What were some of your first Applesoft BASIC programs?

[Keatah]

What were some of your first programs you did in Applesoft BASIC?

[LoTonah]

10 PRINT "DON ROCKS"

20 GOTO 11

 

>SYNTAX ERROR

 

It was the first computer I ever programmed on, and I was a little kid, okay?

 

It wasn't long until I was doing much larger programs... animations without loops (didn't understand them yet). So yeah, just lines and lines of code doing the same things over and over. Needless to say, my programs got a lot smaller when I learned loops, GOTO, IF-THEN and GOSUB techniques.

 

I think the last program I did in AppleSoft was an animation in lo-res with simultaneous rolling waves, swaying leaves, clouds scrolling in the background, and gull floating on the wind. It was fun figuring out the different speeds and bounds of each animation. Made that while stuck in a skeezy hotel during a freak snowstorm in Golden, B.C. using AppleWin.

[Keatah]

I did..

 

10 A=A+1

20 PRINT A

30 GOTO 10

 

..my family was amazed that I taught the computer to count at such a ludicrous speed!

[JamesD]

I had already been programming on a TRS-80 Model I a while before I touched Applesoft on my friend's II+ so I was past the 2 or 3 line programs already.
Can't remember what my actual first program on Applesoft II was but I think I cussed the lack of an ELSE statement pretty early on.

[Hatta]

An easy thing to get started with is to generate random coordinates in low res graphics mode, and turn them a random color. Then loop it. Pretty!

[Ransom]

By the time I got to the Apple ][, I had years of programming Atari BASIC (and some experience with 6502 ASM). I actually used my first Apple ][ in high school, in a 2-hour programming class. The instructor was really good. He forced me to unlearn years of lousy programming habits. He had an add-on for Applesoft that made structured programming possible (adding WHILE loops and the like). No GOTO statements were allowed, for starters. That class was a great experience and gave me a real leg up on learning how to program well (vs. my previous thinking that if it works, it must be good).

 

I don't recall what my first Applesoft program was, though. I wish I still had my disks from that class.

[The Usotsuki]

10 GR:POKE -16302,23
20 COLOR=0:FOR I=41 TO 47 STEP 2:HLIN 0,39 AT I:NEXT
30 COLOR=INT(RND(1)*16)
40 PLOT INT(RND(1)*40),INT(RND(1)*48)
50 IF PEEK(49152)<128 THEN 30
60 GET A$:TEXT:HOME

You mean like that?

[Osgeld]

yea print goto was my first, my parents bought me a book early on for kids which had a lot of graphics and sound stuff in it so I did some little animation type things, first program to have a practical use was a scrolling text program so my friends and I could add credits to the end of our terrible home movies.

[Keatah]

Using these materials I became an absolute GOD in BASIC programming. These were some of the books and manuals (among many others) on my reference shelf.

 

The Beagle Bros. Posters, beyond useful!

http://beagle.applearchives.com/the_posters/

 

TRS-80 books. Real easy and enjoyable reading. As a kid I read these over and over again.

http://z80cpu.eu/mirrors/oldcomputers.dyndns.org/rechner/tandy/docs_from_www.trs-80.com/books/pocket%20computer%20programs%20(1981)(artsoft)(pdf).zip

http://z80cpu.eu/mirrors/oldcomputers.dyndns.org/rechner/tandy/docs_from_www.trs-80.com/books/getting%20started%20with%20trs-80%20basic%20(1981)(tandy)(pdf).zip

 

A fantastic early start with communications hardware and terminal stuff.

ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.com/pub/apple_II/documentation/hardware/io/Hayes%20Micromodem%20II%20Manual_1979.pdf

 

The requisite and effectively free Apple Computer Co. published manuals.

ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.com/pub/apple_II/documentation/programming/basic/Applesoft%20BASIC%20Programming%20Reference%20Manual%20-%20Apple%20Computer.pdf

ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.com/pub/apple_II/documentation/programming/basic/The%20Applesoft%20Tutorial_HQ%20(color).pdf

ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.com/pub/apple_II/documentation/os/dos/a2_the_DOS_Manual.pdf

ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.com/pub/apple_II/documentation/programming/basic/The%20Applesoft%20Tutorial_HQ%20(color).pdf

 

Really excellent 3rd party material I picked up along the way.

ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.com/pub/apple_II/documentation/os/dos/Beneath%20Apple%20DOS_alt.pdf

ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.com/pub/apple_II/documentation/hardware/machines/understanding%20the%20apple%20ii.pdf

ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.com/pub/apple_II/documentation/misc/Apple%20II%20User%27s%20Guide%20for%20IIPlus%20and%20IIe%20-%20Lon%20Poole.pdf

 

I also had (still do) Apple Machine Language by Don Inman and Kurt Inman (1981), I am not aware of it having been scanned.

 

All those had been the first early books in my programming reference library. As time went on I accumulated much more.

 

Meanwhile I had a pic of this chick (among others) on my "workstation" wall area. I so much wanted to do her up but good!

[colecomaniac]

3-D Tunnels of Terror was my first game for the Apple II+. A 3-D wire frame version of Pac-Man written in Applesoft Basic. If you own the September 1983 issue of Electronic Fun with Computers and Games, you have the program listing if you so desire to rekey it in. Also had a follow-up game for same computer called Qube Hopper (A Q-Bert knock-off using low res mode). It was about to be published by the same company, but never made it due to the video games crash, which in turn resulted in the subsequent discontinuation of the magazine. Did a few games in Basic for the TRS-80 Model 1 and MC-10. Tried to sell them to Tandy with no success. Oh those where the good old days.

[Hatta]

Did a few games in Basic for the TRS-80 Model 1 and MC-10. Tried to sell them to Tandy with no success. Oh those where the good old days.

Do you still have them?

[Dripfree]

I did alot of applesoft BASIC games when I was 12 or so. One of my first was a a mad libs program. I kept expanding on it for a long time adding more and more mad libs. At that age I thought it was hilarious to type in dirty words and read the results.

[Keatah]

That was awesome! I used tricks from Text Train and some really tiny m'l routines I stole from a warez crack to make all sorts of cuss and swear words fly around the screen. At one time I had a huge line of text going.. "goddammnedmotherfuckersonofabitchbigbigbigbitchandbastardcoscksuckercuntfacefuckingdweebasspussytittysuckingfatass"

..it would start at the upper lefthand corner, pour into the screen, and then when it would hit the bottom it would shift right, and then up and then left. A square spiral that wound down into the center. And a random hand-drawn picture of a dick or pussy would show up at the end. I had all my friends come over and we'd make bets like flipping a coin and stuff.

 

The parents never seemed to care because anything "computer" was too complex and too new-age for them to be worrying about.

 

Simply amazing times, the fun we had with Applesoft was insane.

[classicgamer_27330]

I don't know as much as I thought I did. I wish there was a way to play music that's clear like LOGO programming had

[Gamemoose]

Gosh, I can't remember. I did some sort of goofy program, probably something with PRINTs and GOTOs in 5th grade that solidified my status as "nerd". At home I had a CoCo and a TI 99/4A so I could apply the programming concepts to Apple.

 

In high school I took a technology class that taught BASIC on the Apple and the last program I ever wrote for the Apple for my final exam was some animation in low res with a twist: it was a man with a hang glider about to jump off of a cliff. If you did not press the space bar at the right time, he'd plunge to his death. If you did it right, he'd take off into the air, clearing the screen and you get to see him fly off into the sunset.

 

Had to have a game influence in there.

[classicgamer_27330]

Do you still have the list for that program, sounds cool?

[jhd]

In high school I took a technology class that taught BASIC on the Apple and the last program I ever wrote for the Apple for my final exam was some animation in low res with a twist: it was a man with a hang glider about to jump off of a cliff. If you did not press the space bar at the right time, he'd plunge to his death. If you did it right, he'd take off into the air, clearing the screen and you get to see him fly off into the sunset.

 

That's impressive for a HS exam!

 

I took "Computer Science" in Grades 10 and 12. We used the original Coco, but we never touched the graphics capabilities -- just lots of math-related programming and drawing flow charts (by hand).

[Gamemoose]

 

That's impressive for a HS exam!

 

I took "Computer Science" in Grades 10 and 12. We used the original Coco, but we never touched the graphics capabilities -- just lots of math-related programming and drawing flow charts (by hand).

Thanks! It wasn't much to look at but it worked. I went to a more "country" school which was small and there really weren't much in labels. I was geeky but was accepted in the typical circles of the time.

 

But I just had to play that "nerd" card and make something with the years of light BASIC experimentation I had.

 

I WISH my school had CoCos!

[classicgamer_27330]

10 PRINT "DON ROCKS"

20 GOTO 11

 

>SYNTAX ERROR

 

It was the first computer I ever programmed on, and I was a little kid, okay?

 

It wasn't long until I was doing much larger programs... animations without loops (didn't understand them yet). So yeah, just lines and lines of code doing the same things over and over. Needless to say, my programs got a lot smaller when I learned loops, GOTO, IF-THEN and GOSUB techniques.

 

I think the last program I did in AppleSoft was an animation in lo-res with simultaneous rolling waves, swaying leaves, clouds scrolling in the background, and gull floating on the wind. It was fun figuring out the different speeds and bounds of each animation. Made that while stuck in a skeezy hotel during a freak snowstorm in Golden, B.C. using AppleWin.

?UNDEF'D STATEMENT ERROR IN 20

[LoTonah]

?UNDEF'D STATEMENT ERROR IN 20

 

 

 

LOL It took three years for someone to catch that? Well done!

Edited December 17, 2016 by LoTonah

[MarkO]

Before I got access to the Epson MX-80 Manual, I wrote a small Applesoft Program to Print the numbers from 0 - 255 and the Character it represented, and then directed it to the MX-80...

 

 

As I recall, it looked like this:

10 FOR I = 0 TO 255
20 PRINT I;"----------";CHR$(I)
30 NEXT I

In the Control Codes, ( the first 32 Characters ), the Epson would switch to Compressed Print, ( 17 CPI instead of 10 CPI, IIRC ) as well as Line Feed and Page Feed, so "we" ( the Computer Nerds of my High School ) learned some cool things about the MX-80... Later I got to read the MX-80 Manual, and learned about ALL the Other Control Codes..

 

MarkO

[Keatah]

Gosh! I think everyone with that printer did the same thing. I know I did! And when I got a lowercase chip I did the same thing again. And yet again with 80-column card, and even the printer buffer. Which was "exciting" in its own right.

 

The most memorable "hack" was advancing the paper by 1/216th mm or inch or some other super small fractional "dot size". It would take like 8x the amount of time to print a hi-res picture.

[spacecadet]

My school had Apple II's and I took the computer science class. So I ended up with a disk full of programs that I wrote. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find it recently - I believe it's one of the disks that croaked over the years. (About 30-40% of my disks no longer work.) I was terrible about labeling stuff back then so it could really be any disk that I own at this point, but all I know is that it didn't seem to be one of the ones that worked when I last checked.

 

It's a shame, because I had like 40 programs on there. Most of them were pretty simple - I was like 11 years old, and this was the early days of computers - but I do remember a couple I did towards the end had like 150 lines of code or something. I'm sure I did a basic database at one point, to catalog my records or something like that.

[Keatah]

I think we were all pretty bad about labeling back then. It 'specially drove me nuts when I had to update the contents of a disk because more things were added or removed.

 

Any disks that aren't working today may be able to be recovered in the future as technology and technique improve. So don't automatically toss bad disks just yet. Granted it's a two way street. Recovery tech increases, while the media continues to degrade. Who will win?

[spacecadet]

So don't automatically toss bad disks just yet.

Well, I may have already done so. I periodically get on an anti-hoarding kick and start tossing stuff I think I'll no longer use. Last time I went through my disks, I did throw away a bunch that didn't work. I then also rescued a few that I thought didn't work but realized may have just been a dirty drive head causing read problems (some disks made the head parking noise and then dumped me in the machine language interface; others just said "disk could not be read" or something similar). I haven't had a chance to re-evaluate those yet. But I think I did let go the ones that made the physical error noise. Hopefully it wasn't one of them.