings.

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