Games
NOTE: Regarding S Record-format programs for MITS Altair 680 BASIC 1.1, the interpreter will relocate the start of user/program RAM depending on how one answers the "WANT SIN-COS-TAN-ATAN" question. Three values are possible: 1) answer "Y" and user RAM starts at $18F3; 2) answer "A" (just no ATAN) and it's $18A3; 3) answer "N" and it's $1813. ALL programs for Altair BASIC below assume one answers "Y" for a start address at $18F3. Also, the Altair BASIC games should run fine on any later, Microsoft-derived BASIC, such as Commodore, Applesoft, etc. They are also easy to adapt to TSC BASIC 2 and CoCo Extended BASIC (it's often just the RND function).
SPACE VOYAGE An S Record file, patched from the original to allow you to play TSC's Space Voyage on the Monster 68. It's very similar to the many Star Trek-type games that floated around the minicomputer systems of the 1970s. Documentation is also available. Super-fast play, because...well...machine language. deramp.com has an original, unpatched version, as well.
TINY BASIC GAMES PACK 1 A ZIP archive with seven games: old favorites Hammurabi and Wipeout, Tom Pittman's resource game Euphoria, Tim Hartnell's chess move challenge Knightsbridge, plus a version of Mac Oglesby's save-the-spaceships game Rescue. I've included two original games of my own: Borg Attack and Lil' Zilch.
TSC GAMES PACK The original Technical Systems Consultants machine language package of 10 classic games: Hangman, Acey Ducey, Craps, Mastermind, Number Guess I and II, Hurkle, Rover, Switch, and Chomp. Just load the .S19 file, Jump to $1000, and relive the mid-1970s. The ZIP archive contains both the S-Record and source code, so adaptation, if needed, can be made with minimal fuss.
DENDAI TINY BASIC GAMES PACK Five games written in the Dendai flavor of Tiny BASIC: Li-Chen Wang's Mini Trek, Rescue, Lil' Zilch, Wipeout, and a dice baseball game called Yakyuu Saikoro.
NAKAMOZU TINY BASIC GAMES PACK Six games written in the Nakamozu flavor of Tiny BASIC: Baseball Dice, Tiny Trek, Minesweeper, Lil' Zilch, One Check, and Hamurabi.
BATTLESHIP The classic naval battle game -- all that's missing is your brother throwing ship pieces at you when he loses! The game, with ANSI terminal escape codes, runs under Altair 1.1 BASIC. It loads via serial upload best with a character delay of 15 msec and a line delay of 300 msec.
NUKEWAR Relive the anxiety of your youth with this Cold War simulation! From Microcomputer Games (the PC division of the famous Avalon Hill Game Co.), this 1980 gem was named the #135th Best Game of All Time by Computer Gaming World in 1996. Your opinion may vary... Anyway, a cleaned-up game manual with art by my friend Nils A is in the archive, too. The game, with ANSI terminal escape codes, runs under Altair BASIC 1.1. Loading instructions (ala KING, below) are included.
SWEDISH WHIST The 18th-century card game comes back to life as you and your partner 'Lars' take on the seemingly robotic twins 'Karin' and 'Kerstin' in a battle for trick-taking supremacy. Brief instructions included in the game, but several good manuals and articles on the Swedish variant of the game are available (archive.org and wikipedia.org, for starters) to learn more. Recovered from a FLEX 2 disk archive, this is for Altair BASIC 1.1. Sometimes, Lars is a wonderful, insightful partner; other times, you want to kill him! Und auf Deutsch jetzt!
OREGON TRAIL The 1977 version of the game, as updated and improved by its originator, Don Rawitsch. This version appeared in the May 1978 issue of Creative Computing, and I've adapted it to run on the HM-68, even adding a sorta GET$ function to MITS Altair 680 BASIC. Travel the trail the way they did it back in the old, pioneer, mainframe days! There is also a "companion program" (of sorts): Trail West, by the prolific Micro-Ed company, adapted to Altair 680 BASIC.
