Usborne Weird Computer Games Book

Usborne Weird Computer Games Book | Ashens

Рет қаралды 181,180

5 жыл бұрын

You can download a free PDF of this book from Usborne themselves! usborne.com/browse-books/feat...
Way, way back in 1984 the good folk at Usborne brought out a book of source code for weird computer games. It told you how they worked so you could alter them and make your own - learning programming whilst playing weird games! But what did these example programs actually play like...?
The answer is, unsurprisingly, "not great."
So let's have a look at Tower of Terror, Skulls of the Pyramid, Monster Wrestling, Jaws, Flying Witches, and Micropuzzle. And try not to be too judemental because HEY THEY'RE FOR THE KIDS TO LEARN INNIT
#retrogaming #usborne80s #ashens

Пікірлер: 595

@DenSporetrix 5 жыл бұрын

Man, whoever they hired to do the most of the artwork in this book, i hope they were paid some good money. Those illustrations are real good. Well, the little skeletons are a bit weird.

@pixelnaut8076 5 жыл бұрын

I think maybe the art in the back was done beforehand, and then the little skeletons and stuff were done as like... illustrations for the actual content of the boo

@RFC3514 5 жыл бұрын

> the actual content of the boo I see what you did there.

@kbhasi 5 жыл бұрын

I agree! I had been planning to download a number of the PDFs as part of some kind of thing where I research the kind of art styles used in books aimed at children. I don't really seem to like the flat outline-less graphics used in their modern titles, though.

@WhatHoSnorkers 5 жыл бұрын

@@kbhasi The little robots they use to explain things are rather fun. For a "really difficult topic but we're doing a kid's book" book, check out the "Introduction to Machine Code (for Z80 and 6502 chips)". Amazing stuff.

@ricky302v8 5 жыл бұрын

The front cover looks like Oliver Frey art (Crash and Zzap!64 magazine)

@davekeller4488 5 жыл бұрын

I had that book, or possibly borrowed it from the library. Anyway, I remember spending hours typing out all the basic, only to be met with “Syntax Error”, then my mum would come along and unplug the computer to do the vacuuming.

@HaydenX 5 жыл бұрын

"Hey! Programmers! Leave those goats alone... All in all it's just another hole in the floor"

@RFC3514 5 жыл бұрын

Goat pupils are rectangular, actually.

@HaydenX 5 жыл бұрын

@@RFC3514 I wouldn't think being in school would change one's fundamental shape...interesting.

@RFC3514 5 жыл бұрын

It can definitely make you a more rounded individual.

@MareCat31 5 жыл бұрын

@@RFC3514 I have an image of Violet from Willy Wonka just rolling around a school in my head now.

@georgedeane2564 5 жыл бұрын

Floyd

@OverUnity7734 5 жыл бұрын

I remember spending two weeks typing a star trek game into my C64, then three weeks debugging it.

@MareCat31 5 жыл бұрын

Ah,that makes reading sound much more enjoyable. I don't know what to say, I'm a 90s kid so by the time I was messing with computers it was more fun to search through random websites and see what you could find.

@MareCat31 5 жыл бұрын

And even that could take all day...

@RFC3514 5 жыл бұрын

Before the 90s we had these things called "shops" where you could buy games (they employed local people, too). That's not really the point, though; you didn't type in games just so you could _play_ them, it was a way to learn _programming._

@hanniffydinn6019 5 жыл бұрын

Fun times. Computing is boring now.

@RFC3514 5 жыл бұрын

@Hanniffy Dinn - Nothing prevents you from spending as long as you want typing whatever code you wish into whichever system (or emulator) you choose.

@st0rmforce 5 жыл бұрын

When I was a kid I was given my cousin's old Amstrad CPC (which was about as old as me) and I got a couple of Usborne books to learn about how it worked. Even though we had a windows 95 PC, the simplicity of programming the Amstrad allowed it keep my interest. I'm a software engineer now. I can trace my interest in programming all the way back to a couple of 10-year-out-of-date Usborne books and an obsolete microcomputer.

