If you can find a book called Basic Computer Games by David Ahl (I think there
were about 4 volumes, actually, but I have volume 1) it contains some real
classics. Like the text based Star Trek game. (This was in my C=64
days - a friend of mine's mom typed in this huge program for him, he gave
me a copy and we spent our time hacking in sound and graphics on the '64.)
Some of the games are very short - a dozen lines or so. Others, like
Star Trek mentioned above, are hundreds. To tell the truth I don't know
really how much programming I learned with it, except when we were
hacking the sound routines into Trek, of course, but they're good
books with good games.
I learned a great deal more programming writing my own Dungeons and Dragons
player character generator. It was times like those I fervently wished
Commodore had provided renumbering in their basic - I discovered gosub
because I ran out of line numbers in the program. :)
Didn't learn structured programming until I took it in High School on, you
guessed it, commodore 64s (and CBM 8032s, actually) At the time I was one
of the only students who could do his homework in computer class at home and
bring his tape drive in and load it in class. :)
For more interesting programming challenges there's a book called "Exploring
artifical intelligence on the commodore 64" it has classic AI programs like
"doctor" in commodore basic. Granted someone'd have to translate the programs
but they looked pretty good.
--
Jim Strickland
jim_at_calico.litterbox.com
--
By Caffeine alone my mind is set in motion.
Through beans of java thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes.
The shakes become a warning - I am in control of my addiction!
By Caffeine alone my mind is set in motion.
Adapted from the Mentat chant of _Dune_
Received on Wed Mar 19 1997 - 10:48:26 GMT