Our Favorite Things: Basic Computer Games Book

John Biggs

Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... → Learn More

Friday, December 3rd, 2010


If you were alive in 1978 you’ll probably remember you couldn’t do much with a computer. The Altair had just hit the scene and BASIC was taking off but there was very little a kid of a certain age and predilection could do with this information. Luckily there were guys like David Ahl.

Best of all? George Beker and David Ahl are offering a nice discount on the book. He wrote to us!

FLASH! There is a special price offer (about $12 and $9) on the complete (code-plus-drawings) and the ‘Bot Folio through Christmas. Check out the sites above or my site (I’m the guy who did the drawings) and order!

George Beker


Ahl wrote what I would call the seminal work relating to BASIC programming and I recall many hours spent keying in his versions of MUGWUP and Lunar LEM Rocket. The book is available in two versions, a $14.95 “basic” version and a $17.50 version with George Beker’s crazy illustrations intact.

While kids these days may not want to mess with coding, this is a great way to wake them up to the possibilities of programming.

Product Page via Retrothing

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