RaptureDan’s the name, Ti-83 BASIC is my game
Jeff Atwood has a great blog for programmers: Coding Horror. His article about how he grew up with BASIC really brought back memories for me. BASIC was also my first exposure to programming. Although I did not have an Atari 2600 like Jeff, I did have a Ti-83 calculator. I don’t mean to boast, but I am kind of a big deal in the Ti-83 BASIC gaming world. In high school I spent many a classroom hour thumbing code into the tiny memory of a Ti-83 calculator. Using lots of inefficient GOTOs and Graph Screen pictures, I managed to create over 20 exciting games. I dabbled in assembly hoping to make the next Avalache or Penguins, but it was a little over my head at the time.
Using my old aol screenname, RaptureDan, I created my first real website: Only the Best of TI. It hosted my games and I even had tutorials to help others learn. I also submitted my games to the legendary ticalc.org and my games quickly got popular. I currently have the most downloaded Ti-83 BASIC game of all time, Agent007. Actually it was one of my worst games, and I think it was the James Bond reference that made it so popular. You can see all my Ti-83 games here. I am especially proud of Command & Conquer, (which was so big, you could only fit in one turn before running out of memory) and Quake, which was actually a networked FPS with AI bot (it got TiCalc.org September ‘98 Program of the Month!). Needless to say, I pushed it to the limits.
I then got into QBasic which was included with DOS and Windows (remember Gorillas, the pre-Worms banana-throwing game?) I ported some of my calculator games over and dabbled with sprites and some game physics (my Jeep game is unplayable now because it runs 100x faster, lol). Then I went to college to learn “real programming” and the rest is history.
One of these days I hope to have time to get back into creating video games. It really is the perfect balance between science, math, and art. I would at least like to take my old Ti-83 games and port them to Flash or even Javascript!
I leave you with this farewell from my glory days:
December 23 1998
Well, I’m not dead… just very busy. School, work, church, and driving around in my Beetle has taken up just about all my free time so I havnt been able to update my site, or work on any games. So due to a lack of time, and a loss of interest in calculator games, there will be no more updates to this site. As a final farewell, I have added the text version of Command & Conquer and I have added an example program to the Programming page. I will leave this page up cause it is helpful to many people, but dont expect any more updates any time soon. When I go to GA Tech, I will major in Computer Scince, so keep an eye out for me as a future game programmer!