@Phoenix2312 5 жыл бұрын

Our Parents: "I bought you this book to teach you how to program games on your new computer" Us as Children: "YEAH!" The Extent of our Programming Knowledge after 6 months: 10 PRINT "MY SMELLY BROTHER IS A POOPY HEAD!" 20 GOTO 10 RUN

@camptube7621 5 жыл бұрын

If you put a ; at the end of line 10, it would scroll across the screen filling it from top to bottom 😂😂

@MathewHaswell 2 жыл бұрын

ASHENS IS SKILL

@superscatboy 5 жыл бұрын

I used these books to learn BASIC on the Spectrum, fell in love with coding, eventually becoming an AMOS BASIC junkie, and a bit of an expert in the language. When I finally got to start my A-level in computing, the first thing I had to do was forget everything I had ever learned because it turns out BASIC teaches you some really weird and/or bad programming habits and paradigms. In hindsight, learning to code by starting with BASIC is like learning to fly a helicopter by starting off on a unicycle.

@camptube7621 5 жыл бұрын

Basic came back to me when I had to get into vba for excel. It made it se much easier to get into because of these fun days with a tape recorder and cassette tape loading a game into my bbc b.

@superscatboy 5 жыл бұрын

@@RFC3514 Most BASICs in those days made every variable global, something which took some time to adjust to when moving away from it. And while you're right about gosubs being comparable to functions, that was only obvious to me once I had learned how functions work - a task that was made difficult thanks to already being in a gosub mindset. BASIC was the best learning tool there was for youngsters at the time, but nostalgia aside it was a horrible tool and I wouldn't encourage anyone to even consider using it if there's anything else available. Thank goodness there are much better options available these days!

@RFC3514 5 жыл бұрын

> a task that was made difficult thanks to already being in a gosub mindset. I assume you mean goto. And hey, that prepared you for assembly coding. ;) And, like I said, it depends on how you use the tool. GFA Basic (and, to a lesser degree, STOS / AMOS) were extremely powerful and supported most features / mechanisms found, for example, in C.

@superscatboy 5 жыл бұрын

@@RFC3514 Yeah I meant goto, but to some extent gosub - gosubs are still missing some of the fundamentals of functions, namely passing parameters and returning values (without messily juggling global variables), so they're still a poor preparation for using proper functions later on. I strongly feel that I only understood how BASIC mapped onto "proper" languages like C once I had learned those languages from scratch. I don't buy into the idea that BASIC prepares you for other languages, I believe that the opposite is true - once you've learned a "proper" language only then does all that weirdness you were doing in BASIC begin to make any real sense.

@RFC3514 5 жыл бұрын

In most of these early systems, yes, you have to use global variables manually, to pass data into subroutines. Most (probably all) these CPUs supported a stack, but I don't think any BASIC gave access to it even explicitly (via push/pop), and certainly not implicitly (by passing parameters). Later BASICs did add support for local variables (and passing parameters).

@xAlexZifko 5 жыл бұрын

monster wrestling: "watching an older british man do basic math"

@knightowl3577 5 жыл бұрын

It's maths because he's British.

@BodywiseMustard 3 жыл бұрын

Just the one?

@RFC3514 5 жыл бұрын

That broom game was surprisingly advanced, compared to the other ones. With variable speed, some flying obstacles, and a time limit, it could be almost fun.

@peterknutsen3070 5 жыл бұрын

I don't understand the challenge in it... Why not just fly low all the time? And why aren't there any warning signs for the broom-snatcher? I think ground obstacles that forces you to fly higher, then swoop down to gather, then fly up higher again, would be a better challenge than having flying obstacles.

@RFC3514 5 жыл бұрын

The challenge comes from the fact that you can't select the height (did you think Ashens was flying back up deliberately?). You just press a key to "swoop down" for a second, and then your broom goes back up, to a random height. You have to time the swoop to match the moment when the item you want to catch will be passing under you, but the timing is different depending on the height from which you start. Flying obstacles would force you to choose between timing your swoop to catch an object or time the swoop to dodge the obstacle (and possibly miss the item you need to catch), while still requiring only a single button.

@peterknutsen3070 5 жыл бұрын

RFC3514 Thanks! I completely missed that part!

