A type-in program, or just type-in, is a computer program listing printed in a computer magazine or book, meant to be typed in by the reader in order to run the program on a computer. Very common in the early home computer era of the late 1970s and early 1980s, type-ins existed because of the period's lack of inexpensive portable storage media for inclusion in magazines and books, as well as the relatively short length needed for an instructive and/or entertaining program for home computers with main memories of a few (tens of) kilobytes. A computer program or software program (usually abbreviated to a program) is a step-by-step list of instructions written for a particular computer architecture in a particular computer programming language. ... This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ... Computer magazines are about computers and related subjects, such as networking and the Internet. ... TRS-80 Color Computer II The home computer is a consumer-friendly word for the second generation of microcomputers (the technical term that was previously used), entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 1980s. ... Primary storage is a category of computer storage, often called main memory. ... A kilobyte (derived from the SI prefix kilo-, meaning 1000) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to either 1024 or 1000 bytes. ...

Description

Type-ins were usually written in BASIC or a combination of BASIC and machine language. In the latter case, the opcodes and operands of the machine language part were often simply given as DATA statements within the BASIC program, and were loaded using a POKE loop (few users had access to an assembler^[1]). In some cases, a special program for entering machine language as more compact hexadecimal code was provided. The downside of large machine code programs published as DATA statements inside a BASIC wrapper program was that the resulting listing was very long and utterly boring, with nothing but impersonal numbers repeating over and over again. This made actually typing in the programs a very laborious task.^[2] BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of high-level programming languages. ... A system of codes directly understandable by a computers CPU is termed this CPUs native or machine language. ... Microprocessors perform operations using binary bits (on/off/1or0). ... In computing, PEEK is a BASIC programming language function used for reading the contents of a memory cell at a specified address. ... An assembler is a computer program for translating assembly language — essentially, a mnemonic representation of machine language — into object code. ... In mathematics and computer science, hexadecimal, or simply hex, is a numeral system with a radix or base of 16 usually written using the symbols 0–9 and A–F or a–f. ... This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ...

Beyond the manual labor of type-ins, it was not uncommon for certain magazines to print poor quality listings, presenting the reader with nearly illegible characters; this typically happened when transferring the list output from the era's ubiquitous 7–8-pin dot-matrix printers directly to the printing presses—sometimes even without prettyprinting (a particularly bad negligence in regard to listings which contained graphical characters representing control codes, used for e.g. cursor movements; such characters tended to be less legible than alphanumeric ones in the first place). In other cases, the original program listing was already full of bugs by the time it had been type-set into the magazine, much to the frustration of readers. Magazines often issued "errata" notices for bad listings in subsequent issues. A dot matrix printer or impact matrix printer normally refers to a type of computer printer with a print-head that runs back and forth on the page and prints by impact, striking an ink-soaked cloth ribbon against the paper, much like a typewriter. ... To prettyprint (or pretty-print) is to make something, commonly some printed material, appear more appealing to the human eye. ... In computing, a control character or non-printing character, is a code point (a number) in a character set that does not, in itself, represent a written symbol. ... A cursor is a movable marker that indicates a position. ... Generally speaking, the term alphanumeric refers to anything that consists of only letters and numbers. ... A computer bug is an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program that prevents it from working as intended, or produces an incorrect result. ...

Manual code entry was also prone to typing errors on the side of the users, resulting in some US and European magazines developing checksum programs, which flashed a two or three-character checksum in the corner of the screen every time a user entered a line. The checksum could then be compared to the corresponding checksum in the listing, and the line corrected if a mismatch occurred.^[3] A checksum is a form of redundancy check, a very simple measure for protecting the integrity of data by detecting errors in data that is sent through space (telecommunications) or time (storage). ...

Other solutions existed for the tedium of typing in seemingly-endless lines of code. Freelance authors wrote most magazine type-in programs and, in the accompanying article, often provided readers a mailing address to send a small sum (US$3 was the standard) to buy the program on disk or tape. By the mid-1980s, recognising this demand from readers, many US-published magazines offered all of each issue's type-ins on an optional disk, often with a bonus program or two. Some UK magazines occasionally offered a free flexible plastic cover disc that played on a vinyl record player connected to the microcomputer's cassette input. This article is about general United States currency. ... Edison cylinder phonograph from about 1899 The phonograph, or gramophone, was the most common device for playing recorded sound from the 1870s through the 1980s. ...

