Programming Retro Games in Python | 80s Usborne Computer Coding Book

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Күн бұрын

Please note, this video is not intended as a programming tutorial, it's just to show me having a go at converting the games. Hopefully seeing this will inspire others to have a go themselves :)
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...
Usborne website link (with book downloads) below ⬇️
usborne.com/gb/books/computer...
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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Пікірлер: 607

@robertbreyer3309 3 ай бұрын

When I was younger I always found the artwork was vastly more impressive than the game.

@catsaregovernmentspies 3 ай бұрын

That was one of the criticisms of Atari, and is why Nintendo released their first releases as the "Black Box" series, with pixel art on the cover showing an accurate representation of what you could expect from the game.

@thomaswinston5142 3 ай бұрын

That's how they sold the games.

@KarriKoivusalo 3 ай бұрын

Indeed, when newcomers complain how modern games prioritize graphics over a good gaming experience (implying this is a recent thing) they obviously weren't around in the eighties when horrible games were sold with box art.

@matthewweng8483 3 ай бұрын

The childhood trauma of coming home having blown all your chore money, geeked to pop in your new Atari VCS game only to realize you'd bought a total stinker... 😝

@JCCyC 3 ай бұрын

@@catsaregovernmentspies Activision was more honest IIRC. At least on the cartridge label.

@mattihp 3 ай бұрын

The artwork in those books is amazing. Somehow the style always reminded me of the movie parodies in MAD Magazine

@rlacombe 3 ай бұрын

As a 49 year old, it is refreshing to see someone so young interested in retro micros!

@OneAndOnlyMe 2 ай бұрын

I still have my ZX81. Wish I'd kept my Commodore now.

@rlacombe 2 ай бұрын

@@miroslaw5615 old enough to have used the BBC Micro at school and seen the release of the ZX Spectrum!

@rameynoodles152 2 ай бұрын

Hell, as a 29 year old, it's still refreshing for me.

@sols.2525 2 ай бұрын

@@OneAndOnlyMe yeah I wish I still had my Commodore 64 setup too.

@semplew 2 ай бұрын

It's good to see that younger generations are keeping older systems alive.

@theoDSP 3 ай бұрын

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.

@karilawler 3 ай бұрын

Thanks - I probably should have mentioned that in the vid👍

@OneAndOnlyMe 3 ай бұрын

Those books got me started. I never looked back. Today I'm an enterprise systems architect.

@lucasrem 2 ай бұрын

Why so bored ? You should create again, post it here ! enterprise systems, why that ?

@OneAndOnlyMe 2 ай бұрын

@@lucasrem Natural progression from systems analyst to enterprise architect, from starting in small companies to big corporate and government enterprises.

@andrewstallings6548 Ай бұрын

Where could I get my son something like this? What would I even search for?

@murphygreen8484 2 ай бұрын

"over 40 years ago". Don't mind me crying over here

@KyleHarmieson 2 ай бұрын

5 years old in 2008, too. I'm only 29 and that still made me feel old.

@peterbelanger4094 Ай бұрын

I'm laughing. brings back some fun memories.... 1984, I was 14, my dad just got me a Texas Instruments 99-4A (I wanted a C-64, but I have one of those dads that always gets the slightly cheaper brand), and typing in programs from computer magazines, and it takin 45 min to save it all on CASSETTE! ...good times :)

@PaulioBee 3 ай бұрын

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.

@MjArmstrong35 3 ай бұрын

Just found this channel yesterday, seeing such a young person interested in our yesterday is brilliant and so are you 😇

@Urko2005 3 ай бұрын

Well said.

@olecram8217 Ай бұрын

Não se engane isso é pura modinha e hype

@maidbloke 3 ай бұрын

54 year old BBC Micro owner here. That start-up sound at 1:10 brings back so many memories. 😍😍😍

@RetroJack 3 ай бұрын

💯

@lucasrem 2 ай бұрын

You learned coding, why care how old it is ?

@pcarmonac 2 ай бұрын

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

@bluesoystercultist7164 2 ай бұрын

Wait, Chile!? Wena conchetumare :D Yo tenia entendido que tener acceso a productos como el C64 era casi imposible en los 80

@pcarmonac 2 ай бұрын

@@bluesoystercultist7164 wena !!!! de echo yo tenia Atari por que el Commodore ese si que era escaso, solo unos pocos tenían ese compu. Hasta hoy tengo el 65XE y el 800XL, busco la consola Atari 2600

@Vindolin 2 ай бұрын

Greetings from a German Atari 600XL user who is now a software developer, Atari Basic was the first code I ever saw and typed in my life. I remember changing the numbers in the included "thunder/lightning" example listing and sitting there in awe, proudly admiring the results of my changes.

