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Uborne Children's Books Release For Free Computer Books From the '80s (usborne.com)
martiniturbide writes: To promote some new computer coding books for kids, Uborne Children's Books has put online 15 of its children books from the '80s to learn how to code games. The books are available for free in PDF format and has samples to create your game for Commodore 64, VIC 20, Apple, TRS 80, Spectrum and other. Maybe you read some of them like "Machine Code for Beginners" or "Write your own Adventure Program for MicroComputers." Should other publishers also start to make their '80s and '90s computer books available for free?
my fav old children's books.
Errm it is Usborne not Uborne.
I know editors don't actually do any editing, but come on...
Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
This is pretty interesting, but the question stands in my mind: Can they be 3D printed?
i had one of those could never use it though because we had a windows 95? machine and i coulden't work out how to get BASIC
oncology
Aside from the blatant incorrect spelling, doesn't the title sound much better without the "For" in there? Shouldn't release be releases? Looks like English is not the first language of this submitter.
Honestly, what?
I'd love free copies of The Art of Programming by Knuth, or any of the K, R, or P books. Maybe even Bjorne.
I'm probably missing out on something but couldn't most of the C64 code be run on most other BASIC interpreters as well? Especially if the code was intended to be child / introductory level?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Mistakes happen, rabidly foaming at the mouth and cursing the editors doesn't help Slashdot nor our community here.
Seriously. Everytime I pick up a book I don't start trying to figure out about every hand that passed by those pages.
... children. Oh wait, nevermind.
Good luck with that. GWBASIC and QBASIC from the Microsoft camp did things differently than just about every other BASIC interpreter out there. It shouldn't be difficult to find a half-decent C64 emulator, though.
In order to use some of the more interesting features of BASIC on the C64 you had to POKE to and PEEK from very specific memory locations.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Only if you target a common sub-set of language features. Each vendor offered specific features or extensions. For example, if the source relied on direct memory calls for special or fancy stuff, those won't likely match up to another vendor's dialect.
Table-ized A.I.
Notably, there were no graphics and sound primitives whatsoever in C64 BASIC. If you wanted to take advantage of the (actually quite impressive, for the day) graphics and sound, you had to directly manipulate memory.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
"Should other publishers also start to make their 80's and 90's computer books available for free?"
Should we reform copyright law so that books that are thirty or forty years old enter the public domain?
I'm probably missing out on something but couldn't most of the C64 code be run on most other BASIC interpreters as well? Especially if the code was intended to be child / introductory level?
Much of it probably could. Peek and poke graphics would get interesting though ...
good work nerd - you have to explain the obvious
people who had 8bit computers already knew this is the case....
but...nope... I have to say the obvious
Go to the Atari Archives or Don Lancaster's web page and you'll find many of the classic computer books from the 80's. There are other sites which feature old computer books, all with permission of the rights holder.
I learned to program primarily on Radio Shack machines (MC-10 and Color Computer, boy that brings back memories). I found the GWBASIC/QBasic interpreters fairly close to the old Tandy/RS variants of Microsoft BASIC. The Commodore interpreter, which was also an MS BASIC variant, still seemed to have some oddities.
The problem with gaming was of course that every microcomputer had its own graphics engine, so it made porting incredibly complex in many cases. Since we're talking about computers that had, at most, 30-odd kb in free RAM, there wasn't much room for graphics abstraction. Commodore's graphics, especially on the C64, with its sprite capabilities, made it very different than the rest of the microcomputers of the time.
But text-based stuff was usually pretty easy, and I remember the adventure writing book, which was pretty cool, and I wrote a few adventure games. It actually taught me a lot about string processing, indexes and counters and the like, so these books did teach some pretty important fundamentals in a way that gave you quick results.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I remember typing in the "Haunted House" by hand from Write your own adventure programs for your microcomputer"
The games I wrote never looked like anything the pretty illustrations -- I imagine they helped sell the book. :-)
I remember a book of basic games for my Apple 2+. After entering page after page of code only to have it not work, we found, the back of the book, a small note about how the authors intentionally left errors in the code that you had to troubleshoot. After what seemed like forever of fixing the code, the games sucked. Nowhere near as good as my Atari 2600 games. Good stuff.
Anyone remember that wireframe rolling ball demo for GWBASIC (?) that looked tron-esque? It used the 4 graphics pages to give the illusion of rolling.
IIRC the land showed lines getting closer together to simulate distance.
* http://www.abandonia.com/files...
The ball wasn't transparent -- it used hidden line removal IIRC.
* https://s-media-cache-ak0.pini...
Now-a-days we would use a wireframe like this:
* http://eleganthack.com/wp-cont...
Yes and no. GW-BASIC and especially QBASIC had their own way of doing things, but they were essentially backwards compatible with the the 8-bit Microsoft basic found on Apple, TRS-80, and many other microcomputers of the era (as long as you didn't do machine specific graphics and sound).
Those books are so outdated by today's standards that it's not even worth it.
That is a really good point that I overlooked. When I wrote BASIC on the C64 I didn't go nearly that far (but that says lots about how little I did with BASIC on the C64 and nothing about doing anything clever to not need those features). That said, if these were "programming for kids" type books would they go to that level?
As someone else pointed out, a C64 emulator could make the point unimportant.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Does it include pascal? If so, then maybe i should look into it and finally make that IGM for L.O.R.D., I was planning on doing 19 years ago... better late then never i guess
The original poster said nothing about having familiarity with 8-bit computers. I don't understand your complaint.
Table-ized A.I.
> couldn't most of the C64 code be run on most other BASIC interpreters as well?
No. 'BASIC' is not one language but is many different variations with some vague similarities. Some require and use line numbers, some require that there be no line numbers and have 'labels'. Some only allow single letter plus number variable names, some allow long names. The interesting bits are machine specific extensions and addresses unique to a particular computer model. The methods of displaying graphics are also different.
To again state the obvious, a lot of /.ers are too young to have had machines like this.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Considering the "useful lifespan" of tech books varies from 3 to 5 years, ALL such older books should become free PDF downloads. "Fun with Your Apple ][", "Windows 98 for Dummies" and "Solaris 2.x for Managers" are completely obsolete. Almost all the Python 2 books become antiques with Python 3 growing - ok, maybe not the best example (but better than Perl 6 which has been 20 years in Promiseland). Most often, by now, the hardware to run the examples is dead and the compilers or software very hard to find.
I remember trying to get the Basic programs printed in Penny Power (and later renamed to Zillions) magazine to run on our IBM PC clone in various Basic versions (a, qw, etc). Holy shit was that frustrating. At least you can do copy and paste now. Though to really feel the pain of the past kids need to type all that in by hand!
Was that posted by our new overlords? Or someone else new here?
Wonder if Slashdot discussions should be split into a funny one-liners thread, and a serious discussion thread. The funny one-liners are funny, but the unfunny ones aren't. Kind of depressing when you hop on for a good discussion and there are a whole load of these.
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated." No shit, sherlock. Also anything you disagree with. One problem with Slashdot is no one moderates the moderators. When you do a thoughtful post but some butthole mods it down because the disagree with it, and no one else sees it, you go "what the fuck" and don't bother next time.
" If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider logging in or creating an account." Whoever posted that doesn't understand why people before AC posts over the bile which comes with challenging a fanboy religion. AC is better because you judge the post entirely by its contents. Not some dick building their own personal brand.
" Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said." Which means a shitload of lame one-liners and diatribes. Like expecting a liberal to read everything Rush Limbaugh has written before opening their mouths. Same conservatives and Marx. No thanks. I'll skim and post.
Ars voting system is better. Cream rises to the top. Shit drops off the bott. Other than that, mod the mods especially those who moderate what they disagree with and separate one-liners from serious discussion.
I had that old 'Creepy Computer Games' book. I still might somewhere - I think I saw it in a box a couple of years ago.
That's really what got me excited about computers, and I remember being amazed that I could make the magic box do what I wanted it to.
I had so much fun playing Zork on my Sanyo MBC-555, that being able to actually make the computer do what I wanted, and to write my 'own' games on it, was just astounding.
I might have to go through it again. I doubt re-writing the behavior now would be more than a short exercise, but it might be interesting to see how it goes trying to translate them.
How many languages do *you* speak? As long as people can express themselves, that's all that matters.
A big site in the Atari 8-bit community is www.atarimagazines.com .
Great site with complete magazines and books.
I really did. The pictures the explanation. The code.
I typed in a lot of these into my C64 in early primary school (year 2-6). From there I started editing them, then improving them, then writing my own from scratch. Then I got bored writing games so just wrote code that explored interesting ideas, concepts etc. There was a book on Chaos mathematics that also included BASIC code in it but was more for university level stuff, which I used on the PC, which as a high school student I loved immensely. You could play around with the maths and the code, make it faster, make it more complex etc.
Great way to get into mathematics and coding. I remember when a children's book at over 500 lines of code that you also had to adapt to your machine, to play a text adventure which most of us didn't even save. I look at childrens books now. Oh wait they don't exist any more. Not really. Not for kids old enough to own a phone or a laptop.
"Computer Lib/Dream Machine"
I used to spend hours looking a the cover of the BATTLEGAMES one wishing that one day I could play a game like that, imagining that one day an airoplane wouldn't simply be a square on the screen.
