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/