Usborne Weird Computer Games Book | Ashens

[@DenSporetrix]

Man, whoever they hired to do the most of the artwork in this book, i hope they were paid some good money. Those illustrations are real good. Well, the little skeletons are a bit weird.

[@pixelnaut8076]

I think maybe the art in the back was done beforehand, and then the little skeletons and stuff were done as like... illustrations for the actual content of the boo

[@RFC3514]

> the actual content of the boo I see what you did there.

[@kbhasi]

I agree! I had been planning to download a number of the PDFs as part of some kind of thing where I research the kind of art styles used in books aimed at children. I don't really seem to like the flat outline-less graphics used in their modern titles, though.

[@WhatHoSnorkers]

@@kbhasi The little robots they use to explain things are rather fun. For a "really difficult topic but we're doing a kid's book" book, check out the "Introduction to Machine Code (for Z80 and 6502 chips)". Amazing stuff.

[@ricky302v8]

The front cover looks like Oliver Frey art (Crash and Zzap!64 magazine)

[@davekeller4488]

I had that book, or possibly borrowed it from the library. Anyway, I remember spending hours typing out all the basic, only to be met with “Syntax Error”, then my mum would come along and unplug the computer to do the vacuuming.

[@Phoenix2312]

Our Parents: "I bought you this book to teach you how to program games on your new computer" Us as Children: "YEAH!" The Extent of our Programming Knowledge after 6 months: 10 PRINT "MY SMELLY BROTHER IS A POOPY HEAD!" 20 GOTO 10 RUN

[@camptube7621]

If you put a ; at the end of line 10, it would scroll across the screen filling it from top to bottom 😂😂

[@MathewHaswell]

ASHENS IS SKILL

[@st0rmforce]

When I was a kid I was given my cousin's old Amstrad CPC (which was about as old as me) and I got a couple of Usborne books to learn about how it worked. Even though we had a windows 95 PC, the simplicity of programming the Amstrad allowed it keep my interest. I'm a software engineer now. I can trace my interest in programming all the way back to a couple of 10-year-out-of-date Usborne books and an obsolete microcomputer.

[@HaydenX]

"Hey! Programmers! Leave those goats alone... All in all it's just another hole in the floor"

[@RFC3514]

Goat pupils are rectangular, actually.

[@HaydenX]

@@RFC3514 I wouldn't think being in school would change one's fundamental shape...interesting.

[@RFC3514]

It can definitely make you a more rounded individual.

[@MareCat31]

@@RFC3514 I have an image of Violet from Willy Wonka just rolling around a school in my head now.

[@georgedeane2564]

Floyd

[@superscatboy]

I used these books to learn BASIC on the Spectrum, fell in love with coding, eventually becoming an AMOS BASIC junkie, and a bit of an expert in the language. When I finally got to start my A-level in computing, the first thing I had to do was forget everything I had ever learned because it turns out BASIC teaches you some really weird and/or bad programming habits and paradigms. In hindsight, learning to code by starting with BASIC is like learning to fly a helicopter by starting off on a unicycle.

[@camptube7621]

Basic came back to me when I had to get into vba for excel. It made it se much easier to get into because of these fun days with a tape recorder and cassette tape loading a game into my bbc b.

[@superscatboy]

@@RFC3514 Most BASICs in those days made every variable global, something which took some time to adjust to when moving away from it. And while you're right about gosubs being comparable to functions, that was only obvious to me once I had learned how functions work - a task that was made difficult thanks to already being in a gosub mindset. BASIC was the best learning tool there was for youngsters at the time, but nostalgia aside it was a horrible tool and I wouldn't encourage anyone to even consider using it if there's anything else available. Thank goodness there are much better options available these days!

[@RFC3514]

> a task that was made difficult thanks to already being in a gosub mindset. I assume you mean goto. And hey, that prepared you for assembly coding. ;) And, like I said, it depends on how you use the tool. GFA Basic (and, to a lesser degree, STOS / AMOS) were extremely powerful and supported most features / mechanisms found, for example, in C.

[@superscatboy]

@@RFC3514 Yeah I meant goto, but to some extent gosub - gosubs are still missing some of the fundamentals of functions, namely passing parameters and returning values (without messily juggling global variables), so they're still a poor preparation for using proper functions later on. I strongly feel that I only understood how BASIC mapped onto "proper" languages like C once I had learned those languages from scratch. I don't buy into the idea that BASIC prepares you for other languages, I believe that the opposite is true - once you've learned a "proper" language only then does all that weirdness you were doing in BASIC begin to make any real sense.

[@RFC3514]

In most of these early systems, yes, you have to use global variables manually, to pass data into subroutines. Most (probably all) these CPUs supported a stack, but I don't think any BASIC gave access to it even explicitly (via push/pop), and certainly not implicitly (by passing parameters). Later BASICs did add support for local variables (and passing parameters).

[@AtheistOrphan]

I had ‘The Usborne book of the future: A trip in time to the year 2000 and beyond’. Published in the mid to late 70’s. Hilarious. ‘The year 2000 olympics will take place on the moon, a typical thousand foot long nuclear submarine oil tanker of the year 2000’ etc, etc.

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

There was a Soviet book from the 60s that I had which basically said that in the year 2015 (No idea why they picked that year) we'd be farming on the moon, using atomic powered jetbikes for transport and having monorails sodding everywhere.

[@RFC3514]

That broom game was surprisingly advanced, compared to the other ones. With variable speed, some flying obstacles, and a time limit, it could be almost fun.

[@peterknutsen3070]

I don't understand the challenge in it... Why not just fly low all the time? And why aren't there any warning signs for the broom-snatcher? I think ground obstacles that forces you to fly higher, then swoop down to gather, then fly up higher again, would be a better challenge than having flying obstacles.

[@RFC3514]

The challenge comes from the fact that you can't select the height (did you think Ashens was flying back up deliberately?). You just press a key to "swoop down" for a second, and then your broom goes back up, to a random height. You have to time the swoop to match the moment when the item you want to catch will be passing under you, but the timing is different depending on the height from which you start. Flying obstacles would force you to choose between timing your swoop to catch an object or time the swoop to dodge the obstacle (and possibly miss the item you need to catch), while still requiring only a single button.

[@peterknutsen3070]

RFC3514 Thanks! I completely missed that part!

[@auralunaprettycure]

I’d love to know more about the game designer of that one in particular, it seems like each game is as designed by a different person since Monster Wrestling had a special credit, as did Tower of Terror, I suppose it’s possible some people designed more than one game

[@gwivongalois6169]

Looks like either the inspiration for Cauldron (C64 and other platforms) or the scaled down "you can type it in" version of it.

[@GreyHulk2156]

I borrowed 'Creepy Computer Games' from the English class at school. Erm... I still have it all these years later. Oops.

[@gurgy3]

Wouldn’t want to pay your late fees

[@brocka.6479]

I actually bought some 'type the code' books that were being retired in my school library that were more in-depth - like a choose your own adventure book, but your choices determined what section of code you typed in. Check out Arcade Explorers if you can find them, they were... interesting.

[@hanniffydinn6019]

Luckily my library cleared all its records when I last checked last week, I still had books ! So I joint again. Didn’t get any books, as I got used to downloading them free! How times have changed... you can download these usborne books free from the usborne website !🤯🤯👌

[@xAlexZifko]

monster wrestling: "watching an older british man do basic math"

[@knightowl3577]

It's maths because he's British.

[@BodywiseMustard]

Just the one?

[@illiamdeebe7579]

Oh my, I had the Fantasy Games book. It was one of my favourite things ever and I loved the style they were written in. Just seeing that cover via the link you provided woke up parts of my brain that hadn't fired since the 80s. Thank you for a heroin-level hit of nostalgia!