@josephkarl2061 3 ай бұрын

It's great to see you getting into rhe gateway drug that got so many of us into programming back in the day 💯

@dylanherron3963 3 ай бұрын

So the, 90's when I was a child, felt like and endless landscape of constantly improving technology. I'm fascinated with the 8 and 16 bit era, since it was just out of my reach (being an infant lol)

@panopolis8051 2 ай бұрын

10:35 thought you had 3 hands for a second 🤣 good video, keep em coming!

@NickT6630 3 ай бұрын

These books started my journey in to programming on the ZX Spectrum+ back in the 80's.

@Urko2005 3 ай бұрын

Ace days typing in the progs from the magazines back then.

@pataleno 2 ай бұрын

@@Urko2005 Me too into my ZX81

@manoiumusicgames5763 2 ай бұрын

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.

@Urko2005 3 ай бұрын

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.

@lucasrem 2 ай бұрын

UK only machine !

@barnes0801 3 ай бұрын

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.

@atys1966 3 ай бұрын

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.

@nebhead77 3 ай бұрын

Great idea for a video! Really fun to watch how far we have come.

@dylanherron3963 3 ай бұрын

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!

@ProBloggerWorld 2 ай бұрын

I just took a short glimpse of your video, but this is precisely my style. Simply showing the original code and new code side by side is fantastic. So, there is no room for magic, just craft, transforming old code into a new environment. Really cool!

@BlameThande 3 ай бұрын

I love the Usborne books, not only these computer coding ones but others too, great to see them being put to use!

@shootmcrunfast 3 ай бұрын

Awesome stuff. I used to have these books back in the day, the artwork stoked my naive young mind and I honestly imagined graphics akin to the artwork in the book!!

@robertbronkowski3262 2 ай бұрын

I really like how you re-program these games in python. truly amazing.

@jeffersonkohler4162 2 ай бұрын

What a lovely channel, Kari. Please keep making your good content.

@xjet 2 ай бұрын

Reminds me of when I first got into microcomputers way back in the late 1970s. So much effort, so much fun.

@Gordos503 2 ай бұрын

I thoroughly enjoyed this video. A nice trip down memory lane and I learnt a bit of Python too. Great work and I can’t wait to see more! Cheers! 🇨🇦

@darkwing7780 2 ай бұрын

super awesome video, it was really fun checking out the old type-in-the-code books :)

@ChickenTaquillaTaco 3 ай бұрын

Very similar to “Compute!” Magazine in the US which was based for the Commodore series of PC. Lots of programs! And they also included an MLX complier programs as well (machine language) which were awesome to sit and punch in programs included in the magazine for hours. Lol.

@FifthOfNovember_Original 2 ай бұрын

Thanks for yet another great video! Looking forward to see more retro themed coding content!

@ReverendPONT 3 ай бұрын

This brought back memories. My Dad subscribed to these and would program quite a few of these. I remember flipping through the pages and helping him pick what games to program.

@tastyw0rm 2 ай бұрын

I had this book! so many memories, thank you!

@denissoames4372 2 ай бұрын

Great to see a 00s CompSci generation programmer playing with old tech and reinventing old code for other Python newbs. I've a classroom idea forming. Keep up the good work!

@JosephHaig 3 ай бұрын

I had those books when they came out (I'm showing my age). When I saw that Osborne made them available for downloading I also had the idea of rewriting them for Python but didn't get round to it. Your walk-through here is fantastic!

@BastiaanOlij 3 ай бұрын

This brings back so many memories, using my dads TRS-80 with similar programming books, writing my first basic programs. Cool to see people today still find fun in it :)

@GeorgesChannel 3 ай бұрын

Amazing video, Kari! Combining old tech with new is what i love doing also! Great T-Shirt of Robocop. Love the movie too. Keep up your great work!

@karilawler 3 ай бұрын

Thanks so much!

@GeorgesChannel 3 ай бұрын

@@karilawler Always welcome. I am a Software-Developer reaching back to the 80's. Love that you have chosen this topic.