@auralunaprettycure 2 жыл бұрын

I’d love to know more about the game designer of that one in particular, it seems like each game is as designed by a different person since Monster Wrestling had a special credit, as did Tower of Terror, I suppose it’s possible some people designed more than one game

@gwivongalois6169 2 жыл бұрын

Looks like either the inspiration for Cauldron (C64 and other platforms) or the scaled down "you can type it in" version of it.

@GreyHulk2156 5 жыл бұрын

I borrowed 'Creepy Computer Games' from the English class at school. Erm... I still have it all these years later. Oops.

@gurgy3 5 жыл бұрын

Wouldn’t want to pay your late fees

@brocka.6479 5 жыл бұрын

I actually bought some 'type the code' books that were being retired in my school library that were more in-depth - like a choose your own adventure book, but your choices determined what section of code you typed in. Check out Arcade Explorers if you can find them, they were... interesting.

@hanniffydinn6019 5 жыл бұрын

Luckily my library cleared all its records when I last checked last week, I still had books ! So I joint again. Didn’t get any books, as I got used to downloading them free! How times have changed... you can download these usborne books free from the usborne website !🤯🤯👌

@matthewwilde5222 4 жыл бұрын

"pulse rate is 69, nice" - Ashens 2019

@nachosdecay 2 жыл бұрын

Just one more like and you will have 69, nice

@aborted4196 2 жыл бұрын

I just gave you 69 likes nice

@matthewwilde5222 2 жыл бұрын

nice

@AtheistOrphan 5 жыл бұрын

I had ‘The Usborne book of the future: A trip in time to the year 2000 and beyond’. Published in the mid to late 70’s. Hilarious. ‘The year 2000 olympics will take place on the moon, a typical thousand foot long nuclear submarine oil tanker of the year 2000’ etc, etc.

@TheSmart-CasualGamer 4 жыл бұрын

There was a Soviet book from the 60s that I had which basically said that in the year 2015 (No idea why they picked that year) we'd be farming on the moon, using atomic powered jetbikes for transport and having monorails sodding everywhere.

@snoballuk 5 жыл бұрын

Just as ashens said "What is Tower of Terror like then?" a mid-video ad for Adobe Creative Cloud played - now that's terrifying!

@totallynotasentientactionf9519 5 жыл бұрын

YOU GOT THAT TOO?

@keiyakins 5 жыл бұрын

Mine was an ad for insomnia treatment sounds... Probably because I'm watching at 4:40 am...

@EGLEWRRR 2 жыл бұрын

I got an Ad for COD: Vangard, and just said "That's not Tower of Terror, that's something worse"

@illiamdeebe7579 5 жыл бұрын

Oh my, I had the Fantasy Games book. It was one of my favourite things ever and I loved the style they were written in. Just seeing that cover via the link you provided woke up parts of my brain that hadn't fired since the 80s. Thank you for a heroin-level hit of nostalgia!

@RickinBaltimore 5 жыл бұрын

I had a few of these books in the US and taught myself BASIC programming on my C64 through them. It also taught my hatred for programming when I get a syntax error for leaving out a semicolon on line 260.

@joshuascholar3220 5 жыл бұрын

The first day I had my computer I typed something like this (but much longer) in, then turned the computer off without saving it!

@ChristopherSobieniak 5 жыл бұрын

I just recall taking out a book showing a timeline of inventions and recall a page about how toilets were invented!

@dubuyajay9964 5 жыл бұрын

10 Goto 20

@Ragnarok540 5 жыл бұрын

This is one of the best videos Ashens has ever done, I'm an engineer and I would have loved to have those as a kid.

@MsCherade9 5 жыл бұрын

They were awesome, I still have some of them and my brother has the other. We got a ZX Spectrum in 1983 and argued incessantly about whose turn it was!

@Roadent1241 5 жыл бұрын

You can probably do it still nowadays? XP

@TechBaffle 5 жыл бұрын

12:29 That sounds so much like Ashens I forgot he was reading the book!

@faumnamara5181 5 жыл бұрын

Today I found some BBC, Amstrad and Acorn computers and their peripherals up a loft space in my old high school.... A single tear of joy may have escaped along with a small fart of excitement.

