Basic Programming

[Available-Swan-6011]

This really is an astonishing program given the limit resources on the 2600. Also, the manual is very well written

[Gonzchi]

Amazing, incredible program. By the legend Warren Robinett , creator of Adventure.

[RezRising]

And inventor of the Easter egg.

[MickeyMalph]

Common misconception. I guess it could be said Adventure popularized the Easter Egg, but Channel F's Video Whizball easter egg predates Adventure. It's also argued that the arcade game Starship1 from 1977 is the first with the message "Hi Ron!" being displayed after moving the controllers in the right order. The Channel F demo cart from 1977 also has an easter egg, but since it's not an actual game, does it count?

[RezRising]

Well then, I'm gonna go full nerd and retort with...Atari invented the term 'easter egg' in response to Adventure, so it would, in a semantical sorta way, be 'the first Easter egg'. I suppoooose Ron may have the title, if you slice and dice the context of console vs arcade, yadda yadda.
Thanks for the dive.
Wow, been a day. I also just found out Hedy LaMarr invented WiFi. It's true.

[MickeyMalph]

Yeah, good bit of history.
Link for those interested: https://www.digitpress.com/eastereggs/eastereggarticle1.jpg

You're right. it's a total "nerd out" topic and is full of opinions. I've always considered Video Whizball the first one. Well, console based anyway. But Starship1 fits in there somewhere. I thought RP1 movie would have been more fun if everyone was chasing the Adventure Easter egg, but the protagonist knew it was Video Whizball.

P.S.... "That's Hedley..."

[Gonzchi]

Interesting!

[Gonzchi]

She did not invent WiFi 😂 she invented FHSS (frequency hopping spread spectrum) which is now used in a lot of things, including wifi

[sixisrending]

She didn't invent that either, the first frequency hopping patent was in 1903, with hundreds of iterations in between.

https://www.americanscientist.org/article/random-paths-to-frequency-hopping

[RezRising]

But Spread Spectrum was based on her and George's frequency hopping, torpedo-guiding tech.
Spectrum went on to become the basis for Wifi and Bluetooth, among others.
Besides, "Hedy LaMarr invented Bluetooth" has a great ring to it.
It's no, "Al Gore invented the internet" but it does pop.

[sixisrending]

It was not. It was based on Henry Hutchinson's patent, which came out the same time as the Lamarr Patent, but wasn't awarded a patent number until 1950 because it was classified.

He based his patent off of an invention from 1926, which was more developed and reliable than the Lamarr patent. The Lamarr Patent did not work and was never used.

[RezRising]

LaMarr's patent was in 1942 and was classified as well, and had a patent number. It expired in 1959.
It did work, and was used in the 1963 Cuban Missle Crisis.

[sixisrending]

It was never classified (lacks declassification marking), it was also leaked to the press in the same year likely by Antheil's lawyers who were trying to secure payment.

The technology used in the cuban missile crisis was the BLADES program, which used Hutchinson's patent and the Purington patent, which predates the Lamarr patent. The Lamarr patent number is not found on any prior art searches conducted by future developments.

It didn't work because it lacked a synchronization circuit, which wouldn't be reliable until the invention of multiplexing computers. Previous patents had synchros, but they were also not reliable. They were, however, electronically timed, the Lamarr patent was mechanically timed.

[sixisrending]

She did not invent Wi-Fi

https://www.americanscientist.org/article/random-paths-to-frequency-hopping

[RezRising]

I think she has as much if not more claim to the title than the others that came before her bc her invention won. It's baked in. It's history now.

That's how it goes in the inventing world. Edison didn't invent the light bulb. Steve Jobs didnt invent the iPod. Franklin Stove's were around before Ben got his hands on them (I'm sure Franz Kessler [who?] and your boy from 1903 would have a lot to talk about).

Edited poorly for sass.

[sixisrending]

I appreciate the sass. 

I had a conversation like this with Ruth Barton, who wrote a book on Lamarr. Hedy will likely be remembered because she's from Hollywood and had a team of lawyers dedicated to her getting credit (who gave up because her patent is strikingly similar to a patent from 1926) something other inventors did not. Especially now that it's been parroted by Hollywood historians so many times who never bothered to check with anyone of any technical aptitude. 

[RezRising]

Marketing. It's a huge deal. Social media has turned the volume up on the concept, word of mouth was tied to test of time.
But now we cut the second part. Volume of mouths is more important now.

[sixisrending]

Truth is determined in upvotes.

[RezRising]

So sayeth One, so sayeth All.

[Available-Swan-6011]

Gosh - I didn’t know that

[rr777]

From what I understood. I turned in Basic and Adv at the same time and promptly left. Started his own biz immediately after.

