Nick Montfort, Ian Bogost, Casey Reas, Mark Sample...

10 PRINT

• 10 PRINT works regularly in space, time and process. ★
• 10 PRINT is both a product of and a demonstration of the force of computation regularity
• 10 PRINT, the structure of the grid is what makes it possible to focus on the variability created thought the random operations.
• The abstraction that makes the emergent elegance of 10 PRINT's output possible in such a small set of instructions is not enterly a feature of the BASIC interpreter, but also depends on the underlying hardware and operation system of Commdore 64: ★
  • Automatic scroll
  • PETSCII characters

BASIC

• BASIC was a language specifically designed for the next computing revolution, one that would go beyond punched cards and batch processing to allow numerous users interactive access to a system simultaneously. This revolution was time-sharing.
• BASIC was designed in other ways to help new programmers, with "error messages that were clear and friendly"and default options that would satisfy most users needs. If the expert needs something fancier, let the expert do the extra work" - Kemeny and Kurtz ★
• Just as any student may go in and browse the library or check out any book he wishes without asking for permission or explaining why he wants that particular book, he may use the computation center without asking permission or explaining why he is running a particular program. ★
• In 1991 Microsoft reenvisioned BASIC to produce Visual Basic, a language that was intended to fulfill the ease of use and rapid development capabilities of BASIC under the new paradigm of window-based interfaces. [...] was designed for use with graphical development tools.

General

• uncertainly is a key component of meaningful play. Once the outcome of a game is now, the game becomes meaningless. Incorporating chance into the game helps delay the moment when the outcome will become obvious.
• Digital computers are deterministic devices.
• the goal of making random numbers more random will be critical for securing society's constant digital transactions.
• Black and Hispanic families were far less likely to have a computer at home in the 1980s, and by 1997, this gap had translated into a digital divide online, in which Whites were twice as likely as Blacks and Hispanics to use the Internet