@emery5417 5 жыл бұрын

The cover gives me some serious scary stories to tell in the dark vibes.

@kanedamikami7771 5 жыл бұрын

This is a Curse whenever I pull an all nighter and wanna go to sleep there is a new ashens Upload.

@ImNotAGuineaPig 5 жыл бұрын

You know what this means right? For the common good, you must keep pulling all nighters.

@neilwilson5785 5 жыл бұрын

I got lucky. It's only 23:18. Early night still possible.

@sizzxrk 5 жыл бұрын

You don't sleep during all-nighters do you?

@spartanwolfmk4226 5 жыл бұрын

There are two absolutes in this world. Taxes and Ashens uploading at stupid o’clock.

@Magitek1112 5 жыл бұрын

The skeletons on the Tower of Terror page just remind me of the ones from Funnybones. (Raise your hand if you remember that)

@MsCherade9 5 жыл бұрын

Still own my Funnybones books!

@Roadent1241 5 жыл бұрын

I only recognise that from Caddicarus' videos honestly, apparently I watched less TV than I remember. (Given we literally only still have the basic freeview channels now.)

@LyingSecret 5 жыл бұрын

I made my own DVD with all the episodes of Funnybones on it, cause no other bugger was gonna do it :D

@mandygreen6718 5 жыл бұрын

🤚🏼

@LyingSecret 5 жыл бұрын

@@mandygreen6718 Highfive? sure *highfives* :D

@ertplus838 5 жыл бұрын

I remember borrowing one of these from the library in the early 2000s, young me had a hell of a time finding a basic interpreter for Windows.

@ElTwOJaY 5 жыл бұрын

Nothing like listening to a British man play games that were created a decade before I was born.

@paulgascoigne5343 5 жыл бұрын

When you spend 3 hours typing in basic for 30 seconds of dissapointment.

@gallyvalentine7976 5 жыл бұрын

I think if you would have input "eat Cheese" you would have shrank down for the weird proportioned house, kinda like Alice in wonderland.

@eddieboyky 5 жыл бұрын

Henceforth, my alias of choice shall be Piddlehampton!

@kendalltisinger2587 5 жыл бұрын

My phone at 3:34 am: "Ashens posted a video" Me: forget sleep I have to watch a British man review things on a couch

@ppidk2267 5 жыл бұрын

It's 9:40 pm

@SpicyMilk 5 жыл бұрын

@@ppidk2267 You're right it's not like people live in different time zones or anything you know yeah 9:40 pm what were they thinking huh boy I tell ya some people don't know how to tell the time anymore jeez louise some people nowadays huh

@ppidk2267 5 жыл бұрын

@@SpicyMilk what's a"time zone"

@nicholas2198 5 жыл бұрын

Legit what I have just done, about to go to bed, Ashens posts a video

@kendalltisinger2587 5 жыл бұрын

@@nicholas2198 that's how it be sometimes

@cavv0667 5 жыл бұрын

My friend had this booklet when we were in grade school... he told me about Tower of Terror... even then back in the '80s I felt Ashens pain... told'im "That sounds boring."

@DaveF. 5 жыл бұрын

"This is not the most difficult of games, Oh, bloody hell, I missed that one..." A lot of potential in some of those - that skull falling game could easily have a pinball-style tilt keys added to it to put a skill factor into it. The flying broomstick could be extended into a more interesting basic sideways scroller without too much effort. Good stuff!

@SparkySummers 5 жыл бұрын

Missed a prime chance to take a snipe at lootbox gambling at the end there

@noahm.9091 5 жыл бұрын

Thank you youtube for notifying me about a *quality* upload instead of something by someone I'm not even subbed to

@ChakatSandwalker 5 жыл бұрын

My primary school (here in New Zealand) had that exact book (the first one shown). I had to crash the classroom's Apple //e computer in order to access the BASIC mode. Ah, memories...