[@mordekai_wilde]

"pulse rate is 69, nice" - Ashens 2019

[@nachosdecay]

Just one more like and you will have 69, nice

[@aborted4196]

I just gave you 69 likes nice

[@mordekai_wilde]

nice

[@RickinBaltimore]

I had a few of these books in the US and taught myself BASIC programming on my C64 through them. It also taught my hatred for programming when I get a syntax error for leaving out a semicolon on line 260.

[@joshuascholar3220]

The first day I had my computer I typed something like this (but much longer) in, then turned the computer off without saving it!

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

I just recall taking out a book showing a timeline of inventions and recall a page about how toilets were invented!

[@dubuyajay9964]

10 Goto 20

[@snoballuk]

Just as ashens said "What is Tower of Terror like then?" a mid-video ad for Adobe Creative Cloud played - now that's terrifying!

[@totallynotasentientactionf9519]

YOU GOT THAT TOO?

[@keiyakins]

Mine was an ad for insomnia treatment sounds... Probably because I'm watching at 4:40 am...

[@EGLEWRRR]

I got an Ad for COD: Vangard, and just said "That's not Tower of Terror, that's something worse"

[@Ragnarok540]

This is one of the best videos Ashens has ever done, I'm an engineer and I would have loved to have those as a kid.

[@MsCherade9]

They were awesome, I still have some of them and my brother has the other. We got a ZX Spectrum in 1983 and argued incessantly about whose turn it was!

[@Roadent1241]

You can probably do it still nowadays? XP

[@techbaffle]

12:29 That sounds so much like Ashens I forgot he was reading the book!

[@kanedamikami7771]

This is a Curse whenever I pull an all nighter and wanna go to sleep there is a new ashens Upload.

[@ImNotAGuineaPig]

You know what this means right? For the common good, you must keep pulling all nighters.

[@neilwilson5785]

I got lucky. It's only 23:18. Early night still possible.

[@sizzxrk]

You don't sleep during all-nighters do you?

[@faumnamara5181]

Today I found some BBC, Amstrad and Acorn computers and their peripherals up a loft space in my old high school.... A single tear of joy may have escaped along with a small fart of excitement.

[@Magitek1112]

The skeletons on the Tower of Terror page just remind me of the ones from Funnybones. (Raise your hand if you remember that)

[@MsCherade9]

Still own my Funnybones books!

[@Roadent1241]

I only recognise that from Caddicarus' videos honestly, apparently I watched less TV than I remember. (Given we literally only still have the basic freeview channels now.)

[@LyingSecret]

I made my own DVD with all the episodes of Funnybones on it, cause no other bugger was gonna do it :D

[@mandygreen6718]

🤚🏼

[@LyingSecret]

@@mandygreen6718 Highfive? sure *highfives* :D

[@cavv0667]

My friend had this booklet when we were in grade school... he told me about Tower of Terror... even then back in the '80s I felt Ashens pain... told'im "That sounds boring."

[@OverUnity7734]

I remember spending two weeks typing a star trek game into my C64, then three weeks debugging it.

[@MareCat31]

Ah,that makes reading sound much more enjoyable. I don't know what to say, I'm a 90s kid so by the time I was messing with computers it was more fun to search through random websites and see what you could find.

[@MareCat31]

And even that could take all day...

[@RFC3514]

Before the 90s we had these things called "shops" where you could buy games (they employed local people, too). That's not really the point, though; you didn't type in games just so you could _play_ them, it was a way to learn _programming._

[@hanniffydinn6019]

Fun times. Computing is boring now.

[@RFC3514]

@Hanniffy Dinn - Nothing prevents you from spending as long as you want typing whatever code you wish into whichever system (or emulator) you choose.

[@ertplus838]

I remember borrowing one of these from the library in the early 2000s, young me had a hell of a time finding a basic interpreter for Windows.

[@spartanwolfmk4226]

There are two absolutes in this world. Taxes and Ashens uploading at stupid o’clock.

