TransWikia.com

Sources for some old BASIC games

Retrocomputing Asked on November 10, 2021

Poking about in early issues of Dr Dobbs’ Journal (the journal of the People’s Computer Company, or PCC) I came across a listing for BASIC games available on tape. Many of these are widespread, but a number I have not heard of and Google is not helping. Does anyone have listings for:

  • Motie
  • Rescue
  • Trader (assume early version of space trader?)
  • Crash

4 Answers

I have a book of printed BASIC computer games I got on eBay by David H. Ahl. I bought this for nostalgic purposes and for actually running on my homemade Z80 computer running BASIC. I had this book as a kid and it was my introduction to programming, a lifelong pursuit and career...

I think Ahl published two books, a yellow one and a red one. Look on Amazon or eBay for used volumes.

Answered by TomServo on November 10, 2021

The page has a hint that the games are listed in What to Do After you Hit Return.

  • Trader is Star Trader, as listed starting on page 143

  • Crash is a modified version of Lunar Lander, listed on page 151.

While typing in the code would be a chore, maybe searching for comment strings will turn up the full source.

Answered by scruss on November 10, 2021

I stumbled across another good source. When I had my Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I and was in college, I used to subscribe to SoftSide Magazine which published games for Radio Shack, Atari, and Apple computers. This link goes directly to an issue I was searching for because I played the game on the cover so much that I ported it to my Commodore 64, and later to the IBM PC.

Answered by Bill Hileman on November 10, 2021

Here is the listing for Motie, followed immediately by Rescue. The full list of archived issues of People's Computer Co. (PCC) is here.

Answered by snips-n-snails on November 10, 2021

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question

Get help from others!

© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP