Programming Retro Games in Python | 80s Usborne Computer Coding Book
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Published 2024-04-27
Today join me as I have another go coding some retro 80s computer games. This time I'm typing in games from the Usborne book: "Computer Battlegames", using my BBC Micro Computer from the 1980s. Then I convert the games to work in the computer language Python.
And don't worry, you don't need retro hardware to try the original BASIC language out yourself, as you can easily recreate this with an emulator. For the BBC Micro, my favourite emulator I like to use is "BeebEm" ( www.mkw.me.uk/beebem ).
As mentioned, for those who haven't seen, here is a link to my previous "Coding games like it's the 80s" video ➡️ • Coding games like it’s the 80s | Usbo...
Usborne website link (with book downloads) below ⬇️
usborne.com/gb/books/computer-and-coding-books
Links below ⬇️ to the 8BitDo retro style keyboard ⌨️ I use in this video (Amazon Affiliate Links)
N Edition ... amzn.to/4bwkMzH (US link) or amzn.to/4aIWzoY (UK link)
Fami Edition ... amzn.to/3WVXvTl (US link) or amzn.to/3yA5fjV (UK link)
C64 Edition ... amzn.to/3UZ9VqX (US link) or amzn.to/3UQNqEK (UK link)
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🎶 Music & Sound Effects 🎶 (Affiliate Link)
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All Comments (21)
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When I was younger I always found the artwork was vastly more impressive than the game.
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As a 49 year old, it is refreshing to see someone so young interested in retro micros!
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The artwork in those books is amazing. Somehow the style always reminded me of the movie parodies in MAD Magazine
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At 48 years old, being a dentist, I remember writing those programs in Atari Basic (it is what was strongest here in Chile), "thanks" to the pandemic I decided to return to programming and learned Python, not yet enough to dedicate myself to this passion for programming, but I do like being able to "convert" those programs from Basic to Python and see them work again. Thank you very much Kari for the endearing content you generate. Greetings
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Those books got me started. I never looked back. Today I'm an enterprise systems architect.
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Just found this channel yesterday, seeing such a young person interested in our yesterday is brilliant and so are you 😇
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"over 40 years ago". Don't mind me crying over here
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10:35 thought you had 3 hands for a second 🤣 good video, keep em coming
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It's great to see you getting into rhe gateway drug that got so many of us into programming back in the day 💯
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Worth noting that the `msvcrt` module is only available on Windows systems so if you are using Linux or Mac you can use the 'keyboard' module.
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Wow... With so many retro computer channels on here now, it's refreshing to see something a little different. The old programming books, particularly those aimed at children, may be the most overlooked aspect of retro computing. I had one such book in the 80s, and I read it over and over again, and typed in the programs that were in the back. I've spent recent years collecting many books. Maybe this will encourage me to do a little exhibition of a neat little program or two.
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54 year old BBC Micro owner here. That start-up sound at 1:10 brings back so many memories. 😍😍
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These books started my journey in to programming on the ZX Spectrum+ back in the 80's.
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Reminds me of when I first got into microcomputers way back in the late 1970s. So much effort, so much fun.
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Thanks Kari I have enjoyed all your videos, takes me back to my youth and my ZX81 and Spectrum days, please do keep the content coming.
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I did not know you could get those books online for free - thank you! I had so many of them when I was a kid which was, sadly, when the BBC Micro was contemporary.
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Love seeing younger people loving the stuff i used to do in my teens in early 80s. The BBC was a very upmarket machine in its day.
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Great idea for a video! Really fun to watch how far we have come.
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I remember programming games like this in class when I was a kid in the early 90s. I love how the artwork during those times sparked your imagination and basically created the graphics and sound of the game in hour head haha.
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Oh man, the ART in the background of all the game code pages! My favorite part about retro materials was the immense effort put into the artwork to kind of "help along" the reader imagine what the boxes and symbols represent, lol. Loving this channel! I'm 31 and know JS about this and FA about where to get any of these original products!