[@SteveBrandon]

I had a older children's novel that had scripts for a few BASIC source code minigames between the chapters. I don't think I ever typed them in and am not sure if they were even compatible with the VIC-20 (all my family had) without modifying the code to be honest. I'm not sure if I still have that novel but I do have several other BASIC books that used to belong for my father specifically for the Vic-20 with longer scripts for game with graphics. One of the games had pretty sophisticated graphics for the Vic-20, with an off-brand version of the Death Star trench scene complete with little sprite Tie Fighters.

[@ALoonwolf]

I loved that old adventure game programming and the little tricks. Like it would be more complicated to make three dimensional maps, but all you had to do to add the ability to go up and down in certain places on your two dimensional maps was to change the player's input when they were in certain rooms so they go either North, East, South or West instead. ;)

[@kendalltisinger2587]

My phone at 3:34 am: "Ashens posted a video" Me: forget sleep I have to watch a British man review things on a couch

[@ppidk2267]

It's 9:40 pm

[@SpicyMilk]

​@@ppidk2267 You're right it's not like people live in different time zones or anything you know yeah 9:40 pm what were they thinking huh boy I tell ya some people don't know how to tell the time anymore jeez louise some people nowadays huh

[@ppidk2267]

@@SpicyMilk what's a"time zone"

[@nicholas2198]

Legit what I have just done, about to go to bed, Ashens posts a video

[@kendalltisinger2587]

@@nicholas2198 that's how it be sometimes

[@ElTwOJaY]

Nothing like listening to a British man play games that were created a decade before I was born.

[@UncleFeedle]

Loved these. Always used to buy them through the book club at school. Some of the programs and projects in them were bloody advanced, particularly 'Machine Code for Beginners' and 'Practical Things to Do with a Microcomputer', which contains plans for an entire robot, complete with circuit diagrams and soldering instructions. You'd had to have been a young Mr Spock to have pulled that one off.

[@emery5417]

The cover gives me some serious scary stories to tell in the dark vibes.

[@DaveF.]

"This is not the most difficult of games, Oh, bloody hell, I missed that one..." A lot of potential in some of those - that skull falling game could easily have a pinball-style tilt keys added to it to put a skill factor into it. The flying broomstick could be extended into a more interesting basic sideways scroller without too much effort. Good stuff!

[@gallyvalentine7976]

I think if you would have input "eat Cheese" you would have shrank down for the weird proportioned house, kinda like Alice in wonderland.

[@ChakatSandwalker]

My primary school (here in New Zealand) had that exact book (the first one shown). I had to crash the classroom's Apple //e computer in order to access the BASIC mode. Ah, memories...

[@paulgascoigne5343]

When you spend 3 hours typing in basic for 30 seconds of dissapointment.

[@PostingCringeOnMain]

I had an usbourne book with the BBC basic code for a game inside... I literally never finished typing it in. I believe it was an adventure game based on a creepy island.

[@PostingCringeOnMain]

I just googled and while there is a book based on an island, the cover art of "The Mystery of Silver Mountain" is ringing more bells as I seem to remember it having a blue cover. Hah. Nostalgia overload.

[@WhatHoSnorkers]

@@PostingCringeOnMain There was Island of Secrets and Mystery of Silver Mountain. I have BASIC (tee-hee) videos and playthroughs of both. Great stuff. Mystery of Silver Mountain gets into "You DIE! You DIE! You DIE!" levels sometimes.

[@MathewHaswell]

@@WhatHoSnorkers Do you procede in the the direction you believe to be north, at any point?

[@MathewHaswell]

I HAVE been to a Dark Room show, BTW. The Saturday show at Play Expo Glasgow 2019. Unfortunately, I was not a Darren.

[@WhatHoSnorkers]

@@MathewHaswell I only became away of the Dark Room because I watched Octav1us Kitten's video about it on Friday night. I've been playing a lot of them lately. It looks like a hilarious and true rendition of the genre!

[@eddieboyky]

Henceforth, my alias of choice shall be Piddlehampton!

