TS1000 Dragon's Gold...
From: Chuck Darling
May 14th, 2024
Early Timex Sinclair
BASIC game...
The Computer Language
BASIC was created in 1964 by
The game: Dragon's Gold
was written for the
Timex-Sinclair Computer
by D.C. Owen in 1982...
From: Chuck
May 14, 2024
Re: Basic ...
Back in the mid 60's, John Kemeny wrote a language
Similar to Fortran,
but more basic.
It didn't require all the
complex Format statements
used in Fortran.
It was the beginning of
"User Friendly" computing.
Basic was available on
all the Mainframe platforms
of the later '60s,
And all of the MiniComputer
Platforms.
When Altair made the first
personal computer kit,
Bill Gates wrote Basic for it.
All the 8-bit computers of
the late '70s and '80s
came with a version of BASIC.
When IBM decided to build
"The Peanut"
The original IBM PC,
they enlisted Bill Gates
to write BASIC for it...
Why...?
Well, there was no software
available for it, or for ANY of
the early personal computers,
so USERS had to write their
own...
And the most widespread
common language was BASIC.
Now, each version of BASIC
for each of the "early PC's"
was slightly different...
Back around 1980...
when Personal Computers
began to appear...
They were all a little different.
But they had this in common:
They all included a version
of
I looked through about five
"Online Basic Interpreters"
and most of them are junk.
The link above actually works,
though I had to convert the
Classic Basic REM statements
into PRINT statements...
Timex Sinclair Basic
was quite different from
"Standard Basic"
The TS-1000 came with
only 2 kilobytes of RAM memory.
The Keyboard was unique.
A membrane (touch-screen-like)
Keyboard, that included all
the TOKENIZED BASIC commands, as single keypresses.
This made spelling errors impossible, and allowed direct
insertion of pixelated graphic
squares, direct from the Keyboard !
The functionality of the Basic
was pretty advanced, allowing
Real and Integer Numbers,
and String operations.
Like the twisty spaghetti code
of the original Fortran Adventure
program, TS-1000 Basic allowed
Gosubs, and calculated GOTOs,
as well as peeks and pokes.
Machine Language programs
were available in SYNC Magazine, and Timex-Sinclair User.
Books of TS-Basic programs
were popular, before the
Commodore-64, and the
IBM-PC took over...
This kind of programming
is built this way, because
of the small amount of memory
that was available for those
systems.
The program below would
fit and run on a
2K timex-sinclair!
Try pasting the
Timex Sinclair 1000
Dragon's Gold game into
(perhaps you can "debug" it !)
REM DRAGON'S GOLD
REM The aim of Dragon's
REM Gold is simple: to
REM accumulate as
REM much gold as possible, REM while wandering
REM through a complex
REM maze of tunnels, caves,
REM and doors, and to avoid
REM the dragon and
REM mineshafts.
REM You enter A to move ahead,
REM L to move left,
REM or R to move right.
REM Entering a space before
REM pressing ENTER will
REM cause the game to stop. REM Dragon's Gold was
REM written by D. C. Owen.
