adamchevy Posted October 12, 2018 Author Share Posted October 12, 2018 You are looking to learn BASIC I assume? Or Machine/Assembly language? I’m focusing on assembly language at this time. I want to learn basic as well, but not as much as assembly. Thanks for all of the suggestions so far. I have a lot of great programs to start typing in and learning from. Now I just need to get the key caps back on my 400. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geister Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 If you want to learn programming avoid the newer magazine listings with the checksum generators. You'll learn more debugging your typing errors. Also stay away from typing in long machine language listing as typing row after row of numbers won't teach you anything but patience. I typed in Softside listings on my 400 and did it twice the first time because I didn't know the difference between break and return at the time. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 I would take all the endless ml data statements and unroll them.. you can take some of the ml strings and do the same to a degree type those sections into mac 65 or assembler editor instead... once you start seeing what it really looks like and type them in that way it can make more sense then run them through dbug and fix the problems after that. You should be able to recongnize the difference between music and other data and some snippets of operative code. Another Idea would be to take the basic type ins and convert them to pure code.. could be fun to see how fast they go and what all you might add or modify... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 (edited) I like the type-in BASIC game 'BowlTrap'. It was published in 'Page6' magazine, issue 31. It begins on page 68 and is pretty short but the colours and gameplay show the A8 to its very best. There is also an excellent font editor programme in the same issue called 'Font Factory' which begins on page 20. Finally, yet again from the same number and beginning on page 58 is 'Original Synth'--a pretty good attempt at a POKEY-based synthesizer with rudimentary visualisation. Les Ellingham must have been at the top of his game that month because these three programmes are absolutely first rate and have stayed with me for nearly thirty years. All 'Page 6' listings are printed with a two-letter checksum at the left of each line. These work alongside the 'TypoIII' memory resident programme. In order to use this you must load and run 'TypoIII', then without pressing System Reset begin entering the programme as usual. Every time you press Return a matching (if you have entered it correctly!) two character checksum is calculated and displayed at the top of the screen which you can compare against the one in the magazine. Edited October 12, 2018 by morelenmir 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+slx Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 I always like Road Block from Compute! 2K, pure assembly, up to 4 players, variable speed. Managed to enter it with 1 typo and that happened to affect a letter of the title screen. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TemplarXB Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Did you try the BASIC code that came with the 1985 computer edition of Mad Magazine? I did a blog post about it. Fun to try. Your website is great. Being pretty new to Atari 8-bits, it has some great ideas for things to try. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scitari Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Your website is great. Being pretty new to Atari 8-bits, it has some great ideas for things to try. Thanks! I will do more posts and it is definitely geared toward newbies. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Not mentioned yet but would certainly recommend Risky Rescue published in Antic 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamchevy Posted October 17, 2018 Author Share Posted October 17, 2018 I finally have my Bkey cleaned and back together. It’s type in time! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted October 17, 2018 Share Posted October 17, 2018 Not mentioned yet but would certainly recommend Risky Rescue published in Antic ...but only if you have nimble fingers! I screwed up while entering the data (and that in Escape from Epsilon, as well), and it took me over a week of debugging to figure out what I had done wrong. I was 11 at the time, but still...the horrors! Firebug has to be one of the greatest type-in games published in an 8-bit magazine! Popcorn is also very impressive. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted October 17, 2018 Share Posted October 17, 2018 I finally have my Bkey cleaned and back together. It’s type in time! SEXY! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamchevy Posted October 17, 2018 Author Share Posted October 17, 2018 My wife is only afraid I would leave her for Candy or Colleen. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 I have to put in a plug for "Omniventure" from the November 1984 Antic as well. I don't know what it was about that game, but I spent more lunch hours plugging away at "Dinoventure" than I can remember. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilheim Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 In the 80's, Antic and Analog! were in my opinion the best! Very nice games to type and learn BASIC and Assembly programming. In the particular case of my country, there were 3 interesting magazines: MundoAtari, which had some ANTIC magazine conversions as well as some local pograms; Turbo News, which had some type in games to test some hardware projects (there was a Battleship clone with a joystick cable to connect two computers); and STAK magazine, which also had some games programmed by the staff in Aseembler and BASIC. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scitari Posted October 29, 2018 Share Posted October 29, 2018 I typed in some BASIC programs this weekend from the Micro Adventures book series that includes code that you run as part of the story. I never read these as a kid but they are very cool. Worth checking out if you have never seen them. I did a blog post about this for Jungle Quest (#2 in series, 1984) and provide the BASIC code in text files that you can copy and paste into an emulator. