2012 RETROCHALLENGE SUMMER CHALLENGE!!

I'm back again, and this time I am going to try to pick up where I left off (i.e. FAILED!!!) last summer. If you recall, I was going to create a beer recipe program for the Apple IIe. I got a decent start, then a baby was born and it was pretty much all over. I'm still grasping for free time, and in all likelyhood I will again fail miserably, but I have to try.

I'll summarize the plan again for those of you who didn't hang on my every word, and for those who are new perusers. I'm a beer homebrewer (or was, pre-baby) and I have been using a MS Excel spreadsheet with formulae and whatnot to assist in the creation of my recipes. It gets the job done, but I find it a bit inelegant. And besides, creating recipes with the IIe will be a fun reason to keep it out of storage.

I am considering deviating from one item in last years challenge. I had planned then to have in the software a basic library of beer styles, with each's general proportions of malt and hop types listed. My immediate thought this time around was that it is not necessary since I have a book that I use as a reference and it would simply be redundant. On second thought now, though, I am considering making the program somewhat stand-alone, as if it were a real piece of software from the 1980s. I have a feeling disk space is going to be a concern so I will have to look into that.

So the plan is to have a program that I can enter batch volume, original gravity, target gravity, boil time, target mash temperature, grist % for each fermentable, alpha acid %, target IBU, and probably others that I am forgetting at the moment. Hopefully it will crunch my numbers and give me a printable, nicely formatted recipe sheet that I can use during brewing. I would like it to save perhaps the last 3-5 recipes at least, so that I can enter the final gravity readings and tasting notes at a later date, then print it for a permanent record.

More optimally, I would be able to store all of my recipes on disk, but again, I am not sure how big each recipe will be and how many I can store. I will look into storing them on multiple floppies as well.

Apart from that particular challenge, I have some new hardware that I have not yet been able to play with, other than to plug it in and see if it works.

Also, I am not going to mention a certain beige box restoration ointment. Nope, not going to mention it.

I really really really hope I can get somewhere this time around, as simply not finishing is really starting to bug me, man. Whoah man!

See you in the Challenge!

~Togart