@paulooliveira130 3 ай бұрын

Thank you so much for this video! This was really a brilliant idea. Now I want to go check those vintage programming magazines too XD

@tedmerrick935 3 ай бұрын

I am 46 and used to use those old BASIC programs in magazines and the nostalgia hit hard. This was fantastic to watch.

@RetroSegaDev 3 ай бұрын

Kari your BASIC to Python skills are really smooth! :D My Python knowledge of libraries is flaky at best and you absolutely sail it.

@CaseyWilkesmusic 2 ай бұрын

Kari, love the show and your content. Reminds me of early 2000’s late night shows on tech tv

@ImDaCoolDad 3 ай бұрын

I love your videos! You have only come up on my feed and love them! I watched the 3D print one of et and Mario. I'm a school teacher and totally going to do that with my students. Thanks for your awesome content. Great work 👍

@x3n0l3e6 3 ай бұрын

I like your tshirt . I find your videos entertaining and relaxing .

@CapnKroaker Ай бұрын

Fantastic - loved this. I grew up with a BBC and these books. Was always more into coding than the games themselves.

@TheHaircutFish 3 ай бұрын

Awesome job, just went through using your video and created it to using Python. Then posted it to github, adding credits to you and linking your video in the code. Along with the link to the Usborne page. Great job, lots of fun!

@tobiasjames9107 2 ай бұрын

Oooh that's the shootout game I did from this book as a child, before becoming disenchanted with it sadly. It was years before I dipped my toe into programming again. Great video as always!

@mudi2000a 3 ай бұрын

Nice, it really brings back memories. I had the C64. Quick tip for Python when checking a number range: you can just write if 4

@xShibux 2 ай бұрын

Love your Chanel, keep up these videos!

@retrogiftsuk4812 2 ай бұрын

I had that exact book back in the day (along with a couple of other programming books). I used to love looking through the book at the pictures to choose a game to type in.

@fabiomoises5765 2 ай бұрын

Loved! I love retro text games. Your video inspired me to study Python.

@MrShikaga 2 ай бұрын

I had that book as a child of around 8 years old in the 90s. By that time it was already pretty retro, but we had an old DOS computer with Basic on it. I didn’t know how to code (I mostly just liked to look at the pictures) but I just typed the words in and sometimes it worked, but normally it didn’t. But those rare moments it did work were like magic! And the very few times I was able to modify small bits to customise the game were genuinely transcendent experiences and set me on the path to ultimately becoming software engineer. Great to see that book again!

@MichaelB-wm5cg 3 ай бұрын

Just restored my family BBC Micro a few months ago. I had to replace some old power supply filter caps after they produced the magic white smoke. Now playing many games from the 80's from a nice SSD card kit you can buy.

@Applecitylightkiwi 2 ай бұрын

Glad i discovered you, these are things i expect from a youtuber

@daltonyon 2 ай бұрын

Awesome this book, I have never seen that and already love!

@fruitloop831 2 ай бұрын

This is how I learnt to start understanding different codes/scripting. Still couldn't make anything on my own but pretty confident these days when editing what exists

@dazetwenty346 3 ай бұрын

omg i have that book in my loft somewhere! i am feeeling old was 13 when i used to type that into a VIC20!

@HypnoGenX 2 ай бұрын

Love this idea. Using old magazine listings then porting them sounds like a good time to me. 😁

@housecaldwell 2 ай бұрын

It's fantastic that Usborne made these books available! I'm trying out the Space Games (in Python) now thanks to this video.

@jackfry 3 ай бұрын

love your videos they're awesome! and that robocop tee 'chefs kiss'

@Tenebrarium 3 ай бұрын

Hey Kari, I think you are great! And great content, looking forward for more :)

@lincoln537 2 ай бұрын

Very interesting videos. I actually love them. Subscribed

@Daniel15au 3 ай бұрын

Love your videos, Kari! I had those books even though I'm only 33. My school library were getting rid of old books, and they were going to throw them away so I took them. Had to get emulators for the old computers they were designed for since I couldn't find any of them locally in Australia.

@gm.gess- Ай бұрын

I am loving your Channel 😊

@calebfuller4713 2 ай бұрын

Back in the day, computer magazines used to also include programs like this you could type in - games, utilities, neat demos, etc. Mostly they'd be in BASIC, but sometimes for faster arcade games they'd actually include a block of raw machine code in hex format you'd have to painstakingly type in!

@Vindolin 2 ай бұрын

And just before you could run the the code, your little brother tripped over the power cable and all the memory was gone. I had to wait a whole year before I could convince my parents that I needed a datasette for my "home work".

