First Computer Programming Book You Bought

[TarotRedhand]

I still have "Illustrating BASIC" (6th reprint 1981) by Donald Alcock. Published by the Cambridge University Press and first released in 1977. It covers Dartmouth BASIC and I bought before I had any computer.

So over to you. What was your first computer programming (there are other types of programming) book that you actually bought?

TR

[SMcNeill]

I'd say the first one I'd ever bought was the books I needed for my first year computer classes in college. Before that, I mainly studied books or magazines which came from our school's library.

[bobalooie]

101 Thins To Do With Your TRS-80.

[bplus]

There were MS Manual and reference with purchase of software.

I remember a book published by Que QB by Example? but the cover they show on Internet is all wrong!
2nd was Basic Techniques and Utilities by Ethan Winer, cr 1991.

[TarotRedhand]

There were MS Manual and reference with purchase of software.

I remember a book published by Que QB by Example? but the cover they show on Internet is all wrong!
2nd was Basic Techniques and Utilities by Ethan Winer, cr 1991.

Ethan Winer submitted 9 things on FidooNet that ended up in the ABC packets from 1991 to 1999. I knew the name was familiar so I checked using ABC95.EXE.

TR

[dano]

Getting Started With Color Basic (Tandy)

This book kept me awake so many nights...kept me away from schoolwork so many days.  I was 14 at the time and addicted to my computer.  A whopping 4K of RAM and I initially thought 'How could anyone write a program that big'.  Well, in no time I had to upgrade to 16K via a hack posted in one of the monthly rags.  Cassette tape storage and you learned to make backups (additional copies) of your work.  You also learned the value of buying quality cassettes...  

[OldMoses]

I got an Apple ][+ for my first computer. It came with several manuals, remember those days? Spiral bound paper manuals. I guess "The Applesoft Tutorial" qualifies as my first programming book. There was also "Applesoft ][ Basic Programmer's Reference Manual" and a book on DOS 3.3. I spent many blissfully ignorant years writing hopeless spaghetti code.

After I got into QBasic, I grabbed a copy of "QBasic for Dummies"

[Pete]

Get Off Your ASCII and Learn Graphics

Obviously, it set on the shelf, never opened.

Okay: The Revolutionary QBasic

Good book, lots of example programs, install disk so you could just copy and paste to try them. A good reference as well. Most of my "learning" didn't come from books. More from experimenting with keywords although looking up what a keyword was for was certainly a help getting started.

Pete

[CharlieJV]

I still have "Illustrating BASIC" (6th reprint 1981) by Donald Alcock. Published by the Cambridge University Press and first released in 1977. It covers Dartmouth BASIC and I bought before I had any computer.

So over to you. What was your first computer programming (there are other types of programming) book that you actually bought?

TR

If it counts: Personal Computing On The VIC-20 (1982)(Commodore) that came with the VIC-20 when I got it as a gift in the spring of '84.

My first real programming book when I got to college in 1988: Basic Fundamentals And Style By Quasney, James S (1984)

[madscijr]

Mine was "COMPUTE's First Book of TI Games" for the TI99/4A, and look it's available here.

It started me off on a journey that I'm still on almost 40 years later! :-D

I would like to eventually make an interpreter in QB64, for my old TI99/4A BASIC creations (regular not Extended BASIC). It should be doable, except I'm not sure how you would emulate the sound commands. It seems the sound commands in QuickBasic and QB64 are a little rudimentary. Now if we could get some commands more like the WebAudio API on the other hand... ? :-D

But anyway those COMPUTE! books with type-in programs were amazing!