@kittikoko 5 жыл бұрын

I remember using one of these books on the school computer! Yes, singular... I grew up in Surrey and even there the schools could only afford one. 😂

@cometkite 5 жыл бұрын

This is pretty close to how I learned to program in the early 2000s. I downloaded a text adventure game for my graphing calculator written in the built-in "TI-BASIC" language and started tinkering around with it, then I tried writing my own.

@SteveBrandon 5 жыл бұрын

I had a older children's novel that had scripts for a few BASIC source code minigames between the chapters. I don't think I ever typed them in and am not sure if they were even compatible with the VIC-20 (all my family had) without modifying the code to be honest. I'm not sure if I still have that novel but I do have several other BASIC books that used to belong for my father specifically for the Vic-20 with longer scripts for game with graphics. One of the games had pretty sophisticated graphics for the Vic-20, with an off-brand version of the Death Star trench scene complete with little sprite Tie Fighters.

@UncleFeedle 5 жыл бұрын

Loved these. Always used to buy them through the book club at school. Some of the programs and projects in them were bloody advanced, particularly 'Machine Code for Beginners' and 'Practical Things to Do with a Microcomputer', which contains plans for an entire robot, complete with circuit diagrams and soldering instructions. You'd had to have been a young Mr Spock to have pulled that one off.

@severindrax 5 жыл бұрын

"leave the goats alone" - Dr Stuart Ashen 2019

@MathewHaswell 5 жыл бұрын

George Stobbart had other ideas.

@BenderdickCumbersnatch 3 жыл бұрын

IS IS had different ideas. ;)

@izzard 5 жыл бұрын

Bloody hell.. I recognised this from the illustration in the thumbnail. Nostalgia!

@gp4078 5 жыл бұрын

This is actually one of your best videos man, I hope to see more like this

@fredhair 5 жыл бұрын

Too many h's I died of cardiac arrest

@drunkenhobo8020 5 жыл бұрын

No that's too intense for a children's book. Best to just have them commit suicide instead.

@ALoonwolf 2 жыл бұрын

I loved that old adventure game programming and the little tricks. Like it would be more complicated to make three dimensional maps, but all you had to do to add the ability to go up and down in certain places on your two dimensional maps was to change the player's input when they were in certain rooms so they go either North, East, South or West instead. ;)

@thecynicalone7655 5 жыл бұрын

I saw the thumbnail, and I hope to god you got the original promotional stuff for Planescape: torment. It's amazing

@SmaMan 5 жыл бұрын

Usborne: Legit book publisher in the UK, seedy MLM (pyramid scheme) in the US.

@SPEXWISE 5 жыл бұрын

Actually Usborne do the same thing over here. My wife tried it for about 6 months, you have to buy your stock from them and there is little room for profit if any. My wife was down about £600 over all. Very tough business.

@isabellamorris7902 5 жыл бұрын

Were they always MLM based? Did they used to be legit? I can remember using proper non fiction books from them when i was little

@SmaMan 5 жыл бұрын

Ah, okay. So it looks like Usborne Publishing is the legitimate business, but they have a sister company known as Usborne Books at Home (or Books and More in the USA) which is the MLM scam. Kinda sad that they're letting their good name be dragged through the ever-growing slime growing in that industry.

@isabellamorris7902 5 жыл бұрын

@@SmaMan Same thing with The Body Shop, which is an MLM here and better-known for being one in the US. Strange, because their products are OK and they follow through on the emphasis on ethics in almost every other sense... except literally operating a scam

@alexeverett308 5 жыл бұрын

@@isabellamorris7902 Really? I thought the body shop was legit, they've got shops and stuff. Normally it's just middle-aged women on Facebook

@bchin4005 5 жыл бұрын

Ahhh, the good old days of BASIC games in the 80's, when the copy writers were vastly more creative than the coders.

@RFC3514 5 жыл бұрын

Then the coders did what? Don't leave us hanging.

@bchin4005 5 жыл бұрын

@@RFC3514 good catch, thanks, edited

@lokuzt 5 жыл бұрын

ah! I loved these micro basic game books! I remember trying to run the games on "Wizards of Wonder (Magic Micro Adventure, No 3)" on my 90s 386 IBM PC and Qbasic, and having to alter almost every single code line as it was non-structured BASIC. Good times.

