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</style><table class="infobox ib-book vcard"><caption class="infobox-title">BASIC Computer Games </caption><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" class="infobox-image"><div class="infobox-caption">Cover of the 1973 Edition</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label">Author</th><td class="infobox-data"><a href="David_H._Ahl" title="David H. Ahl">David H. Ahl</a></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label">Cover artist</th><td class="infobox-data">Bob Barner</td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label">Subject</th><td class="infobox-data">Computer programming</td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label"><div style="display: inline-block; line-height: 1.2em; padding: .1em 0;">Publication date</div></th><td class="infobox-data">1973</td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label">Preceded by</th><td class="infobox-data"><i>101 BASIC Computer Games </i></td></tr></tbody></table>

<p><i><b>BASIC Computer Games</b></i> is a compilation of <a href="Type-in_program" title="Type-in program">type-in</a> computer games in the <a href="BASIC" title="BASIC">BASIC</a> programming language collected by <a href="David_H._Ahl" title="David H. Ahl">David H. Ahl</a>. Some of the games were written or modified by Ahl as well. Among its better-known games are <i><a href="Hamurabi_(video_game)" title="Hamurabi (video game)">Hamurabi</a></i> and <i><a href="Super_Star_Trek" class="mw-redirect" title="Super Star Trek">Super Star Trek</a></i>.

</p><p>Originally published by <a href="Digital_Equipment_Corporation" title="Digital Equipment Corporation">DEC</a> in 1973 as <i><b>101 BASIC Computer Games</b></i>, the book was so popular that it had two more printing runs, the last in March 1975. The programs in these books were mostly written in the BASIC dialect found on Digital's <a href="Minicomputer" title="Minicomputer">minicomputers</a>, although some could not be converted and appeared in different dialects like <a href="Dartmouth_BASIC" title="Dartmouth BASIC">Dartmouth BASIC</a>.

</p><p>In 1974, Ahl left DEC. He purchased the rights to the book and republished it under the new name. With the release of the first <a href="Microcomputer" title="Microcomputer">microcomputers</a>, and <a href="Microsoft_BASIC" title="Microsoft BASIC">Microsoft BASIC</a> soon after, the collection added several new games, removed some, and those that remained from the original were ported to this dialect. By the early 1980s, with tens of millions of <a href="Home_computer" title="Home computer">home computers</a> in the market, it had become the first computer book to sell a million copies.<sup id="cite_ref-anderson_1-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-anderson-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="History">History</h2></div>

<p>Around 1971, Ahl ported two popular <a href="Early_mainframe_games" title="Early mainframe games">early mainframe games</a> from <a href="Digital_Equipment_Corporation" title="Digital Equipment Corporation">DEC</a>'s <a href="FOCAL_(programming_language)" title="FOCAL (programming language)">FOCAL</a> language to BASIC: <i><a href="Hamurabi_(video_game)" title="Hamurabi (video game)">Hamurabi</a></i> and <i><a href="Lunar_Lander_(video_game_genre)" title="Lunar Lander (video game genre)">Lunar Lander</a></i>. He published the BASIC versions in DEC's educational newsletter, <i>EDU</i>, which he edited. Their popularity was such that he called for more submissions for future editions of the newsletter, and quickly gathered many, with a considerable group of them coming from high school students.<sup id="cite_ref-time_2-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-time-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

</p><p>The wide availability of BASIC on various platforms, notably the <a href="Data_General_Nova" title="Data General Nova">Data General Nova</a> and <a href="HP_2100" title="HP 2100">HP 2100</a> series, led to considerable porting effort to and from the DEC platform. In July 1973, Ahl published a selection of these submissions as <i>101 BASIC Computer Games</i>, which quickly sold out. This led to two further printing runs in April 1974 and March 1975.<sup id="cite_ref-101g_3-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-101g-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Ahl later noted that number "was far more books than there were computers around, so people were buying three, four, five of them for each computer."<sup id="cite_ref-time_2-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-time-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

</p><p>In 1974, Ahl left DEC to start <i><a href="Creative_Computing_(magazine)" title="Creative Computing (magazine)">Creative Computing</a></i> magazine. The next year saw the launch of the first <a href="Microcomputer" title="Microcomputer">microcomputers</a> and 101 became quite popular with the owners of these machines. The release of the "1977 Trinity" machines (<a href="Apple_II" title="Apple II">Apple II</a>, <a href="Commodore_PET" title="Commodore PET">Commodore PET</a>, and <a href="TRS-80" title="TRS-80">TRS-80</a>) was soon followed by a great many new competing microcomputer platforms featuring BASIC, along with the userbase to go with them, and demand for the book led to a second edition in 1978. This version removed non-DEC games, replaced them with some of the many submissions he had over the years, and ported those that remained into MS-BASIC format. By 1979, it had sold over 1 million copies, the first computer book to do so.<sup id="cite_ref-anderson_1-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-anderson-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

</p><p>Sales remained strong for years, and spawned similar collections in <i>More Basic Computer Games</i> (1979), and <i>Big Computer Games</i> (1984) and <i>Basic Computer Adventures</i> (1984), with translations into six languages.<sup id="cite_ref-time_2-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-time-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Games">Games</h2></div>

<ul><li><i><a href="Chomp" title="Chomp">Chomp</a></i></li>

<li><i><a href="Civil_War_(video_game)" title="Civil War (video game)">Civil War</a></i></li>

<li><i><a href="Hexapawn" title="Hexapawn">Hexapawn</a></i></li>

<li><i><a href="Hamurabi_(video_game)" title="Hamurabi (video game)">Hammurabi</a></i> (based on <i>The Sumer Game</i> by Doug Dyment)</li>

<li><i><a href="Super_Star_Trek" class="mw-redirect" title="Super Star Trek">Super Star Trek</a></i></li></ul>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Reception">Reception</h2></div>

<p>The first version, <i>101</i> went into a second printing and eventually sold 10,000 copies. Ahl later noted that “was far more books than there were computers around, so people were buying three, four, five of them for each computer.”<sup id="cite_ref-time_2-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-time-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

</p><p>The second version, <i>BASIC</i>, was re-printed many times and was the first computer book to sell a million copies. Harry McCracken called it "The single most influential book of the BASIC era".<sup id="cite_ref-time_2-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-time-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Legacy">Legacy</h2></div>

<p>Using <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.vintage-basic.net/">Vintage Basic</a>, the games can be run on any <a href="Microsoft_Windows" title="Microsoft Windows">Microsoft Windows</a> (32-bit or 64-bit), <a href="MacOS" title="MacOS">macOS</a> (64-bit only), or <a href="Linux" title="Linux">Linux</a> (64-bit only) system.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>4<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The source code for the book is provided (with permission of David H Ahl) on <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.vintage-basic.net/games.html">Vintage Basic's Basic Computer Games</a> page.

</p><p>A <a href="Microsoft_Windows" title="Microsoft Windows">Microsoft Windows</a> machine with the <a href="GW-BASIC" title="GW-BASIC">GW-BASIC</a> interpreter (32-bit only) can also run the games.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-5"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>5<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

</p><p>The games are also compilable and playable with the <a href="Microsoft_Small_Basic" title="Microsoft Small Basic">Microsoft Small Basic</a> development environment for children.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-6"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>6<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Computer Science for Kids has released a 2010 Small Basic Edition of the classic Basic Computer Games book called <i>Basic Computer Games: Small Basic Edition</i>.<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-7"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>7<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

</p><p>A <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://github.com/coding-horror/basic-computer-games">project</a> started on GitHub in 2021 to port the games in these books to modern languages.

</p><p>Program listings from the second ("microcomputer") edition, and from <i>More Basic Computer Games</i>, can be run by the open-source Brassica interpreter in <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=brassica">R</a> or <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://pypi.org/project/brassica/">Python</a>.

</p><p>A <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://github.com/coding-horror/basic-computer-games">BASIC to Javascript compiler</a> lets you run the original 101 games in your browser.

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2></div>

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</style><cite id="CITEREFAnderson1984" class="citation magazine cs1">Anderson, J. J. (November 1984). "Dave tells Ahl—the history of Creative computing". <i>Creative Computing</i>. pp. 66–8+.</cite></span>

</li>

<li id="cite_note-time-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-time_2-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-time_2-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-time_2-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-time_2-3"><sup><i><b>d</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-time_2-4"><sup><i><b>e</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFMcCracken2014" class="citation magazine cs1">McCracken, Harry (April 29, 2014). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://time.com/69316/basic/">"Fifty Years of BASIC, the Programming Language That Made Computers Personal"</a>. <i><a href="Time_(magazine)" title="Time (magazine)">Time</a></i><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">March 5,</span> 2021</span>.</cite></span>

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<li id="cite_note-101g-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-101g_3-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFAhl1975" class="citation book cs1">Ahl, David (March 1975). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://archive.org/details/101basiccomputer0000davi/mode/2up"><i>101 BASIC Computer Games</i></a>. DEC.</cite></span>

</li>

<li id="cite_note-4"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-4">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.vintage-basic.net/download.html">"Vintage BASIC - Download"</a>.</cite></span>

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<li id="cite_note-5"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-5">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20050726081451/http://www.geocities.com/KindlyRat/GWBASIC.html">Archived version of GW-BASIC</a></span>

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<li id="cite_note-6"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-6">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner/ff384126.aspx">Microsoft Small Basic website</a></span>

</li>

<li id="cite_note-7"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-7">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.computerscienceforkids.com/SmallBasicComputerGames.aspx">Small Basic Computer Games website</a> on computerscienceforkids.com</span>

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="External_links">External links</h2></div>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.computerscienceforkids.com/SmallBasicComputerGames.aspx"><i>Basic Computer Games: Small Basic 2010 Edition</i></a></li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.bekerbots.com/">George Beker's BEKERBOTS Site. Beker illustrated the Basic Computer Games books</a></li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/"><i>Basic Computer Games</i> archived on AtariArchives.org</a></li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.moorecad.com/classicbasic/index.html">GW-BASIC games and other programs, including selections from the <i>Basic Computer Games</i> series</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20191225155504/http://www.moorecad.com/classicbasic/index.html">Archived</a> 2019-12-25 at the <a href="Wayback_Machine" title="Wayback Machine">Wayback Machine</a></li></ul></div><div><div class="zim-footer">

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