Isn't this great?!?!  While buying a couch with my roommates back in university, I found this gem on sale for 25¢.  What a bargain for a piece of computing history!

For the Commodore 64, VIC 20; Apple II, II Plus, IIe; IBM PC, PCjr; Atari 400, 800, XL Series; Radio Shack Color Computer; and TI 99/4A.

Now those were the personal computer platforms of yesteryear that a whole generation of geeks were raised on! Sadly, my own first computer, the Sinclair ZX-81, is not present, nor my second, the Apple //c. Many of my friends did have some of them: Scott in Kailua had a VIC20, Don in San Diego had a Apple IIe.

The book is not organized in traditional chapters, but rather a forward followed by a few dozen progressively more complex BASIC programs and no index. 

The forward contains explanations on how to use the book (mostly for getting the programs to run on the various computer's BASIC interpreters) and tips that make me giggle.

The Curse of the Missing Line Numbers It's easy to skip a line by accident when you're typing a long program. Remember: Every program in the book includes a REM statement on line 10 with the name of the program. The next line in ever program is line 100, and the lines count up by tens from there, like this: 10 REM USELESS PROGRAM 100 INPUT X 110 INPUT Y 120 PRINT Z

Line numbers. Fantastic!

The very first program just print out an ASCII art Olympic flame.  The second actually has some logic:

Olympic Years The Olympic Games are held ever four years.  But can you tell whether a particular year in the future -- say, the year you'll turn 18 -- will have Olympic Games?  This program can.  And since Olympic years are also United States presidential election years and leap years, you'll be able to find out about those too. Did you know that the sixth Olympic Games were never held, because of World War I -- and that Games XII and XIII were canceled during World War II? Sample Run WILL A YEAR IN THE FUTURE BE AN OLYMPIC YEAR? TO FIND OUT, JUST ENTER THE YEAR YOU WANT TO CHECK? 1987 SORRY: NO OLYMPICS IN 1987 RUN WILL A YEAR IN THE FUTURE BE AN OLYMPIC YEAR? TO FIND OUT, JUST ENTER THE YEAR YOU WANT TO CHECK? 2004 THE YEAR 2004 WILL HAVE OLYMPICS NUMBER 28. Program Listing 10 REM OLYMPIC GAMES 100 PRINT 110 PRINT "WILL A YEAR IN THE FUTURE" 120 PRINT "BE AN OLYMPIC YEAR?" 130 PRINT 140 PRINT "TO FIND OUT, JUST ENTER THE" 150 PRINT "YEAR YOU WANT TO CHECK"; 160 INPUT YEAR 170 PRINT 180 IF YEAR >1938 THEN 210 190 PRINT "I SAID A YEAR IN THE FUTURE!" 200 GOTO 160 210 IF INT(YEAR/4)=YEAR/4 THEN 240 220 PRINT "SORRY: NO OLYMPICS IN ";YEAR 230 END 240 OD=23+(YEAR-1984)/4 250 PRINT "THE YEAR ";YEAR 250 PRINT "WILL HAVE OLYMPICS NUMBER";OD; "."

Sigh...that does bring back the memories, the countless hours thinking with the ZX-81's limited form of BASIC, the countless days spent programming the //c and learning it's deeper secrets.  (POKE, anyone?). It never, ever occurred to me back then that programming would bring home the proverbial (vegetarian) bacon, that it would be come a life long passion, or that line numbers and GOTO statements would be considered bad form. Sigh...those were the days.

One of the authors, Stephan Manes, has gone to to publish several computer books, the most recent of which seems to be the 2002 Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry--and Made Himself the Richest Man in America with Paul Andrews. Computer Olympics can still be found on sale on Amazon.com, used of course, for $1.44!