Bob Ross and XKCD

August 6, 2024

When XKCD Draws Bob Ross Painting Happy Trees With a Turtle #

XKCD comic #2601, titled “Instructions”, takes an April Fool’s Day turn from the usual visual format. Instead of a traditional comic, author Randall Munroe provides an audio file containing a lengthy Logo program. This program, when executed, draws a detailed image filled with references to lots of things, but especially to turtles and Bob Ross.

From Audio to Code #

Dedicated fans took on the challenge of transcribing the audio into a working Logo program. I am impressed; this is a huge undertaking.

Trying It Out Myself #

As you might imagine, I get a huge kick out of seeing QLogo draw Bob Ross. I got tired, though, of constantly typing the commands to load the program and the lengthy pathname to the file. (You have to spell it just right.) So I created a new command, FILEDIALOG, which opens a file dialog and returns the pathname of the selected file. The command doesn’t take parameters; it’s super simple; it doesn’t use any filters. So it allows you to select any file. Use it like this:

MAKE "PATH FILEDIALOG
LOAD :PATH

And then you can select the file using the file browser.