I just want to mention another fantastic book which I think is related to the 2 at the top of this post. That book is: Creating Adventure Games On Your Computer
It really introduces one to how to structure the basic text adventure.
I started translating a few of these into javascript with some success.
I researched the author of the book, Tim Hartnell, but unfortunately he went
to the great computer lab in the sky some time ago. He seemed to really
live for computers and had infectious enthusiam.
Probably the two most influential coding books in my early development where a book on Forth I read as a teenager and a book I read as a young child on programming Basic on my âDick Smith Wizzardâ (an australian version of the âVTech CreatiVisionâ, 4k with a basic cartrige and possibly the worst keyboard ever made by humanity), but that book had two things that I remember clearly. One was a dog balancing a ball on its nose, something that seemed evocative to my 8yo brain as to what I could achieve with a computer, and second an admonishment of âNothing you type into the computer will hurt the computer! Its OK to make mistakes, you can fix them!â. It wasnt until I had learned how to destroy a C64 floppy drive 4-5 years later as a slightly malicious tween by POKEing invalid motor instructions that I learned this wasnât entirely true, but for all purposes it was an important lesson because it taught me I had nothing to fear by being daring with my experiments. 40+ years later, Iâm still at it. Somehow. Though occasionally wishing I had made playing the piano my primary focus instead of programming. Oh well.
Or maybe the dog with a ball on his nose was in the Forth book. Its all so long ago.