@jimbo573 2 ай бұрын

These listings books/magazines were part of my childhood so it's absolutely wild seeing a member of the next generation reviving them and even converting one to a modern language. So creative. A great trip down memory lane for me.

@JamieBainbridge 3 ай бұрын

Very cool! I have done this too, converting old BASIC games into C. It's a good way to learn the differences and similarities between languages, and to think about how to structure your code which becomes useful when you do other things in your own programs later.

@HeatDeath76 2 ай бұрын

A few months back I converted several games from a copy of "Practise Your Basic" I still had from when I was in grade 7 in the late 80s. I did a little googling, but I couldn't figure out a way to make ia python equivalent of inkey work. Thanks for digging up msvcrt! Super useful! I've added that to my personal python cookbook document!

@techhoppy 2 ай бұрын

As someone who typed in 100's of BASIC programs from magazines in my youth, and also as someone who enjoys Python, this was a great video! Thanks!

@sjarman 2 ай бұрын

Love everything about this video. I used to spend hours with these books as a kid on my C64. As an adult I’ve amassed a huge collection of them from eBay over the years. All for the nostalgia 😊

@rrivillox 2 ай бұрын

Great job!!!! Congratulations 🎉🎉🎉

@Greatkudos 2 ай бұрын

This was great. Please do more videos like this.

@Trovolt 2 ай бұрын

You should program all the games of that book! make a youtube series of programing it! would love to watch all of them, keep on the good work, you are amazing.

@azb7000 2 ай бұрын

Thank you so much for this video! I've re-coded Vital Message in C#. I'm an amateur, and this was a nice exercise!

@ColaSpandex 2 ай бұрын

I am currently working on a new game for the BBC Micro. This made me smile.

@TheRealTombliboos 2 ай бұрын

I had the BBC Electron! Awesome content, tvm!

@rexjaneway186 2 ай бұрын

Oh my...I didnt remember that book but when I waychwd the video it triggered so many memories...thanks a lot❤

@squarehead6c1 2 ай бұрын

This is cool. I have some of those books and was interested in re-implementing some of the games in Python with my daughter.

@nafnist 2 ай бұрын

Omg that BBC start sound. What a childhood memory boot.

@DadofScience 2 ай бұрын

These are quite clever little programs showing particular functionality to provide the basics of a game, but leaving it open to the home user to add to it, adding ASCII graphics, 'Play again?' features and even levels if they have the patience to do so. I'd forgotten this sort of thing from back in day!

@SEGAMasterSystemNerd 3 ай бұрын

I have this Battle Games book.. “borrowed” it from the school library in 1985 when I was 10.. so it’s a bit late being returned 😅 And yes we had a singular BBC Micro in the hallway on a trolley.. used to use it every lunchtime ☺️ Unfortunately I never did become a programmer.. Great videos, really cool seeing you enter these programs 👍

@Inaflap 2 ай бұрын

I have a book of dinosaurs loaned in 1977. OMG I'm on the run, as the late return fine will be massive.

@tin2001 2 ай бұрын

@@Inaflap Careful... with inflation how it is, some governments might see library overdue fines as a way to solve budget problems 😂

@kpowerbg 2 ай бұрын

Great video Kari ❤ you just get new fan here 😊

@TevelDrinkwater 2 ай бұрын

Remember entering these games by hand in my Vic-20! What a blast from the past. I've downloaded these PDF's before, after hearing about Usborne releasing them for free back in an old Ars Technica article. I haven't tried entering the programs again though. Cool to see them still around.

@AnalogX64 3 ай бұрын

Very cool covering this topic. I think I might still have that book :) I remember trying to type a lot of those games on my Commodore 64 and couldnt get them to work.

@JWhite205 2 ай бұрын

It's so awesome hearing you say bbc

@ShaneSimmons 2 ай бұрын

Love it. This was one of my activities during 2020 when I was stuck at home and recovering from pneumonia. I managed to get a Compute! 1987 Amiga fractal mountain routine running in Pygame. Much more educational than just playing a game.

