Hack60.Type in Classic Computer Games

Hack 60. Type in Classic Computer Games

Dig up old classic magazines to find programs you can type in .

The type-in listing was a mainstay of specialist computer and gaming publications from the early to mid '80s. Its popularity was due to three factors: they were cheap to buy (the cost of a magazine with ten type-ins was a fraction of the price of a commercial title), they filled up space in a magazine really easily (editors could pad out half their pages with these listings, which were bought cheaply off aspiring programmers), and the inclusion of some form of BASIC on every home micro computer let everyone try their hand at being a game creator.

A type-in listing typically took the form of page after page of BASIC commands, each one on a separately numbered line. Since most versions of BASIC were the same across all formats, with some tweaking you could get (for example) Sinclair Spectrum type-ins working on a Commodore 64. Since the point of BASIC was that most commands were written in English, it was easy to see what the game was going to be like as you were typing it. Text adventures tended to spoil themselves the worstby the time you start the game for the first time, you've already read the ending.

Type-in programs, like games of today, covered nearly every genre popular in the day: arcade clones , text adventures, sports simulations, maze explorations, and platforming quests. They were often crude, slow and full of bugs , but being able to type them in yourself and see the end result on the screen, errors included, was part of the magic. For some, it was the digital equivalent of a painting-by- numbers kit, for others it was strange voodoo. Finding bugs in other people's work and getting a stubborn type-in to work was exciting.

Being published in a monthly specialist magazine or book- sized compilation of listings was sometimes the start of a real game programming career. Jeff Minter (Tempest 2000, Unity) and Dave Perry (Earthworm Jim, Messiah) are just two names that you can find by digging through type-in listings of yesteryear.

As the genre grew and bedroom programmers started to top each other's efforts, advancements such as color graphics, sound, and even animation began to find their way into the programs. The end result of this was listings that were the size of the book you're reading now, but perseverance had its rewards. Seeing the game working on the screen after spending days typing in every line of its code is worth the eyestrain, and more satisfying than loading pre-written software.

As consoles exploded in the United States and more powerful home computers such as the Amiga took off in Europe, the type-in listing faded into obscurity. Magazines included cover tapes or discs to keep the miserly gamer interested, but you can still relive the magic of the type-in listings today.

5.9.1. Finding Listings

So you've decided that you have the energy to find a listing and the free time to type it in. The first thing you need to do get a listing to try out. You can either go to the original source materialclassic books and magazinesor find archived or modern type-ins on the Internet.

Finding type-in listings in their original state is the preferred method of beginning a type-in project. Not only do you get the thrill of the hunt tracking down magazines and books with listings is a tricky processbut you can come across a rare gem that nobody else has seen for over two decades. You also have the extra challenge of working on a program without the benefit of someone checking that it worked.

5.9.1.1. Magazines.

The world's first computer game magazine, Computer and Video Games (C+VG; 1980-2004) featured type-in listings in every issue until 1984. C+VG is relatively easy to find, though early issues are expensive. Occasionally they would cover-mount a "Big Book of Games," featuring over 50 type-in listings (usually reprinted from previous issues).

Commodore Computing International (19841990)

This was one of the few "serious" magazines about the Commodore lineup of machines, but still made room for type-in listings. About 50% of them were games, with the other being utilities that measure your biometrics or make posters , etc. One of the highlights was "celebrity" type-in listings by some of the top adventure writers of the day. The magazine is very hard to find, since it enjoyed only a small print run.

Input (19831985)

This general-purpose micro-computing magazine has the distinction of having the most expensive type-in listing ever made. Editors typically paid the authors a measly page rate for their efforts, but that tradition was broken when Input commissioned commercial software house Imagine to write type-in listings for them. Only one game, a precursor to the average maze exploration title Pedro, was ever made in this deal, which was worth a reported 200,000.

Popular Computing (19771985)

This one is very easy to find, though the quality of the type-ins range from the dull to the average. Focusing on simple text adventures, Space Invaders clones, and the occasional utility, the type-ins are at least short and easy to complete.

Antic (19821989)

This magazine was focused on the Atari line of home computers, and it's no surprise to see type-ins take up the bulk of its content for the first few years of its life. The quality of the type-ins were a cut above the ones found in rival magazines, with some prolific authors getting a reputation after several of their games found favor with readers. The popularity of the magazine makes it an easy find for collectors.

5.9.1.2. Books.

There were many books that included type-ins. Here are a few of them.

Creating Adventure Games On Your Computer (1984)

This book by Tim Hartnell is credited as starting many a games designer on the path to making their first RPG. It's more of a "how to" book rather than a compendium of type-ins, but gives you tips and examples to work from.

100 Programs for the Commodore 64 (1985)

John Gordon and Ian McLean's book covers all the genres and styles of the day. While the quality of the finished games is uneven , they all are at least guaranteed to work.

Basic Fun With Graphics: The Apple Computer Way (1983)

Written by Margaret Ann Zuanich and Susan Drake Lipscomb, this book gives examples and short games to demonstrate the graphical splendor of the Apple series of home micro computers.

So now that you know what to look for, how do you get it? eBay and Amazon are great resources, as collectors and former enthusiasts are constantly clearing out their reserves to free up space. Magazines tend to appreciate in value as they get older, while books only get cheaper as the years go on (many of the books listed above are retailing on Amazon for a penny). Sites such as http://www.old-computer-mags.co.uk/ and http://www. vintage -computer.com/ are a good place to start finding old magazines, as well as other enthusiasts for games of bygone eras.

