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More basic computer games
More Basic Computer Games
185 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1979
23 people want to read
About the author
David H. Ahl
21 booksLibrary of Congress Authorities: David H. Ahl
Books sometimes say only "David Ahl"
Books sometimes say only "David Ahl"
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 10, 2019
This collection was put together in 1979, two years after the introduction of the then big three computers (TRS-80, Apple II, Commodore PET). Those are the first three computers listed in the compatibility section.
Of the non-big three, I do not recall the OSI Challenger at all, vaguely remember the Exidy Sorceror, and never knew much about CP/M, which seemed always primed to be the next big thing but never the current big thing.
Like its predecessor’s, the programs in this book are designed around computers whose display is a printing terminal. The quote above goes directly to:
I typed two of the programs into a CGColorMax2 (Color Maximite Retro Computer), “Black Box” and “Chase”. The former required using INT() on the calculations for ON x GOTO; apparently Microsoft BASIC ignored fractions in an ON x GOTO but the Color Maximite does not. I verified this on a TRS-80 Level II emulator, though at 1.99999999 the system rounds the variable to two before it reaches the ON x GOTO statement.
Both of these are games I remember fondly, although I never played a black box as primitive as this. The basics of a black box game is that you have a square grid; you shoot a ray into the grid at one point and it comes out at another point (or sometimes from the same point you injected it and sometimes not at all). If your ray hits an obstruction directly, it is absorbed and does not come out; if it passes an adjacent obstruction, it bounces at a 90 degree angle away from the obstruction. It can be affected by more than one obstruction. The goal is to determine where the obstructions (“atoms” in this version) are inside the grid.
In this version, the grid is never displayed. Your injection point for the ray is given as a number starting from 1 and, going counter-clockwise around the box, to 32 (8 inputs/outputs to a side). The result—where the ray comes out—is given as the same number, so you need to have a piece of graph paper to chart the results in order to solve the puzzle.
Chase is much more like how I remember it. The point of this game is that you’re in a fenced-in area, fenced in by deadly electric fences and deadly electric pillars within the area. There are also deadly robots chasing you. If a robot touches you, you’re dead; if you touch a fence or pillar, you’re dead. If the robots touch a fence or pillar, they’re destroyed. They’re also fairly stupid, and can be convinced to chase you right into a pillar. You win if you can convince all of the robots to destroy themselves.
This version of the game reprints the game board at each step, much as I remember it. I did modify it to show the electrified areas as red, the robots as blue, and the player piece as green. All pieces, of course, since this was meant to be printed on line printers (which, despite their name, do not print lines), are ASCII characters—X’s for electrified walls and pillars, an asterisk for the player, and plusses for the robots.
Most of the games do not even have that level of graphics. As in the previous book, they are sort of proto-text adventures without the interaction. There’s a Grand Prix simulation which tells you your current speed, your position on a race track, your opponent’s position, and then asks you how much you’d like to accelerate or decelerate your vehicle. You need to watch the numerical position and compare it to the course description (drawn with Xs) so as to avoid spinning out on the curves.
Probably the most amazing of these games is a pinball game. According to the sample run it pretty much describes your ball’s progress through a pinball machine. Every once in a while it displays the actual layout (using ASCII characters, of course) but most of the progress is described using words and numbers.
Reflective of the times, there’s a “Motorcycle Jump” game, “originally titled EVILK”. You tell it how many busses you want to jump, the angle of the ramp you’re using, and the speed at which you’ll enter the ramp.
There’s a trek-like space battle game, because there has to be in any collection like this. And of course a couple of Rogerian analysts—Dr. Z and the ubiquitous Eliza.
There are also some more interesting attempts at graphics than the previous volume. “Inkblot” draws, using dollar signs, Rorschach-like symmetrical ink blots. It’s mostly an exercise in using ellipses. And there are programs for drawing Lissajous patterns and Pascal’s triangles.
While I don’t recognize quite as many of these games as in the earlier version, I’m fairly certain that Chase ultimately inspired Robotron.
All the programs in this book have been converted and tested in Microsoft BASIC. We have not used any extended or machine-dependent features, so they will work in almost any machine with Microsoft BASIC (TRS-80 Level II, Commodore PET, Apple II with Applesoft BASIC, OSI Challenger, Exidy Sorceror, or CP/M disk operations system).
Of the non-big three, I do not recall the OSI Challenger at all, vaguely remember the Exidy Sorceror, and never knew much about CP/M, which seemed always primed to be the next big thing but never the current big thing.
