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Rediscovering BASIC programming — how retro coding helps me find focus and peace (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
16 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hey everyone,

I’m Ronen — I’m a hobbyist programmer, poet, and game dev enthusiast from Israel. I grew up in the 80s and 90s when BASIC was many people’s first window into programming and imagination.

These days, I’m rediscovering that old magic through retro-style BASIC projects — small text and DOS-like games, creative experiments, and tutorials — and I’m sharing them on my YouTube channel: youtube.com/@ron77-r5l

But this journey is more than just coding for me. I live with mental health challenges, and programming — especially in the simplicity of BASIC — has become a kind of therapy: it helps me focus, calm down, and build something meaningful even on difficult days.

I’m not here just to promote, but to connect. If anyone else finds comfort, focus, or healing in programming, I’d love to hear your experiences too. How has coding helped you through life challenges or tough mental states?

Thank you for letting me share a bit about myself — and if you want to see some of my BASIC experiments or talk retro dev, I’d be really happy to connect.

Ronen

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[–] 11 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Glad to hear that's working for you, and I can see why it would. Personally, I 'code relax' with small, low-investment creative coding project. Generative / algorithmic art, for example.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Hi, thanks for sending me a PM (mail). Nice to meet you - I've always loved basic, even if my programming journey started in 2016 at age 39 with VB.NET; however, I like FreeBASIC or GWBASIC, QBASIC, or even QB64 more than modern high-tech programming languages (I try to learn C and Euphoria too) - I guess I can afford it since it's just a hobby for fun not for fee :)

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Started out with PET BASIC on the Commodore 64 myself, back at the dawn of time. These days I'd probably just use Python if I wanted a easily comprehensible and managed language to do fun things in.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    When I was a kid in the 1980s, television was more appealing to me than the family computer. My older sister would input basic code (she would type it from kids' computer magazines) and then let me play those games on the Apple II, or afterward on the DOS IBM machine it wasn't till i was 23 years old till i had my very own computer and internet but didn't know what it was for then at age 30 2006-7 i started using my computer for writing poetry and only at 2015-16 did i finally decided to learn to code... I wouldn't try Python (although I tried it and have it on my Windows), I know it's easy, you just pip install whatever you need; however, if you code in C, FreeBASIC, or euphoria programming languages, you will be much more rewarded for your hard efforts and the challenges

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

    I have fond memories of transcribing reams of machine code encoded as BASIC data statements with a small prefixed loader out of the computer mags of the day. My mother would dictate and I would laboriously type, byte by byte. She... had the patience of a saint. I doubt she ever understood what we were doing or why.

    I was probably not an entirely typical child.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Yes, well, I guess you can say that also about me, kinda - not entirely typical childhood and not typical life :S In a sense, I'm lucky to be able to code, as I know some excellent programmers who, once they got mentally ill, could not code anymore

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (2 children)

    Given BASIC is what you enjoy, here's something else that might tickle your fancy: A while ago, there was this movement to revive not just the programming experience of the early microcomputers, but also create a similarly limited but easy to understand execution environment (though suitably modernized to make things less complicated). It was called 'fantasy consoles'. The idea is essentially to make some simple emulated hardware that never existed in real life and let people see what they could make with it. Quite a lot, as it turns out.

    I suspect you'd get a lot of enjoyment out of playing with something like PICO-8.

    There's a fair amount of demoscene productions for it as well.

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    • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I could see how going back to BASIC could be a mental safe space. It would definitely bring me back to my childhood.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Hi there - thanks for reaching out :) Nice to meet you - my coding journey started at the age of 39 in 2016 with VB.NET. I completely missed the 1980s and 1990s era of BASIC; however, even though 30 to 40 years have passed, I still try to code in modern DOS/Windows basics like FreeBASIC and occasionally even QB64. I really like it, although to code for DOS with FreeBASIC, or GWBASIC, or QBASIC, since it's just a hobby, I can afford it since I'm coding for fun, not money - I was told that if you start doing something for money, eventually you'll hate it - I think I agree with that...

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    • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    If I went back to BASIC, I'd be using modern programming practices still - No Gotos, All Subs

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 1 year ago

    Yep, that's what you have in FreeBASIC subs (void functions) and functions (that return a value). FreeBASIC is actually C programming in disguise; it's C with basic syntax and very powerful, plus any C library can be used with it (you just need to have the correct .bi header file for it)

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