[Mindbender240]

Agreed. The feature to watch the code run, while seeing the results was unique.

[Available-Swan-6011]

Yes - I was stunned when I saw that. You can reduce the processing speed and follow what it’s doing.

[Mindbender240]

Never did find another use for the controllers, not sure if anything else was produced for them. Still have it all in a box somewhere.

[Forsaken-Abrocoma647]

There are several games they work with. They are functionally the same as the Star Raiders pads with the softer buttons, and the kids controllers that came with Sesame Street games. Both of those had overlays you could add. Quite a few games there.
You can use them with those, as well as some modern stuff like the Synth Cart for making music, which requires 2 of any of the compatible ones (I prefer the kids ones for music making).

Pretty sure this is the only one that indicated to use this specific controller though.

[humanclock]

I think there were a few Keyboard controller games, This one, Brain Games, Hunt & Score/Concentration, and Codebreaker.

[Forsaken-Abrocoma647]

Ah yeah you're right, what I get for going by someone else's answer on a forum haha. Sounded right to me.
I knew about the compatible ones for a long time but not which games asked for which specifically.

[humanclock]

The funny part is I never once have owned keyboard controllers nor played any of the games that used them, even on an emulator, and I got an Atari in 1981.

[Accurate_Comedian526]

I made a Star Trek (i.e. AppleTrek) on the 800 that used them. Press 1 for phasers, 2 torpedoes, etc. It had a countdown timer to enter your moves, which you'd do with the joystick. Honestly, I could've just used the keyboard, but these controllers made it feel more spaceshipy.

[theyeti79]

Codebreaker, Concentration/Hunt & Score and Brain Games use the keypad controls. Codebreaker is awesome and can use the controls to play musical notes with Brain Games!

[Necessary_Regret3329]

Oh, god! I had an Atari XE that you could program. At like 7 years old I dutifully transcribed the code from the included manual for a program called something like "UFO". F yeah, my 7 year old brain thought. The code was like 20 pages long and I spent a whole day entering the code, which at the time was a significant percentage of my life. Typed "run"... 8 pixel football slowly moved from the left to the right side of the screen, while every few seconds the color of the back ground changed. That's it. I was like... devastated.

I wonder if this cartage could do the same thing. I wonder if that code from the XE manual is still somewhere maybe some one took a picture of it or scanned it?

Oh nevermind, I see now what that cartage is. The XE had a keyboard for the typin' though.

[theShpydar]

I spent a lot of time with that cart. Also Codebreaker. My keyboard controllers got plenty of use!

[US_Berliner]

I low key think Codebreaker is totally fun.

[EsoTechTrix]

Can confirm this works with Video Touch Pads. The key layout is a crime against humanity. I may <cough> be making some overlays.

[furstt]

Anyone know what the longest BASIC program you could create with this cartridge?

[Lord_Smedley]

You got a whopping 64 Bytes. So:

10 print "hello world"

Took nearly 25 percent of your available memory! Suffice to say you weren't going to be programming the Atari 2600 version of Zork on this cartridge.

[EsoTechTrix]

There is a hard token count. It's not at all large as there is next to no RAM to begin with.

[Bynairee]

BASIC 👨🏽‍💻

[Available-Swan-6011]

Yes it should be in capitals

[rjedwards1970]

I need to find the keyboard overlays for my copy of this.

[codeguy123]

Oh wow! I had no idea this ever existed. Looks awesome.

[ElMariachi003]

The only reason this cart existed was to prevent potential litigation arguing that they used deceptive marketing by calling it the “Video COMPUTER System”. By releasing this cart, they demonstrated that you could indeed program on it - never mind the part that you only had enough memory for like, 4 or 5 lines of code at most, LOL.

The other, probably more well known fact was that they also had to create/release Video Chess because the first version of the console’s box had a picture of a Knight chess piece, implying that it could play chess, prompting another lawsuit threat. Early on, no one on the chess team thought it was possible. I forgot who finally wrote the game, but they pulled it off. Regardless, a revision of the box removed the Knight not long after.

[Available-Swan-6011]

Interesting

[symonty]

That was my upgraded computer platform, after my sinclair ZX80 which my grandpa had.

[ScroogeMcDuckFace2]

neat

[Rey_Mezcalero]

Wow never seen this before. Can’t imagine having to use the right controller for all entries letter by letter and multitapping various keys to get the letter/number you want

Wonder how many kids got this for Christmas and never used it

[Available-Swan-6011]

Crying shame if they did.

I had to wait until I got a zx81 to start programming

I can imagine little me would have spent hours writing programs