@PostingCringeOnMain 5 жыл бұрын

I had an usbourne book with the BBC basic code for a game inside... I literally never finished typing it in. I believe it was an adventure game based on a creepy island.

@PostingCringeOnMain 5 жыл бұрын

I just googled and while there is a book based on an island, the cover art of "The Mystery of Silver Mountain" is ringing more bells as I seem to remember it having a blue cover. Hah. Nostalgia overload.

@WhatHoSnorkers 5 жыл бұрын

@@PostingCringeOnMain There was Island of Secrets and Mystery of Silver Mountain. I have BASIC (tee-hee) videos and playthroughs of both. Great stuff. Mystery of Silver Mountain gets into "You DIE! You DIE! You DIE!" levels sometimes.

@MathewHaswell 5 жыл бұрын

@@WhatHoSnorkers Do you procede in the the direction you believe to be north, at any point?

@MathewHaswell 5 жыл бұрын

I HAVE been to a Dark Room show, BTW. The Saturday show at Play Expo Glasgow 2019. Unfortunately, I was not a Darren.

@WhatHoSnorkers 5 жыл бұрын

@@MathewHaswell I only became away of the Dark Room because I watched Octav1us Kitten's video about it on Friday night. I've been playing a lot of them lately. It looks like a hilarious and true rendition of the genre!

@drsnova7313 5 жыл бұрын

Oh wow, what a throwback! I had 3 of these around 1988 - but translated into German. Didn't know they were originally from the UK. Helped me getting started in programming....and I'm a software dev now.

@dubuyajay9964 5 жыл бұрын

You make any PC games?

@TeflonSoul 5 жыл бұрын

I remember growing up (this is in the US) we had a Commodore 64 and my dad had some computer magazines that I don't remember the name of. In most of them, they included type-in games a bit like these, though more detailed. I recall there was even a companion type-in program from the magazine that would analyze checksums that were put in the games code as you entered them so as to catch mistakes as you went.

@brycevo 5 жыл бұрын

These games may be Weird, but they are fascinating

@DanaTheInsane 5 жыл бұрын

These kind of books proved to me that no matter what my grandparents wanted for me I did NOT want a future in computer programming.

@dubuyajay9964 5 жыл бұрын

Yet you have a Mac Icon. X_x

@eviltigz 5 жыл бұрын

Use to love doing all this stuff. Took computer course at school and made my own hangman game. :p

@Roadent1241 5 жыл бұрын

Dubuya Jay Might just mean he prefers to use Apple computers? XD I remember old macs back 20 years ago and playing them Disney Storybook games on them.

@Doobie3010 5 жыл бұрын

Brutal stuff,giving me flashbacks of typing in Crash! "games" for ages,then it not working! Back-in-the-day-Brutal knightmare!

@TheBambam2371 5 жыл бұрын

Praying for you Stuart, Dan, and all involved with the channel. I hope ya'll feel better and recover soon. I hope all goes well for ya'll. God bless ya'll my friends. God loves ya'll.

@lmpst7915 5 жыл бұрын

Tower of terror? You mean Guardians Of The Galaxy.

@jamesvalentine5899 5 жыл бұрын

I remember playing an old computer game like this where it was just a text input, where you were in a magical tower collecting jewels?? That's literally all I can remember. Though you could choose your font coloyr (the screen was black) and i always chose magenta. The font reminded me of Teletext.

@TobyDeshane 5 жыл бұрын

We had a whole BUNCH of these at the local library in Clinton, CT back in the 80s here in the US. They captivated me! Made the type-in games seem so absolutely epic with their terrific artwork and personality. (And it gave me a love for the Rockwell typeface. I think that was the name? 🤔)

@BandEater 5 жыл бұрын

I don't have any interest in these games or the manuals that coincide with them but he seems to make anything funny or interesting. Bless you, Ashen Man.

@Manterest 5 жыл бұрын

"What is Tower of Terror then like?" - Video cuts and War Thunder -game add starts rolling. Me: not half bad for old game like that.

