My BASIC Story 05/15/24
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Logout talked about the 60th anniversary of BASIC recently, as I
already mentioned[1]. This got me to thinking about my own experience
with BASIC, which I have probably shared before, but which I'll pull
out and dust off once again.
My older brother was always more in to electronics and things when we
were young. I recall being more concerned with running around outside,
riding my red BMX-style Huffy, playing with G.I. Joes, eating pizza,
and imagining the day when my mom would finally let me get a BB gun.
There was this one time, when my brother was 10 and I was 8, when we
went to Paradise Valley Mall, in Phoenix AZ[2], where we hung out
often, and digging through a bargain book bin with him. He found a
reference book on electronics that was about 4" thick at the binding;
he spent his own money on it (when he could have purchased snow cones,
fed the arcade machines, or done almost anything else!).
A few years later, my dad would get a PC for his business, which we
would use for Space Quest III, Manhunter, and other games that sold on
5.25" floppies. To me, that computer meant video games, and that was
about it. Video games that didn't need quarter-feeding. Video games we
could play all weekend long for FREE, when we were at dad's house and
the sun was too hot for the pool to be any fun.
Fast forward a few years. We had moved to Oregon, and our dad's old
computer went with us (he had a new one). We got a Nintendo and a
couple games. The Turbo Duo was going out of style, and we bought one
with a ton of clearance games from Fred Meyer[3]. Add to all that the
fact that we had just moved on to property with our own woods, and
life felt just about as good as it could feel (well, the BB gun didn't
come for a few more years...).
Computers were less exciting as video game centers, though they still
had a place for Space Quest and other things that the consoles just
didn't do at the time. High school came along, and computers became
something that you did for obscure work (ew?). Even typing wasn't on
computers for us at that point--I took typing classes on the IBM
Selectric II (which will live forever in my mind as one of the best
things in the world to type on).
Then in my sophomore year, something happened. I walked in to the
computer lab to find my brother, and saw a crowd of people gathered
around his friends. I approached to see what was so interesting, and
found that one of his friends was sitting down playing a video game.
There was a little box at the bottom of the screen moving left and
right, firing laser lines at boxes that were descending randomly from
the top of the screen; a space shooter.
But then something happened that I didn't expect. He broke out of the
game and returned to the QBasic editor. He made some changes based on
the input the people around him were giving, and restarted the game.
He was manipulating the game! He was controlling the computer, bending
it to his will! My mind opened up to the possibilities of a computer
that you had full control over, video games that YOU could change the
way YOU wanted--even the possibility of creating something uniquely
your own.
Looking back, I think what really happened is that computers changed
from something you used to amuse yourself, into a creative tool with
limitless potential. My mind was changed in an instant, and I wanted
in. I asked my questions, and figured out that QBasic was something
on every computer (well, they were all MSDOS back then folks...). I
begged my brother's friend for the source code to his game, so I
could fiddle with it.
Being the upperclassmen that they were, they laughed and agreed with a
wink between them. Later that day, that same group approached me with
a stack of tractor-fed accordion paper printed with code. My brother's
friend informed me that he had the copy of his game for me (I had
expected a disk). He was about to hand it to me, but I think he was
upset that I wasn't more put out by the print-out joke (I'd have to
type that mess in!), and he held it back. He looked at me, then the
paper stack, and tore off the first half of the first page. He handed
what was left to me with a, "here you go!"
Of course, the first lines contained the DIM statements, subroutine
declarations, and some variable definitions; all very important. I
spent hours typing in what I had, and additional hours figuring out
what in the world was missing--but finally succeeded in replicating
his game.
And from that one experience--with a group of guys and Microsoft
QBasic--I discovered a hobby, came out of my shell with new friends
throughout high school and beyond, and even built some kind of
Frankenstein career that has managed to provide for a family. BASIC
was a part of that for me, and I can't stop loving it.
These days, I still fiddle with BASIC. Perhaps you do as well, or
perhaps you don't even know what it is. But there's no time limit for
learning basic, it is immortal. I've used variations of it on the
CDC-6500 (had an account on there, username JOEY, back when it was
actually live and online), on my z80 systems, and everywhere else I
could find. I used it on my Palm IIIe, and on a variety of other
handheld devices. Joneworlds has a link for android BASIC[4]. It's
everywhere, and I love discovering it every time.
[1]
gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~tfurrows/phlog/2024-05-15_logoutBack.txt
[2]
gopher://gopherpedia.com:70/0/Paradise Valley Mall
[3]
gopher://gopherpedia.com:70/0/Fred Meyer
[4]
gopher://republic.circumlunar.space:70/1/%7ejoneworlds/
