233:) 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.
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208:, which quickly sold out. This led to two further printing runs in April 1974 and March 1975. 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."
193:, 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.
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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.”
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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
134:, 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
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322:, 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".
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development environment for children. Computer
Science for Kids has released a 2010 Small Basic Edition of the classic Basic Computer Games book called
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series, led to considerable porting effort to and from the DEC platform. In July 1973, Ahl published a selection of these submissions as
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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
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and 101 became quite popular with the owners of these machines. The release of the "1977 Trinity" machines (
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346:(64-bit only) system. The source code for the book is provided (with permission of David H Ahl) on
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Anderson, J. J. (November 1984). "Dave tells Ahl—the history of
Creative computing".
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George Beker's BEKERBOTS Site. Beker illustrated the Basic
Computer Games books
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started on GitHub in 2021 to port the games in these books to modern languages.
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in the market, it had become the first computer book to sell a million copies.
138:, although some could not be converted and appeared in different dialects like
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446:"Fifty Years of BASIC, the Programming Language That Made Computers Personal"
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Program listings from the second ("microcomputer") edition, and from
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Sales remained strong for years, and spawned similar collections in
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GW-BASIC games and other programs, including selections from the
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The wide availability of BASIC on various platforms, notably the
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lets you run the original 101 games in your browser.
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The games are also compilable and playable with the
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magazine. The next year saw the launch of the first
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361:interpreter (32-bit only) can also run the games.
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248:(1984), with translations into six languages.
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620:Software using the Unlicense license
348:Vintage Basic's Basic Computer Games
165:Around 1971, Ahl ported two popular
444:McCracken, Harry (April 29, 2014).
525:Small Basic Computer Games website
105:programming language collected by
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595:BASIC programming language family
211:In 1974, Ahl left DEC to start
334:, the games can be run on any
85:101 BASIC Computer Games
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564:archived on AtariArchives.org
527:on computerscienceforkids.com
514:Microsoft Small Basic website
503:Archived version of GW-BASIC
399:BASIC to Javascript compiler
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490:"Vintage BASIC - Download"
472:Ahl, David (March 1975).
384:More Basic Computer Games
246:Basic Computer Adventures
238:More Basic Computer Games
39:Cover of the 1973 Edition
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475:101 BASIC Computer Games
206:101 BASIC Computer Games
131:101 BASIC Computer Games
124:Originally published by
18:101 BASIC Computer Games
610:Open-source video games
605:Books about video games
101:computer games in the
366:Microsoft Small Basic
167:early mainframe games
28:BASIC Computer Games
571:Basic Computer Games
562:Basic Computer Games
338:(32-bit or 64-bit),
318:The second version,
97:is a compilation of
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66:Computer programming
310:The first version,
177:language to BASIC:
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578:2019-12-25 at the
422:Creative Computing
342:(64-bit only), or
242:Big Computer Games
214:Creative Computing
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287:by Doug Dyment)
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107:David H. Ahl
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49:David H. Ahl
600:Source code
244:(1984) and
128:in 1973 as
589:Categories
405:References
283:(based on
58:Bob Barner
306:Reception
280:Hammurabi
266:Civil War
576:Archived
544:78-50028
457:March 5,
359:GW-BASIC
273:Hexapawn
223:Apple II
180:Hamurabi
112:Hamurabi
377:project
202:HP 2100
161:History
99:type-in
63:Subject
573:series
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478:. DEC.
392:Python
350:page.
330:Using
326:Legacy
231:TRS-80
229:, and
149:, and
45:Author
344:Linux
340:macOS
320:BASIC
259:Chomp
252:Games
175:FOCAL
169:from
103:BASIC
540:LCCN
459:2021
451:Time
200:and
183:and
115:and
76:1973
390:or
312:101
292:Nim
191:EDU
173:'s
171:DEC
126:DEC
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430:^
412:^
397:A
394:.
375:A
372:.
353:A
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121:.
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388:R
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
