Jim wrote:
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)
I know of three volumes by David Ahl, BASIC COMPUTER GAMES, MORE BASIC
COMPUTER GAMES and BIG COMPUTER GAMES (the third seem to be direct
re-prints of games articles published in Creative Comuting judging from
the artwork and copy layout.) There are also the Best of Creative
Computing (I think 3 volumes were done) which include alot of nifty
discussion on different sorting techniques and the like, a pity such
'BASIC' things are not as accessible to today's youth (everything is
coded in the high-level languages of today...).
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 agree it is a good way to learn some tricks and stuff, but do have a
BASIC guide (that describes commands and such) for your particular
syustem, as many of the programs have commands that may not work the
same on all machines (The front of the books usually have tips on
converting the programs to many popular computers of the time).
Larry Anderson