6 ms·

One of my earliest memories of writing code was playing Gorillas, a QBASIC game, on my school's PC in the early 90s. My friends and I would tweak the source co

by jawns 4y ago

One of my earliest memories of writing code was playing Gorillas, a QBASIC game, on my school's PC in the early 90s. My friends and I would tweak the source code to make the gravity stronger or weaker, or make other interesting mods to the projectiles. For me, it was a perfect introduction, because there was an already written, already playable program, and I could dive into the code little by little and explore. Scratch is very similar. My kids love to play games on Scratch, but they also enjoy taking a look under the hood to see if there's something simple they can modify.

HorizonXP 4y ago
Can you share some here? I’m about to get my 3 year old into Scratch, since it’s already on his RPi. I remember doing the exact same thing in grade school with Gorillas and QBASIC. I actually want to download it now and play it again.
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  You can play it in your browser right now: https://archive.org/details/GorillasQbasic https://archive.org/details/GorillasQbasic
- koverda 4y ago
  Can he read yet?
  - HorizonXP 4y ago
    Yes
- tartoran 4y ago
  I have a 4 year old and I find that he’s not ready to be exposed to computers let alone programming languages yet. There are so many things to learn at that age that sitting in front of a screen for too long may be a disadvantage. Im thinking a starting age is more like 6-8, of course depending on other factors as well. I find that 3-4 may be a good time to start reading though
  - mattkevan 4y ago
    Our (then) 4 year old got the hang of Scratch Jr on the iPad really quickly. It’s great and gets kids used to sequencing, basic logic, loops, control flow and more without needing to be a confident reader. She loved, and still does love, drawing her own sprites and recording sound effects to create interactive stories.
- hansoolo 4y ago
  3 year old? Why?
  - HorizonXP 4y ago
    He’s pretty advanced for his age, so just want to expose him to all things, let him decide what he likes.
ryukafalz 4y ago
This is something that I think is extremely under-appreciated: the ability of a user to dive into the code of what they’re using and try things out. Like the type-in games of the 8-bit micro era, or like Scratch, or like Emacs; each of these allows the user to tinker with little overhead. Modern software, by contrast, is usually too opaque - even free software! The barrier to entry is way too high.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Much of my coding was started with modifying the Minecraft & Wii internals and I would call that "modern software."
  - bckr 4y ago
    You're an outlier for sure. Wii internals sounds very hard.
    - ryukafalz 4y ago
      Minecraft is also slightly an outlier, I would say; its modding community has put a lot of work into making it easier for people to get started. It’s still a far cry from having a “view/edit source” button, though.
      - messe 4y ago
        If I remember correctly the early days were painful as well, with it being necessary to manually unpack the jar file, and work with deobfuscated decompiled code. I'm not sure what the state of it is nowadays, but I hope its more pleasant. My favourite game from a modding perspective is Kerbal Space Program. Just drop a Mono/.NET DLL into its GameData folder and you're good to go, and code completion works automatically during development as long as you have Squad's own DLLs in the right paths.
Dunedan 4y ago
That brings back some very fond memories. Another game included in MS-DOS was Nibbles. I still remember wrapping my head around how Nibbles worked, as the source code didn't seem to fit the actual logic being run. It just looked way too short and simple. That's before I discovered how to view the source code of functions in QBasic. Then it clicked. The Internet Archive has these games available to play by the way: https://archive.org/details/NibblesQbasic https://archive.org/details/NibblesQbasic https://archive.org/details/GorillasQbasic https://archive.org/details/GorillasQbasic
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  That is brilliant, thanks. Takes me back. I didn't do much programming in QBasic, but I do remember that interface. I just now debugged Gorillas with a breakpoint and checked one of the values in the immediate window. It is quite a nice debugging interface, considering the constraints! (Actually it has a nice "just works" quality about it of something where the same people came up with the language and the ide and it is all designed together. Classic VS has this feeling too).
jonplackett 4y ago
QBASIC was also my intro to programming. I think in a way it’s a shame that kids now first see visuals rather than code. There’s something much more thrilling about seeing a bunch of written instructions become a game, than some sprites that already look a lot like the game start moving about. Another awesome QBASIC feature - the help section taught you everything you ever needed to know to learn every feature.
- sdenton4 4y ago
  Have you tried scratch? The blocks are written programming instructions, with some puzzle piece connectors which help avoid basic syntax errors. These instructions drive the sprites.
  - jonplackett 4y ago
    I’ve tried it on the iPad. Does it work the same there? I still think it’s more awesome to see just a written sentence that I typed out become something. Once you introduce any form of barrier between that and output, it’s hard for anyone to know what’s really happening behind the scenes to help you. There’s a beautiful purity to just simple text becoming something awesome.
    - mch82 4y ago
      Typing can certainly be more productive. However, it can also be error prone. You might checkout Blockly (the lower level language used to implement the current version of Scratch). A lot of the stuff we type out in code is syntax and templates. Like this loop: for (let i = 0; i < cars.length; i++) { text += cars[i] + "<br>"; } Starting out, it’s hard to tell if the program syntax is wrong or if the program logic is wrong (just getting the snippet above to look close to right on HN is a pain :-)). Blockly makes that easier by mistake proofing the syntax so the programmer can focus on the logic, variable names, etc.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  I assume that Scratch is more accessible to very young kids, who may have trouble with the ergonomics of correctly inputing text. Also, the whole "drag and drop" workflow can potentially be better suited to modern touch-based devices.
_int3_ 4y ago
That's what I did also. I made explosions in Gorillas as I wanted them . I didn't know coding or language but somehow figured out if I change values here and there the explosion would be bigger. Soon after that wrote program for deleting other programs. actually useful because we didn't know yet how to delete from DOS. we were kids left with PC with no instructions at all. Parents were busy. Now in hindsight I see my first steps were somewhat destructive.
- bredren 4y ago
  I too edited gorillas as one of my first programming endeavors. As for the other thing, there was some DOS command I learned that forced an immediate reboot. I realized this could be added to the end of an autoexec.bat and create an endless reboot loop. Well, I thought this was a funny prank so I edited the file on a display PC at Costco. Came back by it later in the trip and it’s still booting and rebooting. I look back on that and realize it probably had to be replaced and sent to some other state where some tech either had to troubleshoot it or create a new image all together. Not the best use of value but it was amusing to exert power over computers at such an early age.
solardev 4y ago
Warcraft 3's map editor scratched that itch for me! I'm so glad there are more accessible, and free, tools now.
mod 4y ago
GORILLA.BAS was my intro to programming, too! In my 8th grade algebra class in a "portable."
Ozzie_osman 4y ago
I also started learning Qbasic from Gorillas. This path of playing a game, wanting to learn more, then getting into computers and coding is actually really common in parts of the world where computers and computer-based educations aren't as wide spread. I hire a bunch in Latin America, Middle East, etc, and every interview my first question is always "why did you get into software?" and I'd say more than half of people I interview got into coding in one of two ways, either gaming, or building websites. I'm interviewing people who learned to code more than ten years ago, when websites were HTML with some PHP and gamed were much more accessible. I'm not sure what the corresponding path would be these days.
nicoco 4y ago
Modifying gorillas? You and your and friends were rockstar programmers already. I remember looking at the source code and thinking "this must be black magic". Thanks for bringing back the memories though. I looooved playing gorillas!
- isoprophlex 4y ago
  I remember actually crying from frustration because I couldn't figure out where the bananas were drawn. I desperately wanted to change it into something else. Great preparation for a career in software haha