1 REM DRAGONS GOLD
REM BY D COWEN 1982
3 RAND
5 LET G=0
50 SCROLL
51 SCROLL
52 SCROLL
55 SCROLL
55 PRINT TAB 8; "DRAGON'S GOLD"
56 SCROLL
57 SCROLL
58 SCROLL
60 PRINT "YOU HAVE: -"
65 SCROLL
70 PRINT G" BLOCKS OF GOLD"
80 SCROLL
90 SCROLL
100 PRINT "AHEAD OF YOU IS A"
120 GOSUB 1000
125 LET B$=A$
127 SCROLL
130 PRINT "ON THE LEFT IS A"
140 GOSUB 1000
145 SCROLL
150 LET L=A$
155 PRINT "AND ON THE RIGHT IS A:"
160 GOSUB 1000
165 LET R$=A$
170 SCROLL
171 SCROLL
472 PRINT "WHICH WAY DO YOU WANT TO GO?"
173 SCROLL
174 SCROLL
175 PRINT "A - AHEAD"
176 SCROLL
177 PRINT "L- LEFT-
178 SCROLL
179 PRINT "R = RIGHT
180 INPUT KS
185 SCROLL
186 SCROLL
190 IF K$="A" AND BS="D" THEN GOSUB 2000
200 IF K$="R" AND RS="D" THEN GOSUB 2000
210 IF K$="A" AND BS="T" THEN G0SUB 3000
220 IF K$="L" AND L$="T" THEN GOSUB 3000
230 IF K$="R" AND RS="T" THEN G0SUB 3000
240 IF K$="A" AND BS="C" THEN GOSUB 4000
250 IF K$="L" AND LS="C" THEN G0SUB 4000
260 IF K$="R" AND RS="C" THEN G0SUB 4000
270 IF NOT (K$="L" OR K$="R" OR K$="A") THEN GOTO 170
280 GOTO 50
990 REM ***************
REM SUB 1000 RANDOM GOTO
1000 GOTO 1000+INT (RND #3+1) +100
REM ************
1100 PRINT " DOOR"
1110 LET As="D"
1120 RETURN
1200 PRINT
TUNNEL"
1210 LET A$="T"
1220 RETURN
1300 PRINT " CAVE"
1310 LET A$="C"
1320 RETURN
1999 REM *****
2000 REM DOOR *******
2010 GOTO 2000+INT (RND+4+1) +100
2100 PRINT "IT IS LOCKED. MOVE ON"
REM ************
2110 RETURN
2200 LET 0 INT
(RND+9+1) +100
2210 PRINT "IT WILL OPEN. THERE"
2215 SCROLL
2220 PRINT "ARE ";0;" GOLD BLOCKS IN HERE"
2230 LET G=G+0
2240 RETURN
2300 PRINT "THERE IS A LAKE HERE
YOU"
2305 SCROLL
2310 PRINT "CANNOT SEE THE FAR S
IDE."
2315 SCROLL
2320 PRINT "ARE YOU GOING TO TRY
2330 SCROLL
2340 PRINT "AND CROSS IT?"
2345 SCROLL
2350 INPUT CS
2350 SCROLL
2370 IF CODE (C$) <>CODE "Y" THEN RETURN
2380 LET KINT (RND+3)+1
2381 SCROLL
2382 IF K=
THEN PRINT "YOU HAVE
ESCAPED WITH"
2383 SCROLL
2384 IF K=2 THEN PRINT G;" BLOCKS OF GOLD™
2385 IF K2 THEN PRINT "UNFORTU
NATELY, YOU HAVE"
2388 SCROLL
2390 IF K<>2 THEN PRINT TAB 10;"
DROWNED..
2395 STOP
2400 LET KINT (RND+9+1) +50
2405 SCROLL
2410 PRINT "THIS ROOM CONTAINS A
DRAGON"
2415 SCROLL
2420 PRINT "IT DEMANDS ";K;" GOLD BLOCKS"
2425 SCROLL
2430 PRINT " OR IT WILL EAT YOU"
2440 FOR J=1 TO 20
2450 SCROLL
2460 PRINT TAB J; "STAND BY"
2470 NEXT
2475 SCROLL
2480 IF G>K THEN PRINT "YOU HAVE ENOUGH"
2485 SCROLL
2490 IF G<K THEN PRINT
"YOU HAVEN'T GOT"
2495 SCROLL
2500 IF G<K THEN PRINT"ENOUGH SO...BYE BYE"; END
2510 LET G=G-K
2520 RETURN
2999 REM #****** *** **
3000 REM * * TUNNEL
3025 SCROLL
3010 IF RND >0.85 THEN RETURN
3015 SCROLL
3020 PRINT "YOU HAVE ESCAPED"
3040 STOP
3030 PRINT "WTH ";G; " GOLD BL0CKS
3999 REM #****** *****
4000 REM ** CAVE **
4005 SCROLL
4120 RETURN
4010 GOTO 4000+INT (RND #3+1) *100
4100 PRINT"THE CAVE IS EMPTY."
4105 SCROLL
4110 PRINT TAB 8; "MOVE ON"
4215 SCROLL
REM * * '...BUT Y.
4200 LET 0=INT RND#10+1) *100
4210 PRINT "THERE ARE ";0;" GOLD BLOCKS"
4230 LET G=G+9
4240 RETURN
4220 PRINT "HERE TO ADD TO YOUR STORE"
4301 FOR H=1 TO 24
4305 SCROLL
4300 IF RND>0.9 THEN GOTO 4400
4307 NEXT H
4310 PRINT "OH NO"
4315 SCROLL
4320 FOR J=1 TO 15
4330 PRINT TAB 2+J;"
4335 SCROLL
4340 NEXT J
4345 SCROLL
4350 PRINT "IT IS A MINESHAFT...
4355 SCROLL
4360 PRINT "YOU ARE DEAD"
4370 STOP
4400 SCROLL
4405 PRINT "THERE ARE NOISES AHEAD"
4407 SCROLL
4410 PRINT "DO YOU WANT TO INVESTIGATE?"
4420 INPUT K$
4438 IF CODE K$ < > CODE "Y" THEN RETURN
4440 GOTO 4000
*****
You should realize, of course,
that if the GRID should fail,
The Internet would be gone...
And you'll have to write
your own software
on any equipment that
survives..
Take advantage of the PDF
button, to save a "hard copy"
of this page...
[ChuckADV JpiCedar]
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