Name: _________________________________________




CSC 121: Computers and Scientific Thinking
Fall 2008

Extra Credit Lab: Interactive Pages

This lab is optional. If submitted, it can replace the lowest grade on a lab or chapter exercise.

Chapters 7 and 9 introduced the event-driven programming model of Web page design, using text boxes, buttons, and images to interact with and react to the user. Subsequently, Chapter 11 added conditional control, so that your code could make decisions based on events such as the click of a button or roll of two dice. For this lab, you will apply your programming and Web skills to designing and implementing an interactive Web page for playing slots.




Slot machine

A rapidly growing sector of electronic commerce is in the area of online gambling. Since the Internet crosses international borders, online casinos are often able to circumvent federal gambling laws and provide unregulated gambling through the Internet. Whether for real money or just for entertainment, a multitude of online gambling sites are accessible via the Web.

For this lab, you will implement an online slots game. If you are not familiar with the game, a slot machine contains three windows or slots in which an image is shown. To play the game, the player inserts a coin and pulls on a handle, causing the images in the slots to be randomized (usually by spinning the wheels on which the images are printed). If the three resulting images in the slots are identical, say three lemons, then the player wins and receives some payoff.

For example,




The following HTML document is a start on developing a Web page for simulating a slot machine.


<html> <!-- slots.html Dave Reed --> <!-- This page simulates a slot machine. --> <!-------------------------------------------------------> <head> <title> Online Slots </title> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://dave-reed.com/book/random.js"> </script> <script type="text/javascript"> function DoSpin() // Assumes: the page contains an image (slot1) // Results: displays a random spin as the slot1 image { var pick; pick = RandomOneOf(["cherry.jpg", "lemon.jpg", "bar.jpg", "donut.jpg"]); document.getElementById("slot1").src = "http://dave-reed.com/csc121/Labs/Extra/" + pick; } </script> </head> <body> <div style="text-align:center"> <img id="slot1" alt="slot image" border=1 src="http://dave-reed.com/csc121/Labs/Extra/cherry.jpg" /> <br /><br /> <input type="button" value="Click to Spin" onclick="DoSpin();" /> </div> </body> </html>


EXERCISE 1:    Cut-and-paste the slots.html text into a new Web page. Load this page and describe its behavior. What is the initial image displayed on the screen? What other images are obtainable?



The IMG tag on this page has an attribute that we have not encountered before "border=1". What is the purpose of this attribute? What if the number 1 is changed, say to 2 or 3?





EXERCISE 2:    Add two more slots images to your slots.html page, next to the current one. When the user clicks on the button, all three slots images should be randomly selected and displayed on the page.


EXERCISE 3:    In a slot machine, the player wins if all three slots come out the same. While most slot machines differentiate between different matches (paying out more for matching bars as opposed to matching lemons, for example), we will not make this distinction. Any combination of three identical slots will be considered a winner. Add code to DoSpin so that it checks for a slots winner. If the three slots are identical (i.e., the images have had their SRC attributes assigned to the same source file), then an alert box should display the message "A WINNER!".


Maintaining values on the page

The slots.html page that you have developed so far is sufficient for simulating the behavior of a slot machine. What it does not capture, however, is the monetary angle. Slot machines are used for gambling: players must pay to spin, and likewise win money if their spin turns up a winner. Using text boxes in the page, it is possible to keep track of the player's winnings and losses as they play the game.


EXERCISE 4:    Add a text box to your slots.html page, below the button, that will keep track of player's bankroll. The text box should have an initial value of 20, representing the fact that the player starts out with $20 in their bankroll. Each spin of the wheel should cost the player $1 (resulting in the bankroll being decremented by 1). In the case of a winner, however, the player wins $13 (resulting in the bankroll being increased by 13). Of course, even a winning spin required $1 to play, so the net gain is only $12.

Note: as is the case with all organized gambling, the odds here favor the house. Since there are four different images that can appear in a slot, there is a 1 in 16 chance of all three slots coming up the same. Thus, you would expect (in the long run) for the player to win 1 out of every 16 spins. Consequently, the payoff of $13 does not quite offset the $16 cost of the spins. As a result, you are more likely to lose money (in the long run) than win money. Perform numerous simulations with your updated page to see if this pattern holds. Describe your results below:














As we have seen, text boxes can be used for both input and output. The user can enter values directly into a text box, and computed values can be displayed in a text box via a JavaScript assignment. There are times, however, when you would like to use a text box for output only, forbidding the user from entering values directly. For example, the bankroll text box in your slots.html page is updated by the DoSpin function on each spin. The player does not need to enter anything into the box, and indeed allowing them to alter the contents of the box is tantamount to theft.

It is possible to forbid user input into a text box using the ONFOCUS attribute. The ONFOCUS attribute specifies what is to occur when the user directs their focus on the box (usually by clicking the mouse in it). To disable input in a text box, the predefined JavaScript function blur can be called to immediately remove the focus from that box:   onfocus="blur();"


EXERCISE 5:    Add the attribute assignment onfocus="blur();" to the bankroll text box so that the player will not be able to change the bankroll directly. Load your page and verify that it behaves as desired.



EXERCISE 6:    As is, your page does not recognize when a player has run out of money. It is possible for the user to play your slots game even after their bankroll becomes zero, and the bankroll can become negative as a result. Any smart casino owner would put a stop to this immediately. Add code to DoSpin that disallows a spin if the player's bankroll has reached $0. In particular, the existing code for simulating the spin and displaying the results should only be executed if the player has money. If not, then an alert box should display a message stating that the spin was disallowed.

Play the game several more times. What is the largest amount you ever won?








EXERCISE 7:    While a smart casino owner knows better than to allow negative bankrolls, most casinos are not above extending personal loans to gamblers who are down on their luck. Augment your slots.html page so that it has capabilities for extending loans to the player when they run out of money. Your page should have an additional text box keeping track of the player's debt (initially $0). Instead of just alerting the player when they try to play with no money, the page should prompt them to see if they want a $20 loan. If they respond 'yes', then their bankroll should be set to $20 and their debt should increase by $20.

Play the game several more times. What is the largest debt you incurred?












Hand in a printout of slots.html attached to these sheets.