alt Hacker NewsSomeone gave my grandfather a Games BASICA floppy that had this and other games on it. But this copy had a few games that had been "modified". I remember in DONKEY.BAS, it would curse at you if you hit the donkey. "YOU STUPID SONOFABITCH". We thought it was hilarious. My grandfather was less pleased. He took it away from us when he found out.
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I learned most of the best cursing I've ever done from my grandfather. He took pride in teaching his grandkids to curse.
He was involved in setting up the radar systems at Pearl Harbor, much good that did.
Modifying those games were the first times I ever touched code! There was one that existed somewhere between DOS 2.0 and 3.2 that simply asked your name, then asked how the hell you got that name. It was maybe half a dozen lines, but easy enough to modify output and learn a bit about variables.
As a kid I modified DONKEY.BAS for my younger brother who wanted to play as a donkey avoiding cars. It was a clumsy modification, I didn't account for the differing size of the pseudo-sprites, but it made him happy.