Like its predecessor’s, the programs in this book are designed around computers whose display is a printing terminal. The quote above goes directly to:
However, we ran the programs on a Teletype KSR-43 terminal, so several of the games are designed to run with a 72 character terminal width, and two of the games (PATTERNS and PINBALL) use the backspace function to print overstrikes. Both of these programs can be modified, if need be, to bypass the use of this function. However, if your computer has a screen then you may have to adapt the programs to a narrower terminal width (especially on the PET which is only 40 characters wide). Of course, you can also use your screen display for special animated graphics if you’re clever.
I typed two of the programs into a CGColorMax2 (Color Maximite Retro Computer), “Black Box” and “Chase”. The former required using INT() on the calculations for ON x GOTO; apparently Microsoft BASIC ignored fractions in an ON x GOTO but the Color Maximite does not. I verified this on a TRS-80 Level II emulator, though at 1.99999999 the system rounds the variable to two before it reaches the ON x GOTO statement.
Both of these are games I remember fondly, although I never played a black box as primitive as this. The basics of a black box game is that you have a square grid; you shoot a ray into the grid at one point and it comes out at another point (or sometimes from the same point you injected it and sometimes not at all). If your ray hits an obstruction directly, it is absorbed and does not come out; if it passes an adjacent obstruction, it bounces at a 90 degree angle away from the obstruction. It can be affected by more than one obstruction. The goal is to determine where the obstructions (“atoms” in this version) are inside the grid.
In this version, the grid is never displayed. Your injection point for the ray is given as a number starting from 1 and, going counter-clockwise around the box, to 32 (8 inputs/outputs to a side). The result—where the ray comes out—is given as the same number, so you need to have a piece of graph paper to chart the results in order to solve the puzzle.
Chase is much more like how I remember it. The point of this game is that you’re in a fenced-in area, fenced in by deadly electric fences and deadly electric pillars within the area. There are also deadly robots chasing you. If a robot touches you, you’re dead; if you touch a fence or pillar, you’re dead. If the robots touch a fence or pillar, they’re destroyed. They’re also fairly stupid, and can be convinced to chase you right into a pillar. You win if you can convince all of the robots to destroy themselves.
This version of the game reprints the game board at each step, much as I remember it. I did modify it to show the electrified areas as red, the robots as blue, and the player piece as green. All pieces, of course, since this was meant to be printed on line printers (which, despite their name, do not print lines), are ASCII characters—X’s for electrified walls and pillars, an asterisk for the player, and plusses for the robots.
Most of the games do not even have that level of graphics. As in the previous book, they are sort of proto-text adventures without the interaction. There’s a Grand Prix simulation which tells you your current speed, your position on a race track, your opponent’s position, and then asks you how much you’d like to accelerate or decelerate your vehicle. You need to watch the numerical position and compare it to the course description (drawn with Xs) so as to avoid spinning out on the curves.
Probably the most amazing of these games is a pinball game. According to the sample run it pretty much describes your ball’s progress through a pinball machine. Every once in a while it displays the actual layout (using ASCII characters, of course) but most of the progress is described using words and numbers.
BALL APPROACHING FLIPPERS. ENTER THE TWO FLIPPERS YOU WISH TO FLIP
IN THE FORM: X,Y ? 2,3
THE BALL IS NOW AT ( 7 , 10 ).
YOU RECEIVE 54 POINTS FROM THE BUMPER AT 7, 10 .
Reflective of the times, there’s a “Motorcycle Jump” game, “originally titled EVILK”. You tell it how many busses you want to jump, the angle of the ramp you’re using, and the speed at which you’ll enter the ramp.
There’s a trek-like space battle game, because there has to be in any collection like this. And of course a couple of Rogerian analysts—Dr. Z and the ubiquitous Eliza.
There are also some more interesting attempts at graphics than the previous volume. “Inkblot” draws, using dollar signs, Rorschach-like symmetrical ink blots. It’s mostly an exercise in using ellipses. And there are programs for drawing Lissajous patterns and Pascal’s triangles.
While I don’t recognize quite as many of these games as in the earlier version, I’m fairly certain that Chase ultimately inspired Robotron.
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June 28, 2020I learned a lot of computer programing from this book by keying in the listings into my TI-994A computer and debugging the programs. Before Microsoft and IBM PCs existed.
August 17, 2007
I guess you had to be there. No explanation of this book is necessary!
This one was not as fun and did not serve as an incubator for the computer industry as the other did.
However, I still keep this on my bookshelf along with the first book. Perhaps because it is appropriately worn!
This one was not as fun and did not serve as an incubator for the computer industry as the other did.
However, I still keep this on my bookshelf along with the first book. Perhaps because it is appropriately worn!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews