BASIC Computer Games

All the programs here are ones I've run on machines I have (except the ones in HP 2000 BASIC, which have been extracted from library tapes). They are not scanned/OCRed listings, nor merely re-typed from books or magazines. They've been tested, and they work.

If you want to run these programs under some dialect of BASIC other than the one they're written in, you might need to make a few changes. For example, some versions have a RANDOMIZE command, which restarts the pseudo-random number generator with a "random" value; some have no exact equivalent, but can use RND() with a negative number (to reseed the generator with your number); still others have no equivalent. In some versions, RND() with a positive integer generates a pseudo-random number between zero and the number you give; in others the result is always between zero and one; in some versions you can repeat the last pseudo-random number by asking for RND(0).

Some versions accept multiple statements per line. Often a colon (:) is the separator, in some BASICs, it's a backslash (\), or some other character.

Line length may be a problem on some machines; if so, try removing spaces between line number and statement, and between keywords. Some BASICs have a shorthand form for PRINT, often "?" or a single quote (').

In exactly the order I felt like, last time I edited this list:

• HUNT THE WUMPUS is a real classic. Greg Yob wrote this as an antidote to the vast numbers of simplistic 10-x-10-grid games that abounded in the early 1970s. It was first published in The People's Computer Company newsletter in November 1973, and re-published in 1975 in Best of Creative Computing. This version is in Microsoft BASIC (fairly generic 8K BASIC). Be warned, it's addictive!
• WUMPUS is a version in HP 2000 BASIC, from an HP library tape.

• HAMMURABI is a simulation game in which you, as the ruler of the ancient kingdom of Sumeria, direct the administrator (Hammurabi) to manage the resources. It's surprisingly difficult to maintain a stable system!
  Trivia: At some time, the second "m" was accidentally dropped (by David Ahl?) and as a result, vast numbers of people think that the correct spelling is the one used in the program.

• HURKLE is one of the infamous games played on a 10 x 10 grid. It was written by Bob Albrecht of The People's Computer Company, and appeared in David Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games. I adapted the version on an old DECtape to run under "Exidy Standard BASIC", which is a version of 8K Microsoft BASIC.

• CHEMIST is another from BASIC Computer Games. This very small but interesting program is a test of your mental arithmetic: given a quantity of kryptocyanic acid, you must tell the computer how much water to add, to keep it stable. Written by Wayne Teeter, and requested by a fellow member of the ClassicCmp mailing list.

• Biorhythm, adapted from a listing in Practical Computing July 1979 (the UK publication, not the US one). This is the listing from my Exidy Sorcerer; it's actually called "BIOVN" because the Sorcerer has a 5-character limit on filenames, and I had two versions -- this one for the video screen, and another called "BIOPC"for a printer (a serially-interfaced Creed 7B Teleprinter).
  It should be easy to (re)convert to 8K Microsoft BASIC. The POKEs and INP(9) in lines 1 and 340-360 emulate the GET function available in other BASICs. FRE(X$) in line 100 forces garbage-collection in string space; some BASICs don't need this. Character 163 in line 160 is a diamond; I think the original was just an asterisk (*). OUT 0,7 in lines 190-210 and 290 make a beep. CHR$(1) in line 4140 performs a non-destructive backspace.

  There's no scientific validity to biorhythms, but there was a fad for them twenty-odd years ago, especially after a couple of studies suggested there might be, and there was some publicity surrounding the use of biorhythms by the Tokyo (?) authorities to determine rest days for public transport workers. This program deals with the three popular rhythms: intellectual, emotional, and physical. A fourth, intuitive, was proposed later.

• STAR TRADER is a classic 2/3/4-player trading game, this one's extracted from an image of an HP library tape. It seems to have been written by Dave Kaufman around 1973. See this page for a reference.
• TRADES goes with TRADER above.

The Exidy Sorcerer I own now is not the one I had back in 1979; I sold that to buy a BBC Microcomputer. Mine was a Mark 2, with 48K RAM (I remember it cost a small fortune to upgrade it from 32K). The one I own now is a 32K Mark 1, and I'd love to have a Mark 2. If you have one for sale, I'd be very interested to hear from you.