@CrazyChiv 4 жыл бұрын

I had one of these books. It was a horror one (different from this one). They drew you in with the artwork and descriptions but, after typing it all in, all the games looked like these (usually a maths thing or a simple word game). It didn't teach me much about basic - but it did teach me about the crushing disappointment of raised expectations. Ahhh, nostalgia.

@outpostorange9580 5 жыл бұрын

Been looking to see these games and mags, thanks

@DoctorBastard 5 жыл бұрын

NO! NOT THE h! ANYTHING BUT THE h!

@bland9876 5 жыл бұрын

There was a version of Pac-Man where it would show you one letter on each side of Pac-Man and you had to hit that letter to go in that direction and the letter would change everytime you pressed it

@Battledongus 5 жыл бұрын

Oh wow my school had all of these i taught myself some basic though them and they were a fun read! Such a nostalgia hit seeing something I've read myself!

@irtbmtind89 5 жыл бұрын

I remember getting these books from the school library in elementary school in the late 80s and early 90s. There were already outdated by then, the only computers I had access to were IBM clones without basic interpreters.

@MathewHaswell 5 жыл бұрын

24:16 You awake, to find yourself in a Dark Room!

@gwishart 5 жыл бұрын

That'll teach you to get drunk at the photography club Christmas party.

@TheSmart-CasualGamer 4 жыл бұрын

> Turn on light. > Get out of bed. > Put on Gown. > Open Pocket. > Take Analgesic.

@Kn8ght6930 5 жыл бұрын

I was a 16 year old girl with a. If 20 and both those books. Spent hours typing those games. Most didn’t work.

@AFarmerCalledChicken 5 жыл бұрын

Was it interesting to get a game to work?

@Ragnarok540 5 жыл бұрын

The best part is when you fix them.

@rzeka 5 жыл бұрын

Angela Neal with a what?

@F0r3v3rT0m0rr0w 5 жыл бұрын

Programming is 20% programming 80% debugging.

@CarrotConsumer 5 жыл бұрын

@@rzeka Vic-20 probably.

@izzard 5 жыл бұрын

Brilliant video. Thank you :)

@hexyko4850 5 жыл бұрын

Brilliant video Ashens

@dunxy 5 жыл бұрын

I used to love these books! Had a couple myself but luckily school library had a vast selection that i often checked out.Was something special about programming (and the always required troubleshooting) your own games.

@hereharehere 5 жыл бұрын

The discussion with Nikki on Barshens was amazing.

@hereharehere 5 жыл бұрын

Barshans. rollyeyeemoji

@hereharehere 5 жыл бұрын

shens. I what do I bldy know. Anyway - Brilliant discussion.

@blobbem 5 жыл бұрын

20:23 - "She turned me into a newt's toe! ... I got better."

@SnakeGuyJohnny 5 жыл бұрын

For some reason I read the title as “Unborne”. I was expecting a book about unreleased games.

@bruhmoment4378 4 жыл бұрын

Johnny John computer fetus

@Matt-md5yt 5 жыл бұрын

sweet a new Ashens video

@singeslayer8367 5 жыл бұрын

Lovely books, thanks for showing us!

@hdspade 5 жыл бұрын

great video ashens, very cool!

@2thinkcritically 5 жыл бұрын

Well this has certainly been a trip down memory lane

@stevesmith9404 5 жыл бұрын

takes me back, excellent..

@Pikachu132 5 жыл бұрын

I think I borrowed something like this from the library once, those illustrations look very familiar. It was more of a "childrens' guide to understanding how computers work, made for children without actual access to a computer", and all I really remember was a short comic strip explaining how IF-THEN-ELSE statements work by showing a guy's failed attempts at programming his robot to go shopping.

@user-nk5gc6yg1t 5 жыл бұрын

Aaaah beans! Internet ruins fun yet again, no 4 hour stream of Stuart typing in code for me.

@soullessSiIence 5 жыл бұрын

I don't know what am I gonna do the day Ashens stops making videos. I've grown up watching this.

@4looming 5 жыл бұрын

This actually looks like a lot of fun!

@davedogge2280 5 жыл бұрын

i had those Usborne computer books and they just confused me so I went off to do a Computer Science degree. Usborne did these horror books, one on "real world" vampires, werewolves etc and another on supernatural powers .. I shat my pants reading those late at night.

