"Basic" games and performances

This is going to be a smaller monthly email I think. But in the spirit of using email as one alternative to commercial platforms, here we go...

If you have performances or events, reply to this email and invite me! If you have projects you're excited about, send them to me to check out. I also like good recipes and music suggestions, and feel free to add me to your newsletter subscribers.

Performance Sunday at the Living Gallery

Right off the bat: I'm performing tomorrow Sunday March 23, doors at 7pm, performances at 7:30pm at the Living Gallery, 1094 Broadway in Brooklyn. I'll be playing a modular synth set, with live A/V visuals by Paloma Kop, along with other musicians I'm excited to hear live.

Thanks to imaginary prisons for setting up the show. The show is pay what you can.

Basic games

from The People's Computer Company, 1972 (image thanks to Digibarn)

My workshop last week at the Electronic Faire at Temple University's Charles Library went well and I loved the conference. Great organizing work by Hannah Tardie, their Makerspace Manager. The keynote talk by Lori Emerson from the Media Archeology Lab at Boulder was excellent. Lori's book Other Networks releases in April. And you gotta love a free conference, one that feeds everyone, pays presenters, and includes both an art opening at a gallery and rooftop low-DB music performances. I met new folks, reconnected with old friends, and picked up a kit to put together my own Li'l Info Box from the folks at Iffy Books. Highly recommended.

A screenshot from an earlier version of my game Cyberhoss, a cybernetic gambling and meddling game, showing a moment in the realtime race. Don't worry, the AI player names are now more fun.

My talk was on BASIC, its origins as a beginner-friendly shared ecosystem for learning and simulation, how it spread through universities and schools, and then the rise of type-in games and software community. I also talked about the rise of the family of BASICs, the start of open source communities in the homebrew computer / 'home computer' scene, and the response to Bill Gates "open letter to hobbyists" and the rise of TinyBASIC. The zines/newsletters of the People's Computer Club and the many books (My Computer Likes Me When I speak in BASIC, etc), all contributed to the first mass worldwide distributed community, and BASIC was the glue under it all.

• My slides on the history of Basic, timesharing communities, type-in games, BASIC computer games, and modern implementations of Basic.

I completed a number of economic sim text games in the lead-up to the workshop, and these can all be downloaded and played by installing Yabasic on your Mac, Windows or Linux system.

• My Yabasic games repository with notes on installing Yabasic (thanks to Richard and Paloma for Mac notes) and the ability to download and try out my games and starter code.

To play, install Yabasic and the games individually or all of them in a folder. Then run yabasic cyberhoss.yab or whatever the name of the game is.

• Cyberhoss - a cybernetic gambling game where you attempt to illegally subvert the outcome of races. This was based on the game Quibble Race in UFO 50. There is the most featured of the games I built and features a competitor AI, various drug/cybernetic enhancements, and a loan shark.
• Catanite - a buy-low/sell-high game of cornering the market. This was inspired by Star Trader and Dope Wars/Drug Wars.
• Gobi - this is my second implementation of this game. I also have a web based version of this game. Race across the desert, keeping your eye on your food and water and searching for supplies as yo u go. Loosely based on The Oregon Trail, and also by a 90s shareware game now lost to the sands of time.

I also ported the 1970s game Hamurabi (where you play as the advisor to a King of a city-state), and have notes on porting the original Oregon Trail text game, as well as some non-games that demonstrate basic coding principles. Thanks to all that attended. Let me know the highest score you can get in Cyberhoss.

• More notes on my games and Yabasic

One really cool note: The Charles Library where I held my talk had a number of historic books on BASIC, and I requested several that we passed around during the talk. I highly recommend everyone check out The Best of Creative Computing, which has numerous articles on evergreen topics of security and safety, art, culture wars, armageddon, and more.

Next

I have some interviews later this month and next in NYC for the Artists and Hackers podcast and am keen to get back to the show.

I've been resting from some sickness. I'm planning my summer. I'm enjoying the spring weather. I'm wrapping up a new version of an artwork where I interview my mom, as mentioned in previous emails. Thanks to Yuehao, Sarah, and other friends for your feedback.

More soon. Add me to your email newsletter or just respond to this email and say hello.

Warmly, Lee