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March 16th, 2002

Basic Fun

Back in the day, when typing in programs was the way to make your computer do stuff, there were a load of books to help one out – chock full o’programs.

The one I remember the most is Basic Fun. It was a small paperback book with a cover featuring two geeky kids sitting in front of an Apple ][. They were obviously impressed with their creation. Oddly, I don’t remember any actual programs from the book – just the book! And I never got into the sequel, devoted to graphics (wow!) on the Atari computers (wow!)

Once I found this site, though, even more memories came flooring back. I absolutely loved the K-Power series (remember that mag?): Computer Craziness, Computer Monsters, Computer Olympics, and Computer Space Adventures (the suckiest one).

For the serious geeky side of me, well, it was Jim Butterfield’s ML book. ML was a freaking nightmare compared to BASIC, but the speed benefits were huge.

Do spend some time at the Computer Game Museum site, though – lots of great oldies to check out. -pm

Posted in Miscellaneous

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