Broken Computer Games

[savetz]

Broken Computer Games is based on the (real) book Basic Computer Games by Dave Ahl, in 1978, which he put into the public domain in 2022. Basic Computer Games was the first computer book to sell one million copies, and taught a generation of budding programers how to program in the BASIC language.

My little python script randomly selects two of the Basic computer games and mashes them up by choosing a few lines of code from each program. I generated hundreds of these, then ran the programs in pybasic. I chose the programs that worked (at least nominally) and with the most interesting output. Finially, I used Text to PDF to generate the PDF. The cover was handcrafted.

Read Broken Computer Games

Read BASIC Computer Games

Code from the book came from vintage-basic.net

Dot Matrix Font

What Font Is? identified fonts for the cover

which are FattiPattiFLF

and OptiPlanet-Light

and I didn't end up using Trumania EEN but you know you want to

Sample output:

[savetz]

69,398 words. Not a novel :)

I thought I wouldn't have a NaNoGenMo entry this year because I didn't have any ideas that sparked my joy. But this one came to me today, two days before the end of November, so I knocked it out in one day. If I had more time I might have made it fancier, but one day is probably all this project deserves :)

[verachell]

This is awesome! I love the exciting and original idea!

[dariusk]

Oh I love this :)