We don't believe in radical loony monotheistic religions from the middle east -- we're Christians.
jeesus reading the comments to this question makes me feel old, and also sad that there is such bad information given to the op
yes if you stay away from peeks, pokes, graphics, sound, joystic / paddle io, and the charater set of the C64 they are mostly portable, until they are not cause the methods have different names on different computers depending on if they were keeping compatibility with some pre MS BASIC (such as apple, tandy commie and just about everyone else)
My first programming book. Still have it.
Fran
:):):)
1st 1st Poster of the new Millennium!
They have books and all the old system-specific magazines too!
https://archive.org/details/folkscanomy_computer
https://archive.org/details/computermagazines
a lot of the knowledge gained in this forum. hopefully I can be smarter
The illustrations in Usborne's 1980s books are top notch. I don't think I read these particular ones, but I loved checking them out from my grade-school library.
well the really simple stuff sure.
anything with an ounce of graphcis and it will pretty much run only with whatever it was intended for.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I had that old 'Creepy Computer Games' book. I still might somewhere - I think I saw it in a box a couple of years ago.
That's really what got me excited about computers, and I remember being amazed that I could make the magic box do what I wanted it to.
I had so much fun playing Zork on my Sanyo MBC-555, that being able to actually make the computer do what I wanted, and to write my 'own' games on it, was just astounding.
I might have to go through it again. I doubt re-writing the behavior now would be more than a short exercise, but it might be interesting to see how it goes trying to translate them.
Holy Crap! I am amazed to see a reference to that computer so many years later! I wanted it so bad back in the day, I think it was 1982-84 that I went into a small computer store and found that system for sale. It was rated really well in some computer review magazine I had at the time and it definitely lived up to expectations in the showroom. Sadly I couldn't afford it but it left enough of an impression on me that I recalled the model number today.
Thank you for bringing back that happy memory. :)
You're not talking about the Boing Ball are you? A demo for the Amiga written to show off its graphics capabilities.
My university library was like this. "Look! Computer books!" Here's one. Its called Fortran. It was written in 1957. Here's another one called COBOL. It was written in 1959. Here's one about a smaller computer called the VAX. And I learned to get resources from online sources, since dead-tree information sources are very often well beyond outdated to be useful. These books might be useful if I ever buy a VIC20 again.
And in these books (yes, I still have them!) you often found a page or two at the back with a set of corrections to make the program work with the BASIC dialects of different machines (Spectrum, TIMEX, ZX80/81, Commodore 64, Commodore Pet, BBC, TRS-80, Apricot, Dragon, Oric, etc.). The sheer diversity is something I miss now it's all generic Intel.
Notably, there were no graphics and sound primitives whatsoever in C64 BASIC. If you wanted to take advantage of the (actually quite impressive, for the day) graphics and sound, you had to directly manipulate memory.
Fortunately, you could get excellent books on machine code for 6502 CPUs, written in a style that would appeal to children.
These days you get scratch.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
That is a really good point that I overlooked. When I wrote BASIC on the C64 I didn't go nearly that far (but that says lots about how little I did with BASIC on the C64 and nothing about doing anything clever to not need those features). That said, if these were "programming for kids" type books would they go to that level?
Follow the link and read the book on machine code. Yes it goes to that level.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I've still got a copy of Island of Secrets kicking around at home somewhere. Really glad to see these released free to use.
Uborne Children's Books has put online 15 of its children books from the '80s to learn how to code games.
"Children books"?
The books have been put online so that they (the books) can learn how to code games?
Also it's Usborne, not "Uborne." Yeesh.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I'm probably missing out on something but couldn't most of the C64 code be run on most other BASIC interpreters as well? Especially if the code was intended to be child / introductory level?
Yes. You're missing out on something.
Back in the 80's there were numerous competing platforms. They all had a BASIC interpreter, but they were a very long way from being compatible with each other. Sure, the *ehm* basics were the same, but doing anything with graphics or sound would make your code platform-specific. Even just positioning or colouring text was completely different on every platform.
I remember having books with program listings dozens of pages long for you to type into your machine. And at the end of the listing, there would be more pages for each type of computer, with the lines of code that you had to change from the main listing to make it work on your platform. (those programs *never* worked... typing in a few thousand lines of code by copying from a magazine was never going to be error free. But finding the bugs -- that's what really got me started as a coder).
Given the context - 1980s computers - I'd take it as read.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
In order to use some of the more interesting features of BASIC on the C64 you had to POKE to and PEEK from very specific memory locations.
53280 and 53281 controlled the screen and border colours.
:-)
POKE 53280,0
POKE 53281,0
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
It was the VIC II and SID - custom color video and audio chips that made the C64 great, along with Jack Tramiel's desire to mass market the machine at a low price to department stores - at a time when most other machines were green screen terminals running CP/M and you went to a special computer store or used mail order to buy one.
