2026-02-08
I don't think I've even looked at most of this stuff in 10-15 years, but since we live in the future now, you can run it in a browser, using js-dos. Check the rendering options in the settings of the applet below, there is a smooth option if the default pixelated setting is annoying.
How did you first learn to program? Everyone seems to have their own story. When I was a kid, it wasn't the 1980s, nor was it more recent times - it seems like nobody paid any thought to having kids "learn to code" at that time. So it would be something I had to come across on my own.
This happened one day in elementary school. I had found a couple of the Usborne Computer Books in the school library. In the mid 2000's, these were horribly out of date, but I didn't know that. I was hooked immediately regardless, but for a while I didn't have a computer I could program on. There's something to be said for being able to turn on a computer like the TRS-80 and be ready to type in a program instantly. No programs to install, permissions issues, compiler options, or other things that you don't know about when you're a kid and have no idea how computers work.
That changed when I was given a Sanyo MBC-555 (which I still have), and I could finally try out some of the BASIC programs in the book. That computer had BASIC, but also ran a non-PC compatible MS-DOS, which I also had no idea how to use. Using other 90's scrap computers, I began to learn DOS and how computers were put together and configured. I learned that BASIC was upgraded to QBASIC on MS-DOS, so I started using that. Eventually, I found a couple of mid 90's Toshiba Satellite Pro laptops at a garage sale for $13, and those became the computers I would carry around and write QBASIC programs on to amuse my friends. When I didn't have them, I would run DOSBox on a normal PC. One of my friends had an old Windows CE Handheld PC - we found a DOS emulator for it and would run QBASIC on it too. I started learning embedded/microcontrollers around the same time; these were also programmed in BASIC (since that's what I knew), with the PICAxe. Picking up some more complicated projects with the Arduino is how I finally moved on from BASIC.
It's worth noting that Arduino and Raspberry Pi were brand new when I was a teenager, they were by no means the default thing where everyone learns Processing/C and Python like it is these days. I used QBASIC for quite a while though, since I was only making funny meme programs, I never needed anything else. Plus, QBASIC has an extensive manual built in to the program, so no need to go on the internet or get out a book to look things up. There was only one computer in the household that had internet anyways.
I still think BASIC is an ideal language for kids to learn. It's refreshingly self contained in an always-online world, and you don't need to worry about it becoming obsolete, because that happened long ago.
When you leave teenagers unsupervised and let them freely code a program amongst themselves, the Fish Program is what you get. It's not really a game, it's more like an interactive slide show. Think something like The Impossible Quiz. We filled it full of insults, a bunch of inside jokes and random=funny humor, and that was the fish game.
It started one day where one of us went "You should make a fish program. It would draw a fish on the screen and be like 'this is a fish'. That would be pretty cool." No drugs or alcohol were involved (indeed it was probably a lack of medication).
For my part, I spent many more hours making and refining secret backdoor dev consoles, and getting the title screen just right, than I ever did adding content to the "game". I made several different versions where I tried different things; the most complete is probably v3A (they don't go in order, it went V1, V2, V3, V4, V3A, V5...)
I don't know what else to say about it, but here's a contemporary account from me at the time. Make of it what you will.
The fish program v2 does have the honor of being where my green fish logo comes from. It doesn't represent anything; it's just something I had and was like "why not use this for my profile picture everywhere."
Part of the fish program v3, this is one of the first things I made that has actually interactive graphics. Use the I J K L and Space keys.
There was this one kid called Faheem. Among one of the many unusual things he would do is that if you needed a hypothetical person's name to use as an example, whereas most people would pick something like "Dave" or "Bob", he would smash several short names together. So you would get things like "Joe Sam", "Bob Bill", and "Bob Joe Jim Bob". We thought this was so funny that we put every common name into a program and then fit them together in random lengths and orders. We would sit in from of the screen for hours, laughing at the best randomly generated names that would pop up. Yes, just like the meme. As for Faheem himself, he would go on to medical school and become a doctor.
While learning MS-DOS things, I learned about text adventures like Colossal Cave, so I tried to make my own. I got most of a game engine done for it, but never got to make a real game. Added it to the end of Fish Game V2.
Not quite a PONG clone, it has gravity and you can only hit the ball up and backwards, and have to drop it on an angle to get it across the field. A strange one, I made it before taking a physics class, so it's all based on kinematics.
2 player, use A S D and J K L keys. Objective is to drop the ball as had as you can on your opponent's side of the triangle thing. If the ball hits the ground on your side, you lose all your points.
an extermely low-quality Cookie Clicker-inspired game.
a Morse Code generator. Lights up the letters as it sounds them out. I think I made this to teach myself morse code, but I still haven't.
Either all or most of the QBASIC programs I used to have on my laptop are here on the emulator.
Try opening QuickBasic directly and go to File -> Open to find even more old QBASIC programs. A lot of them involved using the PLAY to make various beeps, for some reason.
In the Other folder there are some more programs that I didn't write, but they ended up in my archive anyways.
If, for whatever reason, you want to run these on DOSBox yourself, or real hardware, for that matter, here are the files.
For more fish game related stuff, you can try this old Dropbox link, although I've put every .BAS file I could find into the pack here.