SANTA PARAVIA Originally for TRS-80 Level II BASIC in 1978, this text-only version transports you (and optionally, five friends, as it's multi-player) back to 15th century Italy, where you start off as a novice knight (or lady), and try to build your city-state and become a king or queen. Think "Hamurabi on steroids," with invasions, banking, and capital construction projects added.
MILLE BORNES A BASIC version for the beloved, classic auto racing card game. Set your serial terminal emulator to 80 columns by 26 rows, then let the ANSI magic carry you down the road!
KNOW-HOW EMULATOR An emulator for the 1983 paper computer, the Know-How. The paper "machine" debuted on WDR Television's "Computerclub," and (according to Wikipedia, so...) eventually over 400,000 copies were printed, making it one of the most widely distributed computing machines in Europe. With nothing but a piece of paper and some counters, people could learn how computers count and decide, all without spending thousands of Deutschmarks, Kroner, or Lira. True to the original, the emulator sports only 5 instructions, but is "Turing complete," meaning given enough paper and matchsticks (or beans or pebbles or some kind of counter) it can literally compute anything. Versions in the archive are for TSC 10K BASIC (not the FLEX variety) and Altair 680 BASIC. Documentation and sample programs included. ALSO, a version for Dendai Tiny BASIC - you're welcome!
VILLAGE ACCESS ONLY Another quirky text adventure game from the famous Doppelgaenger. Ol' Doppy set this one in a small English village. Can you figure out the puzzles and put everything to rights? In BASIC.
MINESWEEPER You played this for hours on Windows 3.1 or 95, goofing off when you were supposed to be working, didn't you? Versions here for Nakamozu Tiny BASIC (with running, interrupt-driven timer!) and Microsoft/Altair 680 BASIC 1.1.
WIPEOUT 10 A DTB version of the Sheila Dolgowich classic for Commodore PET that might be a tad easier to win (but by no means "easy") than the version in the Dendai Games Pack. In this one, you only have to remove numbers 1 through 10, rather than 1-12. Two programs in the archive: one that uses some ANSI escape screen control codes and the IBM-850 character set, another for plain-vanilla ASCII. Now for 6800 Tiny PILOT, too!
ARUBA BASEBALL DICE Play dice-n-paper baseball just the way you remember from childhood, when on cold, rainy days recess time could be filled up by rolling the dice and arguing about a fielder's choice play. This version for Nakamozu Tiny BASIC can easily by converted to many other flavors.
BASEBALL GAMES TEN different games in this ZIP archive for six different high-level languages. I'm particularly pleased with "Yakyuu Saikoro," a dice baseball game for Altair 680 BASIC that plays quite realistically, and reminds me of rainy winter afternoons in the grade school library, arguing with friends about a fielder's choice. There are two other versions of baseball dice (for VTL-2 and Tiny PILOT), a program I'm calling LIL' BASEBALL (for Micro BASIC Plus and Tiny BASIC, based on an old SOL-20 game), and two more expansive baseball games: from 1973: a "program rescue" with versions for TSC BASIC 2 and Altair BASIC, and from 1974, a baseball game written in FOCAL (runs under FOCAL-65). Additionally, there's an "action game" for 680 BASIC, plus listings of a 1964 baseball simulation by Dr. John Kemeny himself, and the 1977 SOL-20 BASIC game.
KNIGHTSBRIDGE A chess move game by Tim Hartnell, translated from his 1983 IBM BASICA version to TSC Micro BASIC Plus. You have seven knights, and the alien Tor'ra-worshipping invaders of Earth have seven knights. The fate of the Earth will be determined by who can capture five of the opponent's knights first!
HATE In this fast-paced variant of the card game Switch, it's you versus the computer in a race to get rid of all your cards. The program plays well. Like 'World War,' I found this on an archived FLEX disk and modded it for Altair BASIC. It loads from $18F3 to $2F43. The BASIC listing is also available.
CAPTURE Another classic from Mac Oglesby, circa 1978. How many grids can you capture before the computer (or your human opponent!) captures more? The program loads under Altair BASIC 1.1 for the Monster. The end-of-file address for the .S1 file is $2998.