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muttgutt Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 On 10/9/2018 at 1:53 PM, jvas said: https://www.myabandonware.com/game/rebound-a9n The Link is not to the "Rebound" game from Antic Mag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvas Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 On 12/28/2023 at 9:50 PM, Muttgutt said: The Link is not to the "Rebound" game from Antic Mag Didn't check the zip file. The description and the screenshots are about the Antic Mag's Rebound. Sorry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smoore Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 I remember a game from either Antic or Analogue magazine in the mid 80's. It was a lunar lander simulation type thing - there were thousands of lines of Data statements, I'm not sure if I ever typed it all in or not. It had an isometric 3D view and I seem to remember that the closer you got to the surface the display would change to show a 'zoomed' in version of the area you were trying to land on. Any ideas, or did I imagine this? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdefabri Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 23 minutes ago, smoore said: I remember a game from either Antic or Analogue magazine in the mid 80's. It was a lunar lander simulation type thing - there were thousands of lines of Data statements, I'm not sure if I ever typed it all in or not. It had an isometric 3D view and I seem to remember that the closer you got to the surface the display would change to show a 'zoomed' in version of the area you were trying to land on. Any ideas, or did I imagine this? I'm thinking that would be Retrofire! by Tom Hudson / ANALOG magazine: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-retrofire_4354.html 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 28 minutes ago, rdefabri said: I'm thinking that would be Retrofire! by Tom Hudson / ANALOG magazine: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-retrofire_4354.html Man - I played the crap out of that game. I didn't type it in though, it was a BBS download. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paolo Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 (edited) Let me chime in. I know it's a very long shot, but let me ask anyway... Amongst the dozens of type-in games I played back in the day, one still bugs me: it was called "The Wall", I can't even remember which magazine was it from, but the point is that I never managed to run it because there was (I still remember it) a GOSUB to a line that wasn't in the list. After a full 3-4 pages of typing I realized the missing subroutine. That stupid thing didn't even complete the main screen! Does anybody remember it? Edited January 4 by Paolo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdefabri Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 50 minutes ago, Stephen said: Man - I played the crap out of that game. I didn't type it in though, it was a BBS download. I typed in so many of those games - particularly the ANALOG machine language games - that I became incredibly proficient with typing. Keep in mind that I have a 400, so I was typing in games on a membrane back in the day. I often say that there are 2 companies that heavily influenced my life and career path - the "phone company" (my father was an AT&T / Bell Telephone lifer, I followed him into the "system) and Atari. I fully plan to get the Atari logo tattooed on my body at some point, I have always been a huge fan of the company and remain so to this day. So many memories of typing in games like this to the wee hours of the night with my brother, and the satisfaction of making it work was well worth it!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 1 hour ago, rdefabri said: I typed in so many of those games - particularly the ANALOG machine language games - that I became incredibly proficient with typing. Keep in mind that I have a 400, so I was typing in games on a membrane back in the day. I often say that there are 2 companies that heavily influenced my life and career path - the "phone company" (my father was an AT&T / Bell Telephone lifer, I followed him into the "system) and Atari. I fully plan to get the Atari logo tattooed on my body at some point, I have always been a huge fan of the company and remain so to this day. So many memories of typing in games like this to the wee hours of the night with my brother, and the satisfaction of making it work was well worth it!! Similar for me, except I was fortunate to have a B-Key on my 400 from new. But yeah - learned to type from magazine type in programs. Also learned to debug, then to modify, and finally create from scratch. 41 years after that 1st machine, and I am sat here coding full-time (almost 17 years now). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smoore Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 3 hours ago, rdefabri said: I'm thinking that would be Retrofire! by Tom Hudson / ANALOG magazine: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-retrofire_4354.html That's the one! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark2008 Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 Lol, this thread is from 2018. Anyway, my 2 cents. David Ahl's Microcomputer games from 1978. In particular, the basic version of Hammurabi. These text games are simple ports, so it's a great "manageable" port, plus by 1982 or so, the book was already on sale, so you got 101 games for a couple bucks. Well the book may cost $25 today but it's still a good value While I did that exercise, I do not recall typing in a single magazine game actually written for the Atari - that was probably a budget decision. However. I do recall I typed in Amodem, and then a few days later, got another terminal program in the mail, but I couldn't wait for that, oh no, had to make sure I had something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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