@WhatHoSnorkers 5 жыл бұрын

I had the Usborne combined supernatural book as a kid. It was wonderful. I remember the weird powers one, where the Soviets where torturing plants and rabbits or something. I went to buy it on Amazon. They are EXPENSIVE. I bought mine as a kid from a fete for a quid!

@davedogge2280 5 жыл бұрын

@@WhatHoSnorkers There were three basic books in the Usborne Supernatural World series 1) Vampires, werewolves and demons, 2) Haunted Houses and spectres, 3)Mysterious Powers & Strange Forces. There was also a 'bumper eition' named: Usborne Guide to the Supernatural World, which had all of the 3 books 1-3 all in one big book. I dunno where they went but I used to love them.

@WhatHoSnorkers 5 жыл бұрын

@@davedogge2280 They were great... pricy as anything now (Like £45 for the bumper edition). I remember in the Mysterious Powers book they torture plants, have Kirlian Photographs, do ESP experiments with rabbits and everything. Usborne were the best. Their book on Spycraft ended up being discussed in the Old Bailey. I also loved their book on detectives, with Weedy Weekie (alias the Flat Man) who so should have been played by Billy Drago.

@hanniffydinn6019 5 жыл бұрын

The usborne horror book was great, it has a black skull on white page, you could stare at then see a ghostly skull on your bedroom wall! Great times !

@WhatHoSnorkers 5 жыл бұрын

@@hanniffydinn6019 I remember doing that! It was brilliant. Then again, every Usborne book was brilliant.

@hamishthepolarbear614 5 жыл бұрын

I learned to program from the Usborne books, I had loads of them - I loved these things. I was the one nerdy kid who did actually play around with the code. I had a few of them using UDG and sound on the ZX Spectrum.

@replikvltyoutube3727 5 жыл бұрын

Old games: had source code open you were free to change, bring more fun possibly. New games: DRM

@RFC3514 5 жыл бұрын

Still plenty of open source games around. And there were plenty of closed source games back then. The only real difference is copy protection got renamed to "DRM" and some of it is now internet-based.

@TheTurnipKing 5 жыл бұрын

oh crikey, I've got the RPG version of this. 7:11 I'm going to hazard a guess, based on my experiences with "Write Your Own Fantasy Games For Your Microcomputer", that these games had User Defined graphics on the Spectrum and the typer-inner hasn't realised you need to include the lines which define them, so they're all represented by letters of the alphabet. 15:17 You're assuming it was entered ON a Spectrum, and not with some weird PC utility, like BASIN

@FromeFmAjayD 4 жыл бұрын

Whenever my heartbeat increases, I just feel compelled to jump out of the nearest window. It’s extremely inconvenient.

@IAMJAG108 5 жыл бұрын

I had the fantasy adventure one. It was a really long code to type in and I could never get it to work. Taught me to code though. Beautiful artwork in these books. Happy memories.

@SuperOldShows 5 жыл бұрын

These are great! Would've loved this book as a child.

@glue105 5 жыл бұрын

Just gonna put this up here: when Ashens at 6:13 said "what is Tower of Terror, like then?" I got a timestamp advert of that CG ad for Game Of Thrones mobile game... First thing I see is cg jon snow's face and could only think, WOW! Tower of Terror looked pretty good for 1984, amazing what a paragraph of code can make. XD

@kabr0ne 5 жыл бұрын

Ashens, i just have not been seeing your updates in my feed lately, instead i get them in my recommended section.

@TechBaffle 5 жыл бұрын

I have a Usborne Internet-Connected Science Encyclopedia. The illustration is pretty mind blowing even to this day.

@hanniffydinn6019 5 жыл бұрын

I love thsee usborne books, blew my mind as a kid, I’m still collecting these wondrous reminders of when computing was exciting as fuck.

@SailorMaxie 4 жыл бұрын

This reminds me of a project I did a few years ago where I tried to make an entire text-based adventure game in a command prompt. I only got as far as you'd think for a 14-year old kid tinkering around in a .bat file.