What Programming Computer Games Was Like in the 80s

Taken together, the operating system and BASIC gave you everything you needed to write and run your own little programs. But the computer contained no word processor, no bells and whistles, no array of applications waiting for you to play with them, no instant pleasurable pay-off for buying a new computer. When you turned on the Atom or the BBC Micro, the ROM chip booted up its two pieces of cargo and on your television screen appeared this:

BASIC >

and nothing else. The machine did nothing else, unless you made it.

This article really does capture what it was like as an 80s kid discovering computing for the first time.

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