[@lokuzt]

ah! I loved these micro basic game books! I remember trying to run the games on "Wizards of Wonder (Magic Micro Adventure, No 3)" on my 90s 386 IBM PC and Qbasic, and having to alter almost every single code line as it was non-structured BASIC. Good times.

[@DanaTheInsane]

These kind of books proved to me that no matter what my grandparents wanted for me I did NOT want a future in computer programming.

[@dubuyajay9964]

Yet you have a Mac Icon. X_x

[@eviltigz]

Use to love doing all this stuff. Took computer course at school and made my own hangman game. :p

[@Roadent1241]

Dubuya Jay Might just mean he prefers to use Apple computers? XD I remember old macs back 20 years ago and playing them Disney Storybook games on them.

[@thecynicalone7655]

I saw the thumbnail, and I hope to god you got the original promotional stuff for Planescape: torment. It's amazing

[@TeflonSoul]

I remember growing up (this is in the US) we had a Commodore 64 and my dad had some computer magazines that I don't remember the name of. In most of them, they included type-in games a bit like these, though more detailed. I recall there was even a companion type-in program from the magazine that would analyze checksums that were put in the games code as you entered them so as to catch mistakes as you went.

[@TheBambam2371]

Praying for you Stuart, Dan, and all involved with the channel. I hope ya'll feel better and recover soon. I hope all goes well for ya'll. God bless ya'll my friends. God loves ya'll.

[@noahm.9091]

Thank you youtube for notifying me about a *quality* upload instead of something by someone I'm not even subbed to

[@gp4078]

This is actually one of your best videos man, I hope to see more like this

[@SmaMan]

Usborne: Legit book publisher in the UK, seedy MLM (pyramid scheme) in the US.

[@SPEXWISE]

Actually Usborne do the same thing over here. My wife tried it for about 6 months, you have to buy your stock from them and there is little room for profit if any. My wife was down about £600 over all. Very tough business.

[@isabellamorris7902]

Were they always MLM based? Did they used to be legit? I can remember using proper non fiction books from them when i was little

[@SmaMan]

Ah, okay. So it looks like Usborne Publishing is the legitimate business, but they have a sister company known as Usborne Books at Home (or Books and More in the USA) which is the MLM scam. Kinda sad that they're letting their good name be dragged through the ever-growing slime growing in that industry.

[@isabellamorris7902]

@@SmaMan Same thing with The Body Shop, which is an MLM here and better-known for being one in the US. Strange, because their products are OK and they follow through on the emphasis on ethics in almost every other sense... except literally operating a scam

[@alexeverett308]

@@isabellamorris7902 Really? I thought the body shop was legit, they've got shops and stuff. Normally it's just middle-aged women on Facebook

[@bchin4005]

Ahhh, the good old days of BASIC games in the 80's, when the copy writers were vastly more creative than the coders.

[@RFC3514]

Then the coders did what? Don't leave us hanging.

[@bchin4005]

@@RFC3514 good catch, thanks, edited

[@cometkite]

This is pretty close to how I learned to program in the early 2000s. I downloaded a text adventure game for my graphing calculator written in the built-in "TI-BASIC" language and started tinkering around with it, then I tried writing my own.

[@fredhair]

Too many h's I died of cardiac arrest

[@drunkenhobo8020]

No that's too intense for a children's book. Best to just have them commit suicide instead.

[@kittikoko]

I remember using one of these books on the school computer! Yes, singular... I grew up in Surrey and even there the schools could only afford one. 😂

[@TheTurnipKing]

oh crikey, I've got the RPG version of this. 7:11 I'm going to hazard a guess, based on my experiences with "Write Your Own Fantasy Games For Your Microcomputer", that these games had User Defined graphics on the Spectrum and the typer-inner hasn't realised you need to include the lines which define them, so they're all represented by letters of the alphabet. 15:17 You're assuming it was entered ON a Spectrum, and not with some weird PC utility, like BASIN

[@izzard]

Bloody hell.. I recognised this from the illustration in the thumbnail. Nostalgia!

[@drsnova7313]

Oh wow, what a throwback! I had 3 of these around 1988 - but translated into German. Didn't know they were originally from the UK. Helped me getting started in programming....and I'm a software dev now.

[@dubuyajay9964]

You make any PC games?

[@SparkySummers]

Missed a prime chance to take a snipe at lootbox gambling at the end there

[@jamesvalentine5899]

I remember playing an old computer game like this where it was just a text input, where you were in a magical tower collecting jewels?? That's literally all I can remember. Though you could choose your font coloyr (the screen was black) and i always chose magenta. The font reminded me of Teletext.

[@CrazyChiv]

I had one of these books. It was a horror one (different from this one). They drew you in with the artwork and descriptions but, after typing it all in, all the games looked like these (usually a maths thing or a simple word game). It didn't teach me much about basic - but it did teach me about the crushing disappointment of raised expectations. Ahhh, nostalgia.

[@hereharehere]

The discussion with Nikki on Barshens was amazing.

[@hereharehere]

Barshans. rollyeyeemoji

[@hereharehere]

shens. I what do I bldy know. Anyway - Brilliant discussion.

[@severindrax]

"leave the goats alone" - Dr Stuart Ashen 2019

[@MathewHaswell]

George Stobbart had other ideas.

[@BenderdickCumbersnatch]

IS IS had different ideas. ;)

[@brycevo]

These games may be Weird, but they are fascinating

[@Doobie3010]

Brutal stuff,giving me flashbacks of typing in Crash! "games" for ages,then it not working! Back-in-the-day-Brutal knightmare!

[@TobyDeshane]

We had a whole BUNCH of these at the local library in Clinton, CT back in the 80s here in the US. They captivated me! Made the type-in games seem so absolutely epic with their terrific artwork and personality. (And it gave me a love for the Rockwell typeface. I think that was the name? 🤔)

[@Manterest]

"What is Tower of Terror then like?" - Video cuts and War Thunder -game add starts rolling. Me: not half bad for old game like that.

[@Kn8ght6930]

I was a 16 year old girl with a. If 20 and both those books. Spent hours typing those games. Most didn’t work.

[@AFarmerCalledChicken]

Was it interesting to get a game to work?

[@Ragnarok540]

The best part is when you fix them.

[@rzeka]

Angela Neal with a what?

[@F0r3v3rT0m0rr0w]

Programming is 20% programming 80% debugging.

[@CarrotConsumer]

@@rzeka Vic-20 probably.

[@davedogge2280]

i had those Usborne computer books and they just confused me so I went off to do a Computer Science degree. Usborne did these horror books, one on "real world" vampires, werewolves etc and another on supernatural powers .. I shat my pants reading those late at night.

[@WhatHoSnorkers]

I had the Usborne combined supernatural book as a kid. It was wonderful. I remember the weird powers one, where the Soviets where torturing plants and rabbits or something. I went to buy it on Amazon. They are EXPENSIVE. I bought mine as a kid from a fete for a quid!

[@davedogge2280]

@@WhatHoSnorkers There were three basic books in the Usborne Supernatural World series 1) Vampires, werewolves and demons, 2) Haunted Houses and spectres, 3)Mysterious Powers & Strange Forces. There was also a 'bumper eition' named: Usborne Guide to the Supernatural World, which had all of the 3 books 1-3 all in one big book. I dunno where they went but I used to love them.

[@WhatHoSnorkers]

@@davedogge2280 They were great... pricy as anything now (Like £45 for the bumper edition). I remember in the Mysterious Powers book they torture plants, have Kirlian Photographs, do ESP experiments with rabbits and everything. Usborne were the best. Their book on Spycraft ended up being discussed in the Old Bailey. I also loved their book on detectives, with Weedy Weekie (alias the Flat Man) who so should have been played by Billy Drago.

