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BASIC Computer Games

vintage-basic.net

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Re: BASIC Computer Games

#71

Post by jackhack »

JackFr wrote: post #62

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…

It is a feeling of limitless boundaries.

I recently bought an Osbourne "portable" -- seeing my children's delight as we booted up that ancient machine (from actual 5.25" floppy discs, no less) reminded me of own own sense of wonder at the same age, 40 years ago. Of course my middle-aged eyes didn't tolerate a 7" amber screen as well as they once did, but we proceeded to create an adventure type game, in MicroSoft Basic. The kids actually squabbled over who would get to play that simple game, very unlike them, such was their enthusiasm. And play they did, for many, many hours!

We had a bug where the player's "hit points/HP" could go negative. I loved watching my children deduce where the problem must lie, and debugging the problem. (comparison of They had lots of ideas for additions, some of which we implemented (others were very ambitious, bordering on Dwarf Fortress!) And even though what we created was very simple and crude, their pride in ownership was clear.

Re: BASIC Computer Games

#72

Post by jackhack »

duxup wrote: post #10
royjacobs wrote: post #3

The interesting podcast "They Create Worlds" recently had an episode on this topic, it's worth a listen: https://tcwpodcast.podbean.com/e/computer-game-basics/ Growing up I had a Commodore 64 and for some reason came into possession of another of David Ahl's books ("More Computer Games" I think it was called). It contained Eliza as one of the listings and it was a program that fascinated me so much I ended up creatin…

Horribly nested BASIC is just what you did before you did it better.

But it felt so liberating and high-level, compared to the assembly we wrote before. :)

Re: BASIC Computer Games

#75

Post by 0815test »

jerf wrote: post #45
duxup wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horribly nested BASIC is just what you did before you did it better.

On the Commodore 64, it was the only option. It had minimal support for a thing it called a "subroutine", but what it really was was a GOTO that pushed the source on to the stack and could be RETURN'd to that source. In particular, no concept of return value, no concept of parameters; everything's global. Modification of global values prior to the "call" is the argument passing, and modification of global values is t…

The 6502 processor itself also has very poor "stack" support, the hardware-supported stack is limited to 256 bytes at a fixed location. It's one of the things that make it hard to compile a modern language like C for the architecture, so even among compiled languages one would prefer something FORTRAN/BASIC-like.

Re: BASIC Computer Games

#76

Post by tsumnia »

NikkiA wrote: post #29
quickthrower2 wrote: post #4

Such nostalgia. That’s how I got into programming.

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.

Funny enough, this is my PhD research. Granted, I do agree that the examples should be more meaningful; however, offering students worked examples as typing examples to better train them on syntax errors is the general feel.

Re: BASIC Computer Games

#78

Post by dekhn »

cr0sh wrote: post #66
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 ru…

I miss terminals too. For me it was dec vt100s.
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