Usborne’s 1980s range of childrens’ coding books released as free PDFs #VintageComputing #BASIC #Books @pcgamer
Publishing giant Usborne has been in the computer books business for decades, and its productions were an entry point to the industry for unknowable numbers of coders. As with everything in a technology-led industry, these books are very much of their time, but the whole aesthetic of these things is nostalgia catnip for those of a certain age.
If you’re the type who ever sat down in front of a Spectrum and spent half a day painstakingly copying out code, then the gaudy thrill of the illustrations for Computer Spacegames never fades.
There’s a wide range, available for free on its website. It rather charmingly advises that “these programs don’t work on modern computers” though the books cover more than coding, and of course if you’ve got a BBC Micro or Commodore 64 in the attic then it’s rock and roll time.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Many of these work just fine on "modern" computers… Even the machine code. There are plenty of Z80s and 6502s in the world. There even exist LLVM backends for them.
Vice is a Commodore 64 emulator for the PC. If any of these games are for the Commodore 64, Vice can run them and anyone that knows BASIC programming could find a work around for anything nonstandard.
Many of these work just fine on "modern" computers… Even the machine code. There are plenty of Z80s and 6502s in the world. There even exist LLVM backends for them.
Vice is a Commodore 64 emulator for the PC. If any of these games are for the Commodore 64, Vice can run them and anyone that knows BASIC programming could find a work around for anything nonstandard.