Nick Montfort
For sale at MIT Press.
By Nick Montfort, Patsy Baudoin, John Bell, Ian Bogost, Jeremy Douglass, Mark C. Marino, Michael Mateas, Casey Reas, Mark Sample and Noah Vawter
This book takes a single line of code–the extremely concise BASIC program for the Commodore 64 inscribed in the title–and uses it as a lens through which to consider the phenomenon of creative computing and the way computer programs exist in culture. The authors of this collaboratively written book treat code not as merely functional but as a text–in the case of 10 PRINT, a text that appeared in many different printed sources–that yields a story about its making, its purpose, its assumptions, and more. They consider randomness and regularity in computing and art, the maze in culture, the popular BASIC programming language, and the highly influential Commodore 64 computer.
All royalties from the sale of this book are being donated to the Electronic Literature Organization, a nonprofit organization to advance work with important literary aspects that takes advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer. The ELO helps to collect, preserve, describe, and discuss aesthetic and poetic work, from long-form projects to short programs such as 10 PRINT.
