SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 15 submissions in the queue.
SoylentNews
Today I discovered an absolute gem from the past.
If you were around in 1984 you might have been super awesome and played core wars.
Core Wars is a programming game in which two or more programs run in a simulated computer with the goal of terminating every other program and surviving as long as possible. Known as Warriors, these programs are are written in an assembly language called Redcode.
Basically it's Counter-Strike/COD for programmers where you can fight in a team team, as a free-for-all, or one-vs-one.
What other cool things from the past might us youngun programmers have missed or not have an appreciation of?
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
You own a dog, but you can only feed a cat.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Saturday October 25 2014, @03:44PM
You knew I'd have a Star Wars example, right? Back in the Apple IIe days, there was a Death Star Game that circulated widely. You landed on the Death Star, and had to free the princess and shut down the tractor beam, and then escape. This was all text - you'd see a line of text saying you were in the control room and there were enemies, and then you typed ADVENTURE-like command to shoot people and take items. The game was fairly sophisticated for the day, allowing you to free prisoners and have them fight. (So SWTOR wasn't the first Star Wars game with "companions" who fought alongside you.) The map was fairly intricate, so it took some time to explore. Since I only had access to the Apple IIe in the computer lab at school for minimal amounts of time, the game seemed enormous and hard to conquer, since I could only explore tiny bits at a time and you always had to start over. There was a timer, and if you stayed too long, Darth Vader showed up and you couldn't defeat him. The text aspect, and the general newness of personal computers in general, made you use your imagination. Just sitting down at a computer, in those days (early 80s) was like entering the Star Wars world since personal computers were still rare in daily life. At least for me. (Star Wars was a big reason I got into computers, a seminal influence.)
Now this game is still available online, "if you know where to look" (as Master Liv'trai says), and there is a version in QBASIC that will still run today in MS-DOS or a suitable emulator if you can find a QBASIC interpreter, if anyone wants to play it.
This game was not an official Lucasfilm product or anything, it was strictly freeware that circulated around. One of the very, very few programs my computer lab had - they spent all their money on Apple IIe computers and didn't really have any software at all except a few freeware things teachers brough in.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Saturday October 25 2014, @06:13PM
You can build QuickBASIC on Windows/Linux/OSX/Android using QB64: http://www.qb64.net/ [qb64.net] Unfortunately their cloud compiler on the home page is down.