[@hanniffydinn6019]

The usborne horror book was great, it has a black skull on white page, you could stare at then see a ghostly skull on your bedroom wall! Great times !

[@WhatHoSnorkers]

@@hanniffydinn6019 I remember doing that! It was brilliant. Then again, every Usborne book was brilliant.

[@blobbem]

20:23 - "She turned me into a newt's toe! ... I got better."

[@glue105]

Just gonna put this up here: when Ashens at 6:13 said "what is Tower of Terror, like then?" I got a timestamp advert of that CG ad for Game Of Thrones mobile game... First thing I see is cg jon snow's face and could only think, WOW! Tower of Terror looked pretty good for 1984, amazing what a paragraph of code can make. XD

[@bland9876]

There was a version of Pac-Man where it would show you one letter on each side of Pac-Man and you had to hit that letter to go in that direction and the letter would change everytime you pressed it

[@irtbmtind89]

I remember getting these books from the school library in elementary school in the late 80s and early 90s. There were already outdated by then, the only computers I had access to were IBM clones without basic interpreters.

[@BandEater]

I don't have any interest in these games or the manuals that coincide with them but he seems to make anything funny or interesting. Bless you, Ashen Man.

[@AFarmerCalledChicken]

I understand these games were pretty cool or informative back in the day, but the only thing I learned is that I have no patience for these kinds of things and that I'm better at screaming at a television screen or my phone. Less breakage of important things.

[@RFC3514]

No, these games were never "cool" or "informative". Just really, really simple programming exercises that fit in a single page. Basically an introduction to programming appropriate for young children or people with a short attention span.

[@SakuraAvalon]

Hanniffy Dinn Hey look. It's the generation that shit the bed, then blames Millennial's for not being as shit as them.

[@AFarmerCalledChicken]

Hanniffy Dinn so... I was born in '94 fuckwad. I'm 25. I just don't enjoy these kinds of things because I find them difficult to learn. Sorry if I have a learning disability that I was diagnosed with when I was 12.

[@AFarmerCalledChicken]

RFC3514 not short enough! I have difficulty learning these kinds of thing, math is a close second to some of the most confusing things I've encountered.

[@MathewHaswell]

24:16 You awake, to find yourself in a Dark Room!

[@gwishart]

That'll teach you to get drunk at the photography club Christmas party.

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

> Turn on light. > Get out of bed. > Put on Gown. > Open Pocket. > Take Analgesic.

[@dunxy]

I used to love these books! Had a couple myself but luckily school library had a vast selection that i often checked out.Was something special about programming (and the always required troubleshooting) your own games.

[@soullessSiIence]

I don't know what am I gonna do the day Ashens stops making videos. I've grown up watching this.

[@Battledongus]

Oh wow my school had all of these i taught myself some basic though them and they were a fun read! Such a nostalgia hit seeing something I've read myself!

[@techbaffle]

I have a Usborne Internet-Connected Science Encyclopedia. The illustration is pretty mind blowing even to this day.

[@JohnnnyJohn]

For some reason I read the title as “Unborne”. I was expecting a book about unreleased games.

[@bruhmoment4378]

Johnny John computer fetus

[@Pikachu132]

I think I borrowed something like this from the library once, those illustrations look very familiar. It was more of a "childrens' guide to understanding how computers work, made for children without actual access to a computer", and all I really remember was a short comic strip explaining how IF-THEN-ELSE statements work by showing a guy's failed attempts at programming his robot to go shopping.

[@GregAdamsEternal]

Someone added the graphics to Tower of Terror and came up with Darkest Dungeon. This is quite possibly the actual inspiration for Darkest Dungeon!

[@RFC3514]

Don't insult Tower of Terror. Compared to Darkest Dungeon, Tower of Terror is a complex and realistic simulation.

[@lmpst7915]

Tower of terror? You mean Guardians Of The Galaxy.

[@wisteela]

I have a collection of these books, but I don't have this one. I do have them all as PDFs though. Also, you can get the Input magazines as PDFS. I have these, and originals in the binders. "cheese cassette" - The food you can rewind.

