David Ahl's Basic Computer Games Ported to C

(github.com)

24 points | by theanonymousone 2 hours ago

6 comments

  • PaulHoule 1 hour ago
    The version of that book I remember came out long before there was GW-BASIC, in fact, it came out just before there were microcomputers and you might type them into a PDP-8/10/11. I bought a copy at the DEC store in the Mall of New Hampshire circa 1980.

    Some of the games used features that were not supported on most microcomputer BASICs but you could type most of them into a TRS-80 or Apple ][ without changes and you could run all of them with minor modifications. Fun times!

    • sbuttgereit 1 hour ago
      Yep. Ahl's book was first released in 1973... about 10 years before GW-BASIC.
  • firesteelrain 53 minutes ago
    Jeff Atwood (of Stack Overflow) started a similar effort a few years ago albeit in multiple programming languages. It was pre AI. I am sure AI would make short order of many of the conversions with very little tokens however that was never the point.

    https://github.com/coding-horror/basic-computer-games

  • 9NRtKyP4 34 minutes ago
    Anyone remember GORILLA.BAS and NIBBLES.BAS? I learnt to program by fiddling with these.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillas_(video_game)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibbles_(video_game)

  • ThrowawayR2 16 minutes ago
    > "These haven't been tested, validated, debugged, or verified! ... I used Google Anti-Gravity to convert the programs from GW-BASIC to 'C'"

    Doesn't seem like there's anything of interest here. It's just tossing existing code into a LLM.

  • WillAdams 1 hour ago
    Of all the books which I've thought need to be re-written as Literate Programs:

    http://literateprogramming.com/

    These are at the top of the list.

  • HocusLocus 18 minutes ago
    I liked maze games with sprites and CHASE.bas (like later PAC-MAN) was a first glimpse of coded transactional survival, though you usually didn't survive long. Great terminal game as was GORILLAS.bas. For printers/fanfold paper BANNER.bas was a functional matrix font generator. They were the days of SNOOPY calendars on various RPG/COBOL/DartmothBASIC/FortranIV/77 platforms.

    This treasured Volume and the whole series https://archive.org/details/bestofcreativeco00ahld was where a lot or it came together. Fun book and a Merry Prankster vibe from the Furry Freak Bros cover art, fun times for 13 year olds!