Thread: Any cool programming project ideas?

I have a cool idea for a programming project.

On Windows it`s quite hard to migrate one install to another. You can not simply do this with a boot cd and explorer and two disks plugged in.

You can copy anything... But... Stop. To copy the MBR (bootloader, partition table, signature, ...?) you need a full blown image tool just for this about 500 kb.

So my idea is to make the MBR visible as files so we can backup, view, restore and migrate them easy.

What do you think?

Originally Posted by matsp

I think quite difficult. Mainly because Windows protection prevents you from opening the disk in "raw" mode when you have just booted from it, so there's no way to get directly to the sectors of the disk, so you can't get to the MBR.

It woudl be TRIVIAL to write a piece of code in DOS that copies the MBR from one disk to another.

--
Mats

Yes, quite difficult. To difficult for me so I am suggesting this project. I am quite sure such an application would require installation + admin rights + restart.

From what I know....
- Some applications write inside the MBR for their copy protection. (I heard Adobe does this.)
- Image applications can make 1 to 1 backups (live backup).
- Perhaps the volume shadow service can do this.
- Or we could just bash this protection against not to read in raw mode.

Btw. I was thinking of seperate files for bootloader, partition table and so on...

Very difficult yes. But it`s possible and imho this would be very useful application. (Especially when it comes to migration, backup or multi boot.)

Originally Posted by cjmdjm

Recently I have been bored and have been writing random programs just for fun (and for practice). Mostly simple projects that can be finished in a day or two.

But Im running out of ideas. First I wrote a basic 2D flight simulator. It was fun to experiment with weight, engine power, wing area, tail area, etc, and see how they affected performance and stability.

Then I wrote a program which would take a pair of stereoscopic images and compare them to build a depth map. If you are not familiar with this, the fact that you have 2 eyes and can see the world from 2 slightly different points allows you to perceive depth. Your brain compares the images from the left and right eye. Far away objects look mostly the same in both eyes. Nearby objects are shifted left or right in one eye compared to the other. My program takes 2 photos taken from slightly different points and compares them. It produces a greyscale image, where black objects are far away and white objects are near the camera. Could be used by a robot with 2 cameras for eyes, to build a 3D map of the world around it. It didn't work as well as I hoped, but I didnt put much time into it before I got bored with it.

Next I wrote an evolution simulator. There are a bunch of types of little creatures (represented as different colored dots on the screen) that can move around, eat bits of food randomly scattered on the map, eat other creatures if they are carnivorous, etc. They die if they don't eat for a certain amount of time. They each have properties like movement speed, sight radius, preferred food type, and a basic AI script. They can reproduce, with a few random mutations, and evolve. Its cool/fun to experiment and see which species goes extinct, or if an equilibrium is reached between 2 or 3 species, and how the creatures evolve.

But now I need more cool ideas to experiment with. Any cool projects you have done or heard about that I could try to replicate, or any other random ideas?

Thanks!

Can you share you projects with us?
If possible, post in this thread, so everyone can try them put.
I am keen to have a look at them, I find them all very interesting, but source should be included (of course)

I need help to generate asterisks randomly on the screen with a set boundary