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BASIC Computer Games

vintage-basic.net

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Re: BASIC Computer Games

#61

Post by cr0sh »

jptoto wrote: post #55
CWuestefeld wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had it too, but typed them into my Atari 800 - after which I'd save it to cassette tape.

Nice! My Commodore PET had a tape cassette drive. It was SOO unreliable.

My first machine was a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 with a cassette tape drive; compared to the PET, due to the "generation difference" (probably in the encoding method?) - plus Radio Shack - it's cassette storage was actually really reliable.

People are still pulling old software and data off of some of their old CoCo tapes, what little problems there are typically can be solved by dumping to digital file and editing in some audio software to clean things up.

Re: BASIC Computer Games

#62

Post by JackFr »

There was an earlier version of this book -- less slick -- that you could buy from DEC. I had gotten a copy from my uncle.

At my public library we had a teletypewriter, with an attached paper tape punch and reader, and a phone-cradle modem, with which you could connect to the the PDP-8 at the local high school.

Between this book https://www.amazon.com/Illustrating-Basic-Simple-Programming... and "BASIC Computer Games" my friend and I taught ourselves BASIC programming.

It was about 42 years ago, but I remember to this day the initial astonishing joy of making the computer do something new that I had thought of.

Re: BASIC Computer Games

#63

Post by cr0sh »

merolish wrote: post #48

Back in the 90s I learned a lot from the Prodigy QBasic community. There were some really cool games that people contributed, they have to be out there on the web somewhere.

Heh - you may have ran into some of my old stuff from back then, up thru the late 1990s or so. BASIC still holds a place in my heart (if you haven't played with QB64, you owe it to yourself to look it up).

For that old stuff, "Pete's QB Site" still holds a lot of it:

http://www.petesqbsite.com/

Also, check out the old ABC Packets - they're still available, and also have a ton of code worth looking into (I was a frequent contributor):

http://www.phatcode.net/downloads.php?id=204

Re: BASIC Computer Games

#64

Post by cr0sh »

bluGill wrote: post #37
NikkiA wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and the only reason why not is because people would want/expect to be able to just download the source code and run it without typing it in. But there's absolutely zero reason why this couldn't be replicated with pygame, nodejs or even just a modern BASIC interpreter/compiler.

Not just that we expect to, we can. Back in the day you could download them as well, but it costs a lot of money: someone had to pay for the computer and phone line and then one computer per phone line was common. It also took a long time to download files at 300 baud, and often you were paying long distance rates to the phone company (which was far more expensive than long distance rates now despite inflation). Most…

> we knew hard drives existed, but they were so expensive that we didn't dare dream of them

I was from a slightly later generation (I think); I got my first machine in 1984. I knew hard drives existed too - a 10 meg system would only cost about $8000.00 back then that would connect to my machine (TRS-80 CoCo 2). Sigh.

As far as "multi-user" was concerned - well, we had OS-9 - if one could afford it (plus you needed a dual-floppy system if you didn't want to be swapping all the time). It could support multiple users, but it needed some special hardware for it.

As a kid, I later got a CoCo 3 (sometime around 1987 or so) - and I ended up building a null-modem cable to connect both of them, so I could "share" programs from the floppy drive on my CoCo 3 to my CoCo 2. I also experimented around with BBS coding using that setup. It was my first "network", so to speak.

Re: BASIC Computer Games

#65

Post by jackhack »

mratzloff wrote: post #24
TickleSteve wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise.... this book was instrumental in my career trajectory, a real blast from the past. Similarly, GWBasic, Turbo Pascal, Turbo C, etc.

Borland Turbo C++ 3.0 was my main Christmas present when I was 10 years old. A real upgrade from BASIC on my Atari 800. :-)

You had awesome parents.

Re: BASIC Computer Games

#66

Post by cr0sh »

dekhn wrote: post #39

this book brought me so many hours of joy as a child. I typed these programs in and read it over and over again. I remember now parts that I didn't understand (like Nim) and being amazed at some things people could do in BASIC ( https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=4 ). For fun recently I ported zork to an esp32.