I remember the first thing I used to do as a kid was run to the back of the department store to find either the commodores, the Franklin Ace or one of the many "word processing" machines with the weird disks from Smith Corona - just to play with them and see their capabilities. Typically someone would have one in distress..
The BASIC had a lot of PEEKS and POKES to machine specific locations to do things like read the joystick ports and set up sprites. I think by the time they rolled out the TED series (to compete with the SPECTRUM? but completely incompatible with anything before it) they had a version of CBM BASIC - like V7 that had built in graphics manipulation, etc. but with the VIC and C64 a lot of the "cool" stuff was done the hard way.
Same was true for the Apple ][ Basic (I grew up with an Apple IIc then we upgraded to a IIGS when the logic board failed).
I remember the AppleIIGS came with a manual with all the memory locations and what they did. It was trivial to do PEEK and POKE commands to get access to the mouse subsystem or the high-res graphics system (thank god they mapped the PLOT commands to be able to use the high-res graphics system.. it would have been brutal to POKE for every dot on the screen).
Being a bored kid in elementary school, I was able to write my own version of the Apple Finder with full mouse control. I also remember seeing Scored Earth running on one of the computers at the local community college and wrote my own version of that as well. Of course, back then you could find a "physics engine" for those types of games by rekeying functions found in BASIC programming magazines :)
Thanks, but nope, that was a different demo on a different platform.
The one I'm talking about specifically ran on BASCI and early PC's between ~1984 .. 1990. Some of the machines didn't support the 4 graphic pages so it didn't work on all machines. It might have also been a specialized GWBASIC version of BASIC for that PC.
Personally, when a book or video publisher stops actively producing the work it should be allowed for it to go into the public domain in an unmodified fashion. Same goes for software, if a vendor stops selling a particular software package, and stops providing updates for, they should be required to put it in the public domain. Paid version upgrades would count as an update, although only for software released within the last ten years (versions older than ten years old, if they are not being actively updated would than be in the public domain).
Asking about 80's computers and knowing about 80's computers are two different things. I've read the original post 4 times. There is nothing objectively wrong with my reply. I will agree there are perhaps valid alternative interpretations, but that's no reason to complain about my interpretation in such a rude way. If someone by chance interprets it different, they can give a re-phrasing of it based on how they interpret it. No reason to rudely accuse the other person of reading it wrong.
Table-ized A.I.
it's funny, but when you think about it, all those BASICs were written by.... Microsoft.
Microsoft BASIC was built-in for most computers of the 80s, the exception being Apple which was a separate product and distinct from integer BASIC by Woz.
GW-BASIC was provided by Microsoft for PC clones which did not have ROM BASIC that the original IBM PCs had - it was a standalone interpreter.
And QBasic/'QuickBasic was its successor, again, a Microsoft product.
And which became Visual BASIC and now is the bane of developers everywhere.
Other than graphics, I think most of these BASICs were compatible mostly because one company was behind them all - Microsoft.
I have to point out that O'Reilly (which I work for) has already made most of our tech books available for free. Students can sign up for online access using our "Safari for Schools" program at https://www.safaribooksonline.... ,
I had one of these books growing up! I recognize which one, too. https://drive.google.com/open?... "Introduction to Computer Programming: BASIC for Beginners." I loved programming in QuickBASIC 4.5 (and then QBX, or 7.1). I am a sysadmin now, not a programmer, but I definitely got my love of computers from stuff like this.
Another good set of cherished computer books from my childhood was the Micro Adventure series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Maybe fix the title and references to Uborne back to Usborne.
Also, not sure why this took so long to report, since I read about this at least a few days ago.
Naw, you could do some serious programming with assembly language. They had assemblers and everything.
But I simply can NOT imagine any code for the primitive computers of that day (esp. a Trash-80!) being useful at all for a kid. There's nothing to run the stuff on even if you did finally get it typed in, and no way in hell is anyone (short of a supreme expert running on a hell of a good emulator) gonna port any of that stuff to a modern PC. Hell, have you even tried to FIND a BASIC interpreter for Windows or Macs these days?
> Hell, have you even tried to FIND a BASIC interpreter for Windows or Macs these days?
It's not that hard. For starters there's:
Chipmunk BASIC
PC-BASIC
True BASIC
You can even run AppleSoft BASIC and QBASIC in your browser.
I had a couple of these as a kid. Back then, computer programming and learning was fun.
I'd like to recommend this book -- available as a .pdf. My 10-YO son learned to program because there were errors that needed to be fixed before many of the programs would run. I'm posting as an AC because of HIS privacy, not mine.