I just came across something that is SO AWESOME! This is the kind of book, maybe even the same book, that I saw and used as a kid to first get into some computer programming. I was with my friend Brian in Hastings and I think he was the one that owned this book. We would flip through the book and find something that looked interesting and start typing away. I can't remember if we had much success getting it to work, and we probably went back to playing Yars Revenge after much frustration as a kid, but it was something that always stuck in my head... Now it looks like it's been updated to use Microsoft Small Basic.
Quoting ComputerScienceForKids.c
om, "...we can re-live the glory days of kid-friendly BASIC programming. Isn't it time to show your kids and grandkids why we all fell in love with computers in the first place! Microsoft Small Basic makes programming fun again for kids of all ages!"
I can't wait to show this to my kids...
... Even though they'll probably just look at me and say "Dad.... but I want to make the
cool looking video games."
Here's a link to the Atari Archives page for the Amazing program, which will randomly generate a maze each time it's run:
http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=3And here is a link to the Computer Science For Kids page mentioning the 2010 edition of David H. Ahl's Classic BASIC Computer Games Book:
http://www.computerscienceforkids.com/Pages/SmallBasicComputerGames.aspx
