[HN Gopher] 1981 BASIC adventure game comes to a new platform, t...
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1981 BASIC adventure game comes to a new platform, the TRS-80 MC-10
Author : vontzy
Score : 18 points
Date : 2025-08-04 15:19 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.arctic81.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.arctic81.com)
| simmons wrote:
| Very cool! I had an MC-10 when I was a little kid. It was my
| first computer, and I didn't know anyone else who had one. I
| didn't have the book with this Arctic Adventure program, but I
| had another book with an adventure game you could type in. [1] I
| stayed up past my bedtime and spent significant time typing it
| in. However, after typing in much of the program, I encountered
| my very first "out of memory" error. I was astonished that 4KB of
| RAM wouldn't be enough, and that I was going to need a better
| computer!
|
| I clearly had the wrong book for that computer. ;)
|
| [1] https://www.retroprogrammez.fr/listings/aventure/cia/
| TMWNN wrote:
| As the article alludes, the MC-10 was intended to fight super-
| cheap computers that many thought the industry was moving to,
| specifically the ZX81 AKA Timex-Sinclair 1000.
|
| Two things happened:
|
| * Americans had more money to spend than Britons, and weren't
| interested in TS1000 even with 2K of RAM compared to ZX81's 1K.
|
| * Commodore. Specifically, Jack Tramiel so aggressively lowered
| VIC-20's price--forcing others to follow--that by the time MC-10
| hit the market, VIC-20 was already at $99. So was TI 99/4A,
| preempting TI's own 99/2 import fighter.
|
| Commodore even ended up preempting itself, with (after Tramiel's
| departure) Commodore 16 ending up selling for more than VIC-20
| with zero software.
| timbit42 wrote:
| Jack intended the Commodore 16 to sell for $49 and the Plus/4
| for $79.
|
| He wanted the Commodore 16 to replace the VIC-20 (both with
| graphics and sound in one chip to reduce costs) with a faster
| CPU, higher resolution graphics (could run PET/C64 40x25
| educational apps), more color, and a better BASIC. He wanted
| the Plus/4 for small business owners who couldn't afford an IBM
| PC.
|
| He left before the computers were completed and Commodore
| Marketing decided to position the Plus/4 as an upgrade from the
| Commodore 64 for $299. Due to being worse than the Commodore 64
| and more expensive, it flopped in the market.
|
| The Commodore 16 was $99 but the Commodore 64 was almost as
| inexpensive by then and had 64K of RAM, sprites, and lots of
| games. The VIC-20 would have been cancelled instead of letting
| it compete with the Commodore 16 until January 1985.
|
| If the computers had been priced as Jack intended, they would
| have been more successful and the Commodore 16 might have even
| outsold the VIC-20.
|
| Also, the Plus/4 ROM apps were terrible because someone decided
| to cut the ROM size, forcing the apps to but trimmed down and
| making them next to useless. If that hadn't happened, they
| would have been of more use to small businesses.
| anthk wrote:
| Adapt it to Inform6/ZMachine.
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