by jawns 4y ago

HorizonXP 4y ago

Can you share some here? I’m about to get my 3 year old into Scratch, since it’s already on his RPi. I remember doing the exact same thing in grade school with Gorillas and QBASIC. I actually want to download it now and play it again.

qbasic_forever 4y ago
You can play it in your browser right now: https://archive.org/details/GorillasQbasic https://archive.org/details/GorillasQbasic
koverda 4y ago
Can he read yet?
- HorizonXP 4y ago
  Yes
tartoran 4y ago
I have a 4 year old and I find that he’s not ready to be exposed to computers let alone programming languages yet. There are so many things to learn at that age that sitting in front of a screen for too long may be a disadvantage. Im thinking a starting age is more like 6-8, of course depending on other factors as well. I find that 3-4 may be a good time to start reading though
- mattkevan 4y ago
  Our (then) 4 year old got the hang of Scratch Jr on the iPad really quickly. It’s great and gets kids used to sequencing, basic logic, loops, control flow and more without needing to be a confident reader. She loved, and still does love, drawing her own sprites and recording sound effects to create interactive stories.
hansoolo 4y ago
3 year old? Why?
- HorizonXP 4y ago
  He’s pretty advanced for his age, so just want to expose him to all things, let him decide what he likes.

ryukafalz 4y ago

This is something that I think is extremely under-appreciated: the ability of a user to dive into the code of what they’re using and try things out. Like the type-in games of the 8-bit micro era, or like Scratch, or like Emacs; each of these allows the user to tinker with little overhead. Modern software, by contrast, is usually too opaque - even free software! The barrier to entry is way too high.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
whimsicalism 4y ago
Much of my coding was started with modifying the Minecraft & Wii internals and I would call that "modern software."
- bckr 4y ago
  You're an outlier for sure. Wii internals sounds very hard.
  - ryukafalz 4y ago
    Minecraft is also slightly an outlier, I would say; its modding community has put a lot of work into making it easier for people to get started. It’s still a far cry from having a “view/edit source” button, though.
    - messe 4y ago
      If I remember correctly the early days were painful as well, with it being necessary to manually unpack the jar file, and work with deobfuscated decompiled code. I'm not sure what the state of it is nowadays, but I hope its more pleasant. My favourite game from a modding perspective is Kerbal Space Program. Just drop a Mono/.NET DLL into its GameData folder and you're good to go, and code completion works automatically during development as long as you have Squad's own DLLs in the right paths.

