[mdf]

I remember, as a child, attempting to reproduce the BASIC program in one of the MAD magazine issues. Somewhere, I had made a typo, which completely screwed the output. I guessed that the tediousness of the whole exercise was part of the joke, shrugged, and moved on.

Luckily, someone else succeeded: https://meatfighter.com/mad/

[arp242]

It was pretty common to distribute code as "listing" like this. Typically it came with a checksum for every line and a small program to compute and print that for your own program that you had typed over, which you could then use to fairly quickly(-ish) spot any typos.

All of this is how I learned to program by the way. Kids these days don't know how easy they have it.

[pimlottc]

Huh, we used to type in BASIC programs from magazines back in the 1980s and I don’t ever recall seeing any kinds of checksum. We would often resort to printing out the code and visually comparing line by line against the magazine.

[arp242]

The first edition of MSX Computer Magazine from 1985 has them, and I doubt they were the first or invented it: https://www.msxcomputermagazine.nl/archief/bladen/msx_comput...

Perhaps it was less common in other countries? Things were a lot less global back then and things operated more on a local level.

[pimlottc]

We mostly had Family Computing magazine. I looked up an issue from 1985 with one of my favorite type-by-hand games, Hit or Miss [0], and no sight of a helpful checksum.

To be honest, the idea of it would have blown my mind back then; the idea that your BASIC code is just a text file that can be processed by other programs is something that would never have occurred to me.

https://archive.org/details/FamilyComputingIssue041983Dec/Fa...

[kenjackson]

Checksums became popular at some point in the 80s. I remember when COMPUTE! first added them they were a godsend. Especially for the machine language programs that were just pages of data statements.

[mrandish]

In the early 80s I never saw checksums on code listings but by the mid-80s it was fairly common, although certainly not universal.

[mellavora]

Checksums! Bah, I used to have to code uphill both ways in the snow, and I liked it!

[Mountain_Skies]

Checksums were a great idea but I just could never resist the temptation to make changes to the program as I was typing it in.

[tyre]

> Kids these days don't know how easy they have it.

Maybe it’s rose-colored glasses, but I have much fonder memories of programming basic on a Ti-84 calculator than debugging an import incompatibility between. Es5 and CommonJS modules

[latexr]

I would take typing a program by hand from printed paper over dealing with npm, any day.

Thankfully I have to do neither.

[evanelias]

Excellent link, thank you for posting this.

In case there are any other Sergio Aragones superfan weirdos like me here, who only click MAD-related stories in order to command-f for "Sergio Aragones" and then move on when inevitably there are no results: today's your lucky day, click that link above!

[derencius]

nice. I'm a Groo fan.

[dole]

The Commodore version of the source in the magazine never worked. I probably typed it in at least five times in whole thinking I'd screwed something up. It wasn't until a few years ago (from an HN post, no less) that I found the link above and finally, finally got to see what the code did.

[jordigh]

It's a sign error.

https://github.com/asig/MAD_computer_program?tab=readme-ov-f...

[m463]

dedication to create an svg version...

https://meatfighter.com/mad/mad.svg

[jordigh]

A port to GNU Octave...

   x = [
   -27,-11,-23,-6,-28,-13,-22,-6,-20,-5,-12,-5,-27,-14,-26,-13 ...
   -38,-29,-42,-28,-40,-28,-50,-16,-8,13,0,13,-29,4,-29,9 ...
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   36,-52,36,-55,-37,-48,-32,-56,-32,-56,-26,-60,9,-74,33,-55 ...
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   -34,-2,-33,6,25,7,29,7,30,8,30,6,31,8,35,9 ...
   -33,3,-33,-1,33,8,36,8,36,7,36,2,35,4,35,7 ...
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   64,83,58,86,64,53,55,48,56,49,43,49,47,48,55,48,58,86,46,86 ...
   42,84,46,85,44,50,39,52,42,50,39,51,41,85,40,85,39,86,33,86 ...
   38,51,33,48,35,79,35,58,34,79,34,58,34,57,32,56,34,80,32,79 ...
   32,85,30,83,31,83,31,80,30,82,30,79,31,55,29,55,33,49,23,49 ...
   32,48,25,48,24,50,22,50,28,55,17,78,18,79,20,79,20,80,20,84 ...
   21,51,18,48,19,50,17,48,16,48,14,48,17,49,14,49,19,85,11,86 ...
   13,48,12,53,12,48,11,53,11,54,15,57,15,58,14,59,14,59,-1,59 ...
   14,58,-2,58,10,85,7,83,6,84,1,86,0,86,-5,85,-6,84,-6,80,-7,83,-7,79 ...
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   0,55,1,55,1,54,1,50,0,50,-1,48,-2,48,-7,48,-2,49,-6,49,-6,48,-9,51 ...
   -7,48,-10,50,-11,49,-17,49,-12,48,-16,48,-17,48,-21,51,-18,48,-22,50 ...
   -15,55,-16,55,-17,56,-22,78,-21,79,-19,79,-19,80,-19,84,-23,49,-30,49 ...
   -24,48,-30,48,-31,48,-31,55,-32,54,-32,49,-30,55,-28,55 ...
   -20,85,-25,86,-26,85,-29,83,-28,55,-32,70,-28,55,-31,71 ...
   -28,83,-33,86,-34,86,-37,86,-32,70,-41,49,-38,85,-40,84 ...
   -40,83,-40,81,-41,83,-41,79,-40,80,-37,78,-37,78,-41,65 ...
   -42,65,-38,78,-43,64,-48,78,-47,79,-45,79,-45,80,-45,84 ...
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   -48,49,-56,71,-56,71,-60,56,-52,85,-54,84,-55,83,-59,85 ...
   -60,86,-64,86,-59,55,-58,54,-57,54,-55,55,-55,54,-55,50 ...
   -56,50,-57,48,-57,49,-61,49,-58,48,-60,48,-61,48,-64,51 ...
   -62,48,-65,50,-65,85,-67,84,-67,83,-67,79,-68,83,-68,79,-66,79,-64,79 ...
   -63,78,-68,56,-69,55,-64,78,-66,49,-72,49,-68,48,-73,48 ...
   -69,55,-73,55,-73,55,-73,48,-74,49,-74,54 ...
   61,71,61,65,60,73,60,63,59,73,59,72,60,65,58,60 ...
   59,61,54,56,59,74,55,78,59,75,54,80,54,80,48,80 ...
   46,79,55,79,54,56,48,56,47,57,46,57,47,78,46,78 ...
   45,78,45,58,7,76,11,66,10,66,6,76,9,66,1,66,0,66,6,75];

   l = reshape(x, 4, 522)';
   [x1, y1, x2, y2] = deal(l(:,1), l(:,2), l(:,3), l(:,4));
   sz = 1.2;
   xc = 140;
   yc = 90;
   fx = x1*sz + xc; fy = 176 - (y1 + yc);
   lx = x2*sz + xc; ly = 176 - (y2 + yc);
   plot([fx+1, lx+1]', [fy, ly]', '-b', [fx, lx]', [fy, ly]', '-b');
   axis tight;
   axis off;
   axis ij;
   h = title('What, me worry?');
   set(h, 'position', [140, 170]);

[froh]

oh great.

the listing is missing checksums! madness!

we're in 2024, checksums are the least I can expect.

[b112]

It's worse than that. It's actually an AGI seed. If you run it, you get an AI which quickly gains sentience... but it's Mad.