HACKER Q&A
📣 itay-maman

Help me find an old Atari 800/800XL program – "Tortoise and the Hare"


I'm trying to track down a program I remember from the Atari 800 era (early-to-mid 1980s). I believe it was from a book — a fairly substantial one, at least 200 pages — that covered many different aspects of Atari BASIC programming.

The program was from the graphics chapter(s) and was a visual demonstration of the Tortoise and the Hare fable using Atari graphics (Graphics 5, if I remember correctly). Two rectangular areas were drawn on screen. The Tortoise filled its area pixel by pixel, systematically. The Hare filled its area by plotting lines between two randomly chosen points inside its rectangle — which covered a lot of pixels quickly but, due to the random approach, always finished last.

In case it helps identify the book: another program from the same graphics section drew a detailed picture of the Atari computer itself — keyboard, cartridge slot, and all — using Graphics 8.

Does anyone remember this, or know which book it came from?


  👤 Garvey Accepted Answer ✓
After a quick bit of sleuthing, I believe it's this one: https://archive.org/details/ataribooks-atari-games-and-recre...

Page 47 for Tortoise and the Hare, page 245 for the Atari drawing.