Dunedan 4y ago

That brings back some very fond memories. Another game included in MS-DOS was Nibbles. I still remember wrapping my head around how Nibbles worked, as the source code didn't seem to fit the actual logic being run. It just looked way too short and simple. That's before I discovered how to view the source code of functions in QBasic. Then it clicked. The Internet Archive has these games available to play by the way: https://archive.org/details/NibblesQbasic https://archive.org/details/NibblesQbasic https://archive.org/details/GorillasQbasic https://archive.org/details/GorillasQbasic

quickthrower2 4y ago
That is brilliant, thanks. Takes me back. I didn't do much programming in QBasic, but I do remember that interface. I just now debugged Gorillas with a breakpoint and checked one of the values in the immediate window. It is quite a nice debugging interface, considering the constraints! (Actually it has a nice "just works" quality about it of something where the same people came up with the language and the ide and it is all designed together. Classic VS has this feeling too).

jonplackett 4y ago

QBASIC was also my intro to programming. I think in a way it’s a shame that kids now first see visuals rather than code. There’s something much more thrilling about seeing a bunch of written instructions become a game, than some sprites that already look a lot like the game start moving about. Another awesome QBASIC feature - the help section taught you everything you ever needed to know to learn every feature.

sdenton4 4y ago
Have you tried scratch? The blocks are written programming instructions, with some puzzle piece connectors which help avoid basic syntax errors. These instructions drive the sprites.
- jonplackett 4y ago
  I’ve tried it on the iPad. Does it work the same there? I still think it’s more awesome to see just a written sentence that I typed out become something. Once you introduce any form of barrier between that and output, it’s hard for anyone to know what’s really happening behind the scenes to help you. There’s a beautiful purity to just simple text becoming something awesome.
  - mch82 4y ago
    Typing can certainly be more productive. However, it can also be error prone. You might checkout Blockly (the lower level language used to implement the current version of Scratch). A lot of the stuff we type out in code is syntax and templates. Like this loop: for (let i = 0; i < cars.length; i++) { text += cars[i] + "<br>"; } Starting out, it’s hard to tell if the program syntax is wrong or if the program logic is wrong (just getting the snippet above to look close to right on HN is a pain :-)). Blockly makes that easier by mistake proofing the syntax so the programmer can focus on the logic, variable names, etc.
zozbot234 4y ago
I assume that Scratch is more accessible to very young kids, who may have trouble with the ergonomics of correctly inputing text. Also, the whole "drag and drop" workflow can potentially be better suited to modern touch-based devices.

_int3_ 4y ago

That's what I did also. I made explosions in Gorillas as I wanted them . I didn't know coding or language but somehow figured out if I change values here and there the explosion would be bigger. Soon after that wrote program for deleting other programs. actually useful because we didn't know yet how to delete from DOS. we were kids left with PC with no instructions at all. Parents were busy. Now in hindsight I see my first steps were somewhat destructive.

bredren 4y ago
I too edited gorillas as one of my first programming endeavors. As for the other thing, there was some DOS command I learned that forced an immediate reboot. I realized this could be added to the end of an autoexec.bat and create an endless reboot loop. Well, I thought this was a funny prank so I edited the file on a display PC at Costco. Came back by it later in the trip and it’s still booting and rebooting. I look back on that and realize it probably had to be replaced and sent to some other state where some tech either had to troubleshoot it or create a new image all together. Not the best use of value but it was amusing to exert power over computers at such an early age.

solardev 4y ago

Warcraft 3's map editor scratched that itch for me! I'm so glad there are more accessible, and free, tools now.

mod 4y ago

GORILLA.BAS was my intro to programming, too! In my 8th grade algebra class in a "portable."

Ozzie_osman 4y ago

I also started learning Qbasic from Gorillas. This path of playing a game, wanting to learn more, then getting into computers and coding is actually really common in parts of the world where computers and computer-based educations aren't as wide spread. I hire a bunch in Latin America, Middle East, etc, and every interview my first question is always "why did you get into software?" and I'd say more than half of people I interview got into coding in one of two ways, either gaming, or building websites. I'm interviewing people who learned to code more than ten years ago, when websites were HTML with some PHP and gamed were much more accessible. I'm not sure what the corresponding path would be these days.

nicoco 4y ago

Modifying gorillas? You and your and friends were rockstar programmers already. I remember looking at the source code and thinking "this must be black magic". Thanks for bringing back the memories though. I looooved playing gorillas!

isoprophlex 4y ago
I remember actually crying from frustration because I couldn't figure out where the bananas were drawn. I desperately wanted to change it into something else. Great preparation for a career in software haha