Second-hand book stores are usually a treasure trove for the classic gaming magazine collector, as their value is unknown in the real world. The trade off here is usually that the condition of the magazine is poor at best, but that's better then nothing.

If that doesn't work, try your local library. The bigger they are, the better the chance that they still have that elusive copy of Antic you have been searching for. While you won't be able to keep it, you can still bask in the retro-fueled glow that comes with reading it.

5.9.1.3. Online.

Web sites dedicated to the lost art of the type-in have grown in popularity over recent years. They have the advantage over print in that the type-ins have usually been tried, verified , and error corrected by others, and you can even download the finished product if need be.

• http://www.atariarchives.org maintains an online copy of some of the more popular BASIC programming books ever made.

• http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jg27paw4/type-ins/typehome.htm maintains several hundred type-in listings featured in popular UK Sinclair Spectrum magazines.

• http://freespace.virgin.net/james.groom/oric/typein.htm hosts type-in listings for the ill-fated Oric home computer. Some of them have been corrected to fix game-stopping bugs.

• http://www.cyberroach.com/analog/default.htm aims to archive every issue of Atari-based Analog magazine, including the type-ins.

5.9.2. Tips and Tricks for Typing

Missing one line or typing in the wrong DATA value can be catastrophic, rendering the game and the last few hours of your time useless. Spend a bit of time to make sure that the only errors made are by the original author or the typesetter:

Use a ruler

It might sound stupid, but placing a small ruler underneath the line you are transcribing makes keeping track of what line you are up to much easier. This is especially true when dealing with a large stream of DATA statements, which look the same when printed together on a page.

Save early, save often (the first time this rule has been used outside of a Sierra game)

Transcribing type-ins is painstaking work, and fatigue can set in after a few short hours hunched over the keyboard. If you don't take a break away from staring at the pixelized characters on the screen, you'll just make mistakes later. For every hour spent working on a type-in, take at least 15 minutes break. This is a good chance to save your work so far, and if you're typing it in on a real machine the saving process can take that long anyway.

Adjust to the environment

Old micro-computers weren't designed to be ergonomic like modern day keyboards. Each machine has a keyboard that is arranged different from what we are accustomed to on PCs and Macs. Take some time to get used to the differenceson a Commodore 64 The * symbol is where ] is on a PC, and quotes are found by pressing Shift 2, for example. The Sinclair Spectrum uses BASIC shortcuts, so pressing P can make the word Print appear on the screen. This is useful to know if you touch type and discover afterwards that the last 30 lines are full of garbage.

Break the work up

An advantage of BASIC is that, since each line is numbered, you don't have to type-in the lines in the order they appear on the page. This is a useful tip if you're faced with the task of typing in 50 lines of nearly identical DATA statements. Break it up by typing in some DATA lines, then switching over to something more interesting. Remember to mark off the lines you have done to make sure you don't type in the same line twice (which won't wreck the program, but it's a waste of time).

Get a proofreader

This is invaluable, especially since a mistyped number can wreak havoc. Bribe a willing participant to help you with the project (promise to include their name in the credits; see "Modify the listings" later in this list) and get them to help you type it in. They can either read aloud the listings while you type (be careful they make clear the difference between similar sounding terms, such as FOR and 4 , and know what an old fashioned zero looks likeit's a circle with a stroke through it) or check your work against what is on the page. Either way, a fresh set of eyes (or lips) is invaluable.

Annotate your work

Since type-in listings are already long enough, many of the original coders did not annotate their work, leaving end users to the task of figuring out what section did what. You can add new lines to the program at any point, which is a good opportunity to add annotation to help you modify the code later. Typically, the easiest way to do this would be to add a REM statement like so:

 380 GET A$; PRINT "HELLO";A$;", I HOPE YOU ARE WELL" 381 REM THE ABOVE LINE ASSIGNED THE PLAYER'S NAME TO A$ 390 PRINT "LET'S PLAY TIC-TAC-TOE" 

Modify the listings

An advantage of basic is that it is a fairly straightforward process to change the game to your liking. You wouldn't be the first to do it, either. The brave souls who wrote new endings in a text adventure or changed a blocky Formula 1 car into a blocky space ship in a type-in listing were the predecessors of the hackers who modify Unreal Tournament and other PC games today. The simplest way of modifying the type-in (after making a backup of the original, of course) is to change the text that appears on screen. Most text is kept within PRINT statements, and written in plain English. There's no chance of breaking the program here, though the screen layout can be distorted due to the limited number of characters that can be on screen at once. Try to keep the size of the text you are changing consistent with what was there originally.

Changing graphics is slightly trickier, depending on the program. Early type-ins used character symbols (#, %, *, etc) to represent objects on the screen (e.g., an @ symbol representing Pac-Man and a period for the Pac-Pellets). These are easy to replace as soon as you find them. Later games (particularly on the Commodore 64 and Vic 20) used sprites . These are made from several lines of DATA statements, with each line containing a series of numbers ranging from 0 to 255. Each of those numbers represents one vertical line of the sprite. To find where these values are stored, you will typically need to change one of the values in the DATA lines and see if it has any effect on the sprite. If it does, you've found the right spot.

5.9.3. Hacking the Hack

And here's one final challenge: try changing the rules of the game. The way the game behaves is controlled by many factors, some harder to modify than others. Changing the number of lives you get is usually a matter of finding where that value is defined (usually within the first few lines of code), while changing a physics system is a complete programming job in itself. Start off by modifying base variables (usually defined in LET statements, such as LET L=5 or L=5 ) and see what effect they have on how the game works. At this point, you're on your way to writing your very own type-in for others to try out themselves.

Cameron Davis