@Ultra-Violet 3 ай бұрын

Hi Kari, great video, I'm impressed with your knowledge of these old systems, I love watching these videos, I get fully absorbed 🙂 thanks for your time here. Oh yeah, I bought a t-shirt from postees because of you, maybe they could be a sponsor? Robocop 👍🏻💜

@59withqsb12 2 ай бұрын

Hi Kari, pressing all my nostalgia buttons with these books!! They used to write them in the most vanilla BASIC and then include special variations where the individual machines' own flavours of BASIC were different. That's why you'll find STOP in this listing (as it was required in some variants of BASIC), where END would be more normal on the beeb - I think STOP is mainly used in BBC BASIC for debugging, as it always returns an error message. IMHO, BBC BASIC was the most advanced BASIC of its day as it has elegant loops (REPEAT.... UNTIL something) and nice procedures (DEF PROCsomething.... ENDPROC).

@georgeyreynolds 3 ай бұрын

The BBC Micro is nice to type on. In my school we had a couple of model B but mostly Master 128. I installed new backup batteries in the Master 128s, using AA battery packs at my secondary school, they were still working in 2001.

@rickrivethead 2 ай бұрын

O WOW, This really takes me back!!, I remember back in the 80's typing a programme from a game magazine into my Amstrad 464, which was so long I had to leave the computer on all night in order to finish it!. Of course, this was the 80's and there was a power cut obviously!!! 12 hours of game data lost!!!....... I didn't restart it!!!

@davidplanet3919 2 ай бұрын

Coding micro computers in the 80s. Learnt so much - miss those times and the computers.

@rowlandspear4061 3 ай бұрын

Awesome! Now I want to dig out my old Basic game books and Pythonize them :) My mind, instantly went to modifying the Message game to start at level '4' and progress thru level '10' to win....with a randomize function to generate the message. I might just have to try it! 🙂

@rowlandspear4061 3 ай бұрын

oops. *embarrassed* it does randomize the message.

@snakecaseofficial 3 ай бұрын

Hey Kari, cool project. As a child, I programmed some games for the C16 from a magazine :) That inspired me to become a computer scientist. I think this is also a good way to learn python. cheers.

@ReviewsforNerds 3 ай бұрын

in high school we had IBM 386 machines all over camups. In computer class we were allowed to play around with basic and vb and the such. There were games (snake, gorillas, etc) that we could get into and modify. it was so much fun. Such a great video. thank you.

@silvermig 2 ай бұрын

Nice!. A couple a years ago I did the same, but with some of those old "Write your own adventure/fantasy Game from the Usborne books", for the sake of fun. I never though someone else would do the same.

@stblad3 Ай бұрын

WOW!! I have the same book. That is how I got into programming!! Good memories!!

@mikelock6931 2 ай бұрын

Excellent video! I still actually have my copy of that book, along with its sibling Computer Spacegames, which I remember my mum buying from the school bookclub for my Spectrum-owning older brother. I wonder what the authors would say if they knew people were still looking at thier programs over 40 years later!

@Victoria-fs9jo 2 ай бұрын

Just found this channel and wow this is cool

@Newtube_Channel 3 ай бұрын

Clever clocks, digging the computer laboratory you have there

@Lucas_Pit 3 ай бұрын

Just found your channel. This is so great :) I remember there was a radio show here on Thursday nights where they actually played back a most annoying beeps and squeaks sounds from the old days. I used to record them from the radio broadcast with a tape recorder and then load the program on the C64. Those were the days. Would love to see you replicate in python the stuff you could do in the days with ‘sprites’ on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

@Inaflap 2 ай бұрын

Perhaps that was Datarama. That was a regular radio show in 1983 that broadcast code (typically 30 seconds long). I think Micro Live on BBC television did the same during the end credits sometimes. They also did a thing with a flashing square in the top-right of the screen, but you needed a light pen taped to your television screen (over that area of course).

@TechyMantis 2 ай бұрын

Our family had a BBC micro when I was about 5 in the 80s and loved it.

@babadook4173 3 ай бұрын

this video is inspirational, thank you. And I mean it.

@jbaidley 3 ай бұрын

Thanks for another great video! Loved these old books. Incidentally, in Python, you don't have to do "D >= 4 and D

@samwalker7567 2 ай бұрын

Even nicer, and more pythonic, you can just use range(), like the loop, to check membership within a range of numbers. Obviously remember that range is half open and includes the start but excludes the stop. So providing you initialize D to an invalid value first, all you need is: while D not in range(4,11): D = int(input("DIFFICULTY (4-10)")) No if statement required, no loop break, super slick.

@snackplaylove 2 ай бұрын

@@samwalker7567that’s lovely!

@yrtepgold 2 ай бұрын

And not as super readable as her implementation.