''BASIC Computer Games'' is a compilation of type-in computer games in the

BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...

programming language collected by David H. Ahl. Some of the games were written or modified by Ahl as well. Among its better-known games are '' Hamurabi'' and ''

Super Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is a text-based strategy video game based on the ''Star Trek'' television series and originally released in 1971. In the game, the player commands the USS ''Enterprise'' on a mission to hunt down and destroy an invading fleet of K ...

''. Originally published in 1973 as ''101 BASIC Computer Games'', the book was so popular that it had two more printing runs, the last in March 1975. The programs in these books were written in the BASIC dialect found on Digital's

minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...

s. In 1974, Ahl left DEC. He purchased the rights to the book and republished it under the new name. With the release of the first

microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (P ...

s, and

Microsoft BASIC Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first ...

soon after, the games were ported to this dialect. By the early 1980s, with tens of millions of home computers in the market, it had become the first computer book to sell a million copies.

History

Around 1971, Ahl ported two popular

early mainframe games Mainframe computers are computers used primarily by businesses and academic institutions for large-scale processes. Before personal computers, first termed microcomputers, became widely available to the general public in the 1970s, the computing ...

from DEC's FOCAL language to BASIC: '' Hamurabi'' and ''

Lunar Lander A lunar lander or Moon lander is a spacecraft designed to land on the surface of the Moon. As of 2021, the Apollo Lunar Module is the only lunar lander to have ever been used in human spaceflight, completing six lunar landings from 1969 to 19 ...

''. He published the BASIC versions in DEC's educational newsletter, ''EDU'', which he edited. Their popularity was such that he called for more submissions for future editions of the newsletter, and quickly gathered many, with a considerable group of them coming from high school students. The wide availability of BASIC on various platforms, notably the

Data General Nova The Data General Nova is a series of 16-bit minicomputers released by the American company Data General. The Nova family was very popular in the 1970s and ultimately sold tens of thousands of units. The first model, known simply as "Nova", was ...

and

HP 2100 The HP 2100 is a series of 16-bit minicomputers that were produced by Hewlett-Packard (HP) from the mid-1960s to early 1990s. Tens of thousands of machines in the series were sold over its twenty-five year lifetime, making HP the fourth largest m ...

series, led to considerable porting effort to and from the DEC platform. In 1974, Ahl left DEC to start ''

Creative Computing ''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format th ...

'' magazine. He re-acquired the rights to the book from DEC and re-published under the name ''BASIC Computer Games''. It was around this time that the first hobbyist microcomputers started appearing in 1975, and it became quite popular with these owners. The release of the "1977 Trinity" machines (

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-mold ...

Commodore PET The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, ...

, and

TRS-80 The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of ...

) was soon followed by a great many new competing microcomputer platforms featuring BASIC, along with the userbase to go with them, and demand for the book led to a second edition in 1978. Sales remained strong for years, and spawned similar collections in ''More Basic Computer Games'' (1979), and ''Big Computer Games'' (1984) and ''Basic Computer Adventures'' (1984), with translations into six languages.

Games

*''

Chomp Chomp is a two-player strategy game played on a rectangular grid made up of smaller square cells, which can be thought of as the blocks of a chocolate bar. The players take it in turns to choose one block and "eat it" (remove from the board), tog ...

'' *''

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polic ...

'' *''

Hexapawn Hexapawn is a deterministic two-player game invented by Martin Gardner. It is played on a rectangular board of variable size, for example on a 3×3 board or on a regular chessboard. On a board of size ''n''×''m'', each player begins with ''m'' p ...

'' *'' Hamurabi'' (based on ''The Sumer Game'' by Doug Dyment) *'' Nim'' *''

Reception

The first version, ''101'' went into a second printing and eventually sold 10,000 copies. Ahl later noted that “was far more books than there were computers around, so people were buying three, four, five of them for each computer.” The second version, ''BASIC'', was re-printed many times and was the first computer book to sell a million copies. Harry McCracken called it "The single most influential book of the BASIC era".

Legacy

Using

Vintage Basic Vintage, in winemaking, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product—wine (see Harvest (wine)). A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In certa ...

, the games can be run on any Microsoft Windows (32-bit or 64-bit),

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

(64-bit only), or

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

(64-bit only) system. The source code for the book is provided (with permission of David H Ahl) o
Vintage Basic's Basic Computer Games
page. A Microsoft Windows machine with the

GW-BASIC GW-BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language developed by Microsoft from IBM BASICA. Functionally identical to BASICA, its BASIC interpreter is a fully self-contained executable and does not need the Cassette BASIC ROM found in the ori ...

interpreter (32-bit only) can also run the games. The games are also compilable and playable with the

Microsoft Small Basic Microsoft Small Basic is a programming language, interpreter and associated IDE. Microsoft's simplified variant of BASIC, it is designed to help students who have learnt visual programming languages such as Scratch learn text-based programming ...

development environment for children. Computer Science for Kids has released a 2010 Small Basic Edition of the classic Basic Computer Games book called ''Basic Computer Games: Small Basic Edition''.Small Basic Computer Games website
on computerscienceforkids.com
project
started on GitHub in 2021 to port the games in these books to modern languages. Program listings from the second ("microcomputer") edition, and from ''More Basic Computer Games'', can be run by the open-source Brassica interpreter i
R
o
Python

References

External links

*
''Basic Computer Games: Small Basic 2010 Edition''George Beker's BEKERBOTS Site. Beker illustrated the Basic Computer Games books''Basic Computer Games'' archived on AtariArchives.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Basic Computer Games BASIC programming language family Source code Books about video games Video games with available source code