Mindbenders: Micro Adventure #5

Micro Adventure #5

by Ruth Glick, Eileen Buckholtz

Seu codinome é Órion e você acaba de descobrir um terrível plano de controle de mentes que poderá provocar a III Guerra Mundial!

Os líderes mundiais estão perdendo o controle de suas mentes e se transformando em escravos. Como perito em computação da AJA (Associação de Jovens Aventureiros) só VOCÊ pode salvá-los!

Você deve usar seu microcomputador

* identificar as próximas vítimas dos controladores de mentes
* jogar um video-game de vida ou morte
* cruzar águas cheias de tubarões famintos

126 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1984

About the author

Ruth Glick is an American writer of cookbooks, romance and young adult novels. She has written novels under the pseudonym Rebecca York; until 1997 these were written in collaboration with Eileen Buckholtz.

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is #5 in the Micro Adventure series (books written in the second-person in which the reader is a computer-savvy agent on spy missions). Interspersed throughout the plot are 7 BASIC programs the reader can type in to simulate parts of the story. I decided to type in the Commodore 64 version of the last program, a game in which you must shoot sharks. Movement is "A", "Z", ",", ".", and shoot direction is "E", "X", "S", "D". I've included the code below:

10 DIM SX(5),SY(5),X2(5),Y2(5)
20 Z$="{CLEAR}{DOWN*22}": REM REPLACE WITH REAL CONTROL CHARS
30 B$="O":UL=37:LL=22
40 S$=CHR$(127):CO=0
50 PRINT CHR$(147)
60 BX=20:BY=12:N=5
70 FOR I=1 TO 5
80 SX(I)=INT(UL*RND(1))
90 SY(I)=INT(LL*RND(1))
100 NEXT I
110 PRINT LEFT$(Z$,BY);TAB(BX);B$
120 FOR I=L TO 5
130 PRINT LEFT$(Z$,SY(I));TAB((SX(I))):REM BUG: WAS MISSING ")"
140 PRINT S$
150 NEXT I
160 PRINT"{HOME}":MI$=M$:GET M$
170 CO=CO+1
180 IF CO>5 THEN CO=1
190 X1=BX: Y1=BY
200 IF M$="A" THEN BY=BY-1:GOTO 310
210 IF M$="Z" THEN BY=BY+1:GOTO 310
220 IF M$="," THEN BX=BX-1:GOTO 310
230 IF M$="." THEN BX=BX+1:GOTO 310
240 IF FI=1 THEN GOTO 310
250 IF M$="E" THEN MO=1:GOTO 300
260 IF M$="X" THEN MO=2:GOTO 300
270 IF M$="S" THEN MO=3:GOTO 300
280 IF M$="D" THEN MO=4:GOTO 300
290 GOTO 310
300 FI=1:FX=BX:FY=BY
310 IF BX > UL THEN BX=UL:
320 IF BX < 1 THEN BX=1:
330 IF BY > LL THEN BY=LL:
340 IF BY< 1 THEN BY=1
350 PRINT LEFT$(Z$,Y1);TAB(X1);" "
360 PRINT LEFT$(Z$,BY);TAB(BX);B$
370 IF SX(CO)=999 THEN 550
380 X2(CO)=SX(CO): Y2(CO)=SY(CO)
390 IF SX(CO)=FX AND SY(CO)=FY THEN GOTO 440
400 IF BX>SX(CO) THEN SX(CO)=SX(CO)+1: GOTO 440
410 IF BX420 IF BY>SY(CO) THEN SY(CO)=SY(CO)+1: GOTO 440
430 IF BY440 FOR I=L TO 5
450 IF SX(I)=FX AND SY(I)=FY THEN 700
460 IF SX(I)=BX AND SY(I)=BY THEN 670
470 NEXT I
480 IF SX(CO)=999 THEN 550: REM BUG: DROPPED THE "AND"
490 IF SX(CO)>UL THEN SX(CO)=UL
500 IF SX(CO)<1 THEN SY(CO)=1
510 IF SY(CO)> LL THEN SY(CO)=LL
520 IF SY(CO)< 1 THEN SY(CO)=1
530 PRINT LEFT$(Z$,Y2(CO));TAB(X2(CO));" "
540 PRINT LEFT$(Z$,SY(CO));TAB(SX(CO)); S$
550 IF FI<>1 THEN 160
560 X3=FX: Y3=FY
570 ON MO GOTO 580,590,600,610
580 FY=FY-1: GOTO 620
590 FY=FY+1: GOTO 620
600 FX=FX-1: GOTO 620
610 FX=FX+1
620 IF FY> LL OR FY<1 OR FX>UL OR FX<1 THEN 660
630 PRINT LEFT$(Z$,Y3);TAB(X3); " "
640 PRINT LEFT$(Z$,FY);TAB(FX); "+"
650 GOTO 160
660 FI=0: PRINT LEFT$(Z$,Y3);TAB(X3); " ": GOTO 160
670 PRINT CHR$(19); "YOU WERE EATEN BY A SHARK!": END
680 PRINT "WOW! YOU DID IT! YOU DEFEATED THE SHARKS"
690 END
700 SX(I)=999:SY(I)=999
710 POKE 54296,15: POKE 54277,90:POKE 54278,200
720 POKE 54273,34: POKE 54272,75
730 POKE 54276,33:
740 FOR ZZ=1 TO 200: NEXT ZZ
750 POKE 54296,0
760 N=N-1: IF N=0 THEN 680
770 GOTO 460

[Lukerik · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Windows 9 was released I realised for the first time that Microsoft wouldn’t always be there for us, and when they failed I would be at a complete loss as to how to use a PC. You probably think it’s a bit late in the day to be coming to that realisation, but I’m not a computery person. When I got my new machine my plan was to do a dual boot with Ubuntu, but quickly realised I couldn’t do it and be confident that I wouldn’t break the computer. Since then I have been periodically retrenching with progressively simpler plans, all of which have turned out to be beyond my ability. With this children’s book I have finally found something that is about my level. If you want to learn BASIC, this is the book for you.

It follows the same format as those ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ jobbies, except that rather than choices you need to write out and run seven programs in BASIC in order to proceed. The programs are compatible with:

ZX Spectrum
QL
BBC Micro
Acorn Electric
IBM PC
Pcjr
Apple II+, Iic, Iie (with Applesoft BASIC)
Commodore 64
VIC 20
TI 99/4A
Atari 400/800
Tandy TRS-80 models 1, 3 and 4
Tandy Colour Computer
Dragon 32/64

So if you have one of these machines you’re good to go. I do not so I had to find a way to emulate one on my PC. I went for the BBC Micro’s dialect because their English is so good and downloaded a piece of software called BBC Basic for Windows from here:

http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/bbcwin/down...

You only need the free version for the purposes of this book. There are also version for Linux etc if you’re a cleverclogs.

The programs are fun, but the intention is obviously to teach you BASIC. Looking at the first three, for the first you need simply to type it correctly. For the second you need to read the English embedded in the program. For the third you need to read the code itself. Thereafter they teach you transferable skills like reading ASCII or analysing a dataset. The seventh program (which gives you an arcade game with fucking amazing graphics) contains an (unintentional?) error. I was able to fix it, but only by understanding and amending multiple lines of code. That said, there are still many things about the language I don’t understand and I might try some of the other books in the series before graduating to the Linux command line.