> being amazed at some things people could do in BASIC

My first software engineering job out of highschool used a version of BASIC; I was originally hired as an "operator" because I didn't have a degree, and they wouldn't hire programmers without degrees. So they trained me on how to load 9-track tapes on a vacuum-column drive, as well as how to load up greenbar and run reports on the system. It was an IBM RS/6000 running AIX (my first encounter with Unix), and VT-100/Wyse-370 terminals via a serial concentrator - but our main system ran on top of that; it was called UniVERSE, and ran a variant of Pick BASIC:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pick_operating_system

They gave me access to the system, and their sysadmin gave me a copy of a "Learn Pick BASIC" book. The company was a small mom-n-pop shop that created insurance claims management software for small insurance companies administering our state's indigent health care system.

I started writing various pieces of software - an adventure game, playing with the printers (made one of them play music - not a good use of company resources), just having fun while in between actual "jobs" given to me by the real programmers (run this report, or load this tape). Well...someone was monitoring me and my coding.

They started to give me small tasks - fix this problem with this piece of code, or build this kind of report, or can you make the printer do this?

Within six months - after I had graduated a local tech school and got my "degree" - they hired me (at a pitiful rate that irks me today, but I was a young-n-dumb teenager at the time). I stayed there for a couple of years, learned more Unix, became intimately familiar with terminfo settings, helped to build a text-mode windowing system for their product, got involved with the Amiga scene...

Ultimately, it was my beginning of a career I enjoy and love to this day; but I do have to say I miss the Wyse-370 terminal (it had a Textronix vector graphics mode I played with as well - plus it was just a great terminal overall - they can still be purchased today, but supply vs demand has kept their cost high, so I've never purchased one).

Re: BASIC Computer Games

#67

Post by cr0sh »

bluGill wrote: post #40
NikkiA wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typing in a program from a paper source forces you to think about each line you're entering, it's more than just a 'slow way to distribute a program', it's also a teaching exercise along the same lines as how writing your notes in class are part of the learning exercise that reinforces your mental model of the subject.

Most of the lines I typed in where "2050 data 100,98,0,0,45,128,..." up to the maximum line length (256 character?) at which point it was "2060 data...." Nothing to learn there. I suppose I could look up each opcode and figure it out, but even then there were no names to guide me as to what anything means.

You were either typing in mostly game code (with a simple BASIC HEX ML loader), or were using a machine with a limited form of BASIC that didn't allow for easy graphics manipulation (the C=64 and VIC-20 were famous in this regard).

While I recall doing the same on my machine (TRS-80 Color Computer) - it was usually to get functionality that was lacking otherwise. I recall having to type a ton of DATA statements for an ML program that would give you simultaneous graphics and text on screen, like it was a native mode. Then there was another program (called "Bells and Whistles") that was essentially a 4-track music editor, similar to 90s era "tracker" programs; you could define simple waveforms as different "instruments", then build your music in a note-by-note "tracker" style - except the tracks ran left-to-right, not top-to-bottom! It would then output the music and show the notes playing (scrolling) - four channel, 6 bit music, with user-defined waveforms and envelopes. Truely amazing at the time!

Especially considering the TRS-80 CoCo did -not- have a sound chip. It was all done by the CPU and a 6-bit DAC (which was also used by the cassette tape interface for storage, as well in a convoluted manner by the joysticks).

Re: BASIC Computer Games

#68

Post by cr0sh »

pvg wrote: post #22
indentit wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess Gorillas and Nibbles didn't come with that book from the article, but with MS-DOS, so to have it with the book would have been a waste of space as they were already present on most systems

The book was originally published before there was an MS-DOS or IBM PCs.

That book was somewhat "old" when I first encountered it as a kid in the 1980s. Most of the code in it was first created for minicomputers in the 1970s, probably running some form of Dartmouth BASIC.

Re: BASIC Computer Games

#69

Post by cr0sh »

sausage_gumbo wrote: post #13

all those gotos could cause some serious harm

Back then, you didn't have a choice. Most microcomputer BASICs did not have any other kind of "infinite" looping construct beyond a GOTO. FOR-NEXT was about the only other option.

There wasn't a WHILE or a DO-UNTIL construct in those BASICs, with the exception of (IIRC) or the BASIC used in the MSX systems (which didn't see much action outside of Japan) and in BBC BASIC (it was probably the best BASIC out there along with Microsoft's - but again, not as well known outside of the UK).

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