Today computers are everywhere: at home, at work, on desks, in bags, in pockets. Nevertheless, for many supposedly computer literate people the title of this book will be as meaningful as Latin or Old English. Some of the words will seem vaguely familiar, but the meaning may be difficult to understand. For those who were introduced to the world of computers in the 1980 s, however, the title draws the reader back to a very different computing age where users were not greeted by seamless graphical user interfaces but rather a blinking cursor, and users were invited not to click on icons but to type commands and enter programs. In 10 PRINT the authors explore one short program that is also the title of the book, with a close reading of the code providing valuable insights into the way code interacts with culture and can be heavily determined by the platform on which it is running.
The particular program that is the focus of this book creates a random maze-like pattern across the screen when run on a Commodore 64, one of the most popular home computers of the 1980 s. The first chapter considers the cultural context of mazes. The second chapter considers regularity and repetition in programming, as well as the demise of the much-maligned GOTO statement. The third chapter considers the randomness of our cultural understanding, and the pseudo-randomness that is exhibited in a program such as 10 PRINT. The fourth chapter explains the origins of BASIC and the fifth, the history of the Commodore 64. In addition to the five main chapters (not including the introduction and conclusion) there are also six “remarks”. “Remark” alludes to the BASIC statement that allowed programmers to leave comments within their code, and the six remarks in this book explore variations on the canonical 10 PRINT program.
This is without a doubt the most interesting and enjoyable book I have had the pleasure of reviewing for an academic journal. However, it is important to stress its applicability to the readers of Online Information Review as well as the pleasures it afforded a nostalgic reviewer. The exploration in such detail of a single line of code and its context provides valuable insights into the cultural and technical context that frames the creation of any code, and should therefore be of interest to anyone interested in the online information which inevitably sits on top of a whole series of code. It is not necessary to have experienced programming in BASIC, or indeed any language, to appreciate the book. Those with no programming experience may be tempted to skip over some of the more detailed breakdowns of programming code, but the book will inevitably raise the reader's interest in programming, and they can always return to those parts at a later date.
