A constructive look at the Atari 2600 BASIC cartridge

Re:A constructive look at the Atari 2600 BASIC cartridge by mikestew on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @05:06PM (#25663284)

Okay, so we have the common trope of "Atari 2600 BASIC was horrible" (and it was), and now "meh, it wasn't that bad". But it seems the only people that actually used the cartridge for more than five minutes are the two groups writing those things. What I want is, "How I Used the Atari 2600 BASIC Cartridge to Do Something Useful". 64 bytes ought to be enough for anyone, amirite?

Seriously, did anyone who bought one do more than plug it in and become very disappointed?

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Re:A constructive look at the Atari 2600 BASIC cartridge by rchase on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @08:27PM (#25666003)

I did not buy it. I traded Night Driver for it (and the paddles). 1980? And yeah, not to put too fine a point on it, just... no.

But, given the replay-ability of Night Driver, still a fair trade.

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Re:A constructive look at the Atari 2600 BASIC cartridge by mycall on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @10:37PM (#25666994)

I actually cut my teeth with it in 1981 as a child. I liked it enough that I graduated to an TRS-80 programming class at age 9. I owe my fondness to coding from that BASIC Cartridge. Funny enough, I was about to donate it with controllers soon.

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Re:A constructive look at the Atari 2600 BASIC cartridge by reaperducer on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @10:31PM (#25666951)

I think piquing an interest in computer programming for of millions of kids was useful. Millions of kids didn't get the cart, but it certainly made them think about using electronics for more than games.

I'm not sure the BASIC cart was intended to be "useful" as in "productive." I think it was supposed to be a demonstration to young people that they could make a machine do things for them.

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Re:A constructive look at the Atari 2600 BASIC cartridge by behringer on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @11:17PM (#25667228)

Might I recommend the Color Computer for BASIC programming as an example of a highly useful and powerful version that's still being used today to create new games for the system, as well as a simple programmatic access to the peripheral interfaces.

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Re:A constructive look at the Atari 2600 BASIC cartridge by ansible on Thursday January 07, 2021 @12:17AM (#25667540)

Even the ZX80 / 81 had far more usefulness than Atari BASIC.

People wrote video games for it. Puzzle games like Black Box, board games like Chess (yes, I know the 2600 also had Chess, but you couldn't develop a Chess program on the platform itself).

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