EXAGON Oglesby wrote this one in the mid-'70s, and it is similar to Capture: try to collect more letters than the computer on a hexagonal playing field. Altair 680 BASIC.
NUMBER TRAIN Based on the Commodore PET game Quix, this "SIMON-like" game challenges you to repeat ever-growing series of numbers. Written in Nakamozu Tiny BASIC, there's also sound to aid you, if you've added a 6522 VIA chip and use the old CB2 trick (could be easily converted to a 6821, too).
SNAKE-N-STARS and MISSIONARIES-N-CANNIBALS Arguably (probably?), Snake-n-Stars is the worst "snake-gobbles-dots" game in the world, but you'll have to play it yourself to make that determination. It might fail the test, as it does have animation and sound for the HM-68. :^) The other game is the classic logic puzzle of moving two groups of people across a river. Both games come with S13 files of 6800 machine code, with source code, as well (with S-n-S written in SPL/M).
KING Right out of the pages of BASIC Computer Games from 1978 comes James Storer's 'KING' for Altair 680 BASIC. (Jim is the same young fellow who first wrote Lunar Lander in FOCAL in 1969...maybe he should be addressed as Dr. Storer now, since it IS 2023...) King takes Hammurabi and elevates it to the next level, bringing industrial use, pollution, tourism, and conflict into the mix. The program is large, and should be loaded like this: A) start Altair BASIC (you must answer 'Y' to the "WANT SIN-COS-TAN-ATAN" question), then reset to SWTBUG; B) load the KING S Record file; C) use SWTBUG to change memory at $007C, 7E and 80 to the address in the filename ($36A0); D) warm start BASIC with 'J 0007' from SWTBUG; E) type 'RUN'.
ROOMS This Tiny PILOT game originally appeared in the April 1973 edition of the People's Computer Company newspaper - super early! It's a hide-and-seek game that ran under a minicomputer HP BASIC implementation of PILOT, written by Gregory Yob. Mainly here for historical reasons, but still fun if you let your inner 5-year-old loose.
GANYMEDE A resource management game set in the future on one of the major moons of Jupiter. Trade exotic Jovian ore with Earth to get the vital oxygen and supplies your miners need to keep going. This version was written in BASIC by Clifford Remshaw in 1982, originally for the VIC-20. It's quite challenging and will provide hours of fun. Don't believe me? Then just ask this guy...
RACK-O A card sequence-building game from the 1950s. It's you versus the computer in a race to ascending count supremacy! The original 1973 program is from the DECUS Library and was written in FOCAL-69. Here are versions for Altair 680 BASIC and 6502 FOCAL-65. Instructions included. The computer does not play strategically (to say the least) and could be improved, along with the shuffling code...can you fix it?
KLINGON CAPTURE Written in 6800 assembly in 1976, in this game from TSC you attempt to surround a Klingon battle cruiser with "destroyed sectors" so it can be captured intact. The ZIP file contains the original documentation and two S Record files: one of the original code (I think all the typos got fixed), and one that's patched for the Monster-68 (and includes the random number generator, as well). Just "load and GO."
KLINGON CAPTURE for TSC uBASIC+ As documented in the September 1977 issue of Kilobaud magazine, Mickey Ferguson wanted to play this challenging game without wiping out his BASIC interpreter. So, he hauled off and rewrote the game in BASIC. Thanks, Mickey! The ZIP file contains the BASIC listing and the original Kilobaud article.
USURPATOR A chess program by H.G. Muller from 1980. Roughly analogous to Peter Jennings's Microchess. A patched version for the Monster is in the archive, as well as the original source and object code. The PDF of the original documentation also includes the 6502 source code for that version.