[@MrStabby19812]

Paul Potter nice only ever had the first issue. Real shame my spectrum bit the dust a few years ago.

[@hamishthepolarbear614]

I learned to program from the Usborne books, I had loads of them - I loved these things. I was the one nerdy kid who did actually play around with the code. I had a few of them using UDG and sound on the ZX Spectrum.

[@ПётрСемёновч]

Aaaah beans! Internet ruins fun yet again, no 4 hour stream of Stuart typing in code for me.

[@SailorMaxie]

This reminds me of a project I did a few years ago where I tried to make an entire text-based adventure game in a command prompt. I only got as far as you'd think for a 14-year old kid tinkering around in a .bat file.

[@gydeme]

15:30 it says just above it q=0 meaning it was a set variable

[@Mirality]

I still have a couple of these books (though I don't remember which ones). I've read (and programmed) most of the books from the library though. There were a couple of books where the whole book was dedicated to one bigger game with several pages of code. Of course, still just text games of various kinds, just with nice art in the book.

[@grahambretman4010]

I had that book.Remember typing in the code only to find it didn't work because I'd mistyped something,then couldn't be bothered to try again

[@osenator]

We had many of them, for the vic20!!! Including the one with the skeleton on the cover !! We did most of the games. Most sucks, sadly.

[@AtheistOrphan]

‘You see H’ ‘See how many people you can eat before H catches you’ This is of course referring to H from Steps.

[@RFC3514]

It's actually a metaphor for life as a rock star. The people you eat are groupies, while trying to not overdose on heroin.

[@user-lt2rw5nr9s]

2:21 Correction: BASIC is an interpreted language. There isn't any compilation involved.

[@RFC3514]

Correction: BASIC can be compiled, same as any other language. However, these systems did not "come with a built-in compiler", like Ashens says. If you wanted a compiler, you had to buy it separately.

[@Tubeite]

Your mouth is dry, your legs are shaking and your heart is thumping - you've entered the divorce court.

[@albertdalton3007]

“What is tower of terror like then” Me: (gets add for tower defense mobile game) Nice

[@outpostorange9580]

Been looking to see these games and mags, thanks

[@dansheppard2965]

The witch is flying over one of those "keep your distance" bits on a motorway I think. I guess that's why there's random animal body parts strewn around, too.

[@MsCherade9]

We had that exact book! And we had that first basic computer handbook too. We got a ZX Spectrum with 48K of RAM in 1983, as a Christmas present. I was 4 and my brother was 2, so you could say we were early adopters. We coded lots of games, my brother was especially good at it, whereas I preferred playing them and beating my wee brother...

[@Denhalen79]

I remember a game programming book that we had with the C64. Some games where several pages of source code. And you could make a mistake easy, so a game would not work properly. But there was one game that had a error printed on the page, so the game would never work right. How easy it was back then to program a simple game. I remember a submarine game, where you need to dodge depth bombs and shoot boats. But when you did the coding wrong, the submarine was messed up. Front part was in the middle.

[@IAMJAG108]

I had the fantasy adventure one. It was a really long code to type in and I could never get it to work. Taught me to code though. Beautiful artwork in these books. Happy memories.

[@kwiklikabunni]

Ah Usborne. I don't think I ever saw the video game books, but I do fondly remember borrowing the Usborne Puzzle Adventure series from the library.

[@4looming]

This actually looks like a lot of fun!

[@LeeDee5]

p = people ashens: h ... Eat the human!

[@kingrizzmusic]

This is inspiring me to learn to code

[@_Piers_]

If only goat's eyes did look that normal...nope, they're amazingly freaky.

[@FromeFmAjayD]

Whenever my heartbeat increases, I just feel compelled to jump out of the nearest window. It’s extremely inconvenient.

[@kabr0ne]

Ashens, i just have not been seeing your updates in my feed lately, instead i get them in my recommended section.