WORLD WAR I knew of the existence of this 1978 game, and finally found it on an archived FLEX disk image. Basically, you attempt to take over the planet. Piece of cake! But wait!...not so fast, Bud. Getting the balance right in terms of troop and asset movement will determine victory or defeat. The archive contains the original version for TSC FLEX BASIC, a lightly modified version for TSC BASIC v2 that runs on the Monster (essentially, the same as FLEX BASIC but don't use the disk calls), and an Altair BASIC 1.1 version, that should also run on any machine (e.g., Commodore PET) using Microsoft's BASIC v2.
ROCKET LAUNCHER Design a multi-stage rocket and attempt to put a payload into Earth orbit with this BASIC spacecraft simulation. I say "attempt," as this simulation is quite accurate, and it doesn't take much in the way of miscalculation to foul up things. Written in 1979 by Gary Sivak, who was at that time a blind civilian physicist working for the U.S. Air Force on avionics simulators. Add that to his degree in physics from Princeton, and you can safely bet that his sim mirrors real life well. The original BYTE magazine article from November '79 is included, with Gary's full program explanation. As proved to me by my many failed launches, I probably should have started off with something like "Rocketry for Dummies." Hopefully, you'll do better. .S13 file and listing for Altair BASIC included.
BOXCARS AND SNAKE EYES A mostly original game for Tiny BASIC. I took the idea from a high school math/programming class project. The kids created C++ code, while I decided to just follow the "outline" presented by the teacher. The game is a dice game: you against the computer to 100 points. In seven-or-less rolls per turn, try to get as many points as possible without encountering "boxcars" (12) and losing your points for the turn, or "snake eyes" (2) and losing the game right then and there.
BULLS AND COWS From waaaaay back in 1970 comes a puzzle game where you much guess the computer's "secret number," with the only clues given to aid you are how many bulls and/or cows are in your guess. "What's a bull and what's a cow?" you ask... You'll have to play to find out!
MINI-TREK Direct from the back pages of the original 1977 Very Tiny Language 2 user's guide for the Altair 680b, this is Frank McCoy's <2 KB Mini Trek game. While pretty much stripped down to the bone and with only three commands, it's still fun to play. An S13 file to load, game notes, and Frank's original code are included in the archive.
SWARMS 2 Swarms of killer hornets have invaded a large country in North America. Can you save the millions by deploying various defenses and using tactical weapons in the right place at the right time? In Altair BASIC 1.1.
FROG RACE Another one from a 1980-archived FLEX OS disk. According to arcade-history.com, this betting simulation was written by 'B. Erickson,' likely in late 1977, and it was published by People's Computer Company. The game was also ported to the Commodore PET and the TRS-80 in 1978. This ANSI-screen-enabled version is for Altair BASIC 1.1, although the original TSC BASIC (???) from the disk is included.
THE LAST ARENA Futuro-Medieval conflict and hand-to-hand combat! Sounds incredible, eh? Well, right up front, let me state that this is not the most challenging game in the world -- it is based on a children's counting game, after all -- but I had fun writing it and figuring out the ANSI screen codes, collecting the ASCII art, and writing the backstory (an homage to one of my favorite authors). The S19 file for Altair BASIC loads in the same manner as KING, above, but use address $47CD for the zero page locations. A BASIC source file can also be had here.
RESCUE This is a VTL-2 version of Damian Gareth Walker's augmented Tiny BASIC version inspired by a Mac Oglesby classic. Two versions are in this archive: one that's easier to read, and one that will actually load on my Monster 68. YMMV. Also included (thrown in?), a Magic 8-Ball game. Back in the '70s, I remember asking a real Magic 8-Ball about all kinds of silly things, and it's still mildly entertaining today.
STRONGHOLD OF THE DWARVEN LORDS Revived from Tim Hartnell's "Giant Book of Computer Games" by Nils A (The Webdoktor - "Netzherpes"), this is a 1983 treasure-search game in which you try to divine a path to the riches of an underground kingdom, using your patented (pending) "Dwarven Source Beam". For Altair BASIC 1.1.
STOCK MARKET Another one from BASIC Computer Games, this is exactly what the title says it is. Tidied up a bit for Altair BASIC 1.1. Load it the same way as you'd load KING, above, but change the zero page addresses to $327E.