History

Type-in programs preceded the dawn of the home computer era. As David H. Ahl wrote in 1983: 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In 1971, while education product line manager at Digital Equipment Corp., I put out a call for games to educational institutions throughout North America. I was overwhelmed with the response. I selected the best games and put them together in a book, 101 Basic Computer Games. After putting the book together on my own time, I convinced reluctant managers at DEC to publish it. They were convinced it wouldn't sell. It, plus its sequel, More Basic Computer Games have sold over half a million copies proving that people are intrigued by computer games.^[4]

Most early computer magazines ran type-in programs. The professional and business-oriented journals such as BYTE and Popular Computing printed them less frequently, while consumer-oriented publications, especially those platform-specific such as Compute!'s Gazette (Commodore) and Antic (Atari), ran several each issue. Whether in book or magazine form, the programs were sometimes specific to a given home computer and sometimes compatible with several computers. Although such programs were usually copyrighted, authors often encouraged users (in an early form of open source software) to modify them, adding capabilities or otherwise changing them to suit their needs. 1971 (MCMLXXI) is a common year starting on Friday (click for link to calendar). ... Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering company in the American computer industry. ... The front cover of the April 1981 issue of BYTE (Vol 6. ... Compute!s Gazette was a computer magazine of the 1980s, directed at to users of Commodore home computers. ... Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore International, a West Chester, Pennsylvania based electronics company who was a vital player in the home/personal computer field in the 1980s. ... ANTIC (Alpha-Numeric Television Interface Circuit) was an early video system chip used in the Atari 8-bit family of microcomputers as well as some of Ataris video game consoles of the 1980s. ... For the concept Atari (当たり) in the board game of Go, see Atari (go term). ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ...

While most type-ins were simple games or utilities and likely only to hold a user's interest for a short time, some were very ambitious, rivaling commercial software. Perhaps the most famous example is the type-in word processor SpeedScript, published by Compute! magazine for several computers starting in 1984. It retained a following into the next decade as users refined and added capabilities to it. A word processor (also more formally known as a document preparation system) is a computer application used for the production (including composition, editing, formatting, and possibly printing) of any sort of viewable or printed material. ... SpeedScript 3. ... Compute! was a classic computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. ... 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

As the cost of cassette tapes and floppy disks declined, and as the sophistication of commercial programs and the technical capabilities of the computers they ran on steadily increased, the importance of the type-in declined. In Europe, magazine cover tapes/disks became common, and type-ins became virtually non-existent. In North America, type-ins remained popular for 8-bit computers well into the 1990s, although type-ins for 16/32-bit computers quickly faded. Some magazines continued to print short code snippets for instruction purposes from time to time, but these 10–20-line segments would not be considered type-in programs in the proper sense. Typical audio 60-minute Compact Cassette. ... A floppy disk is a data storage device that is composed of a ring of thin, flexible (i. ... World map showing Europe A satellite composite image of Europe Europe is conventionally considered one of the seven continents which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiogeographic one. ... Cover disks (also commonly called by the single word coverdisks) were floppy disks with pre-installed content sold with issues of home computer magazines. ... World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America. ... 8-bit refers to the number of bits used in the data bus of a computer. ... The 1990s decade refers to the years from 1990 to 1999, inclusive, the last decade of the 20th Century. ... In computer science, 16-bit is an adjective used to describe integers that are at most two bytes wide, or to describe CPU architectures based on registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. ... 32-bit is a term applied to processors, and computer architectures which manipulate the address and data in 32-bit chunks. ...

Although type-in programs have disappeared today, the tradition of distributing software with magazines lived on, especially in Europe, with 3½" floppy disks included with magazines throughout most of the 1990s, eventually followed by CD-ROMs and DVDs. A floppy disk is a data storage device that is composed of a ring of thin, flexible (i. ... The 1990s decade refers to the years from 1990 to 1999, inclusive, the last decade of the 20th Century. ... The CD-ROM (an abbreviation for Compact Disc Read-Only Memory (ROM)) is a non-volatile optical data storage medium using the same physical format as audio compact discs, readable by a computer with a CD-ROM drive. ... DVD-R writing/reading side DVD-R with purple dye, 4. ...

Notes

1. ^  Listings for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron, whose BASIC ROM included an assembler, were generally presented as assembly code, providing a somewhat better chance of catching errors and making it easier for knowledgeable users to modify the program. The resulting listings, however, were even longer than the machine code would have been, and no less incomprehensible to the uninitiated.
2. ^  An example of the sometimes excessively long type-ins to be encountered was a BASIC extension for the Commodore 64 published in the Finnish magazine MikroBitti; the program's machine code portion made up 20 pages full of numbers for the reader to enter flawlessly into the computer.
3. ^  Each magazine publisher had its own proprietary checksum utilities; for example, Compute! and Compute!'s Gazette printed the BASIC listings for Automatic Proofreader (to verify lines of BASIC) and MLX (for assembly code) in each issue that carried type-in programs in these formats. Users of course had to type in Automatic Proofreader without the aid of a checksum, thus bootstrapping the computer for MLX and other programs.
4. ^  Ahl, David H. "Editorial." Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games, Spring 1983.

The BBC Micro, affectionately known as the Beeb, was an early home computer. ... The Acorn Electron Acorn Electron BASIC - the first thing displayed when an unexpanded Electron is switched on The Acorn Electron was a budget version of the BBC Micro educational/home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd. ... An assembler is a computer program for translating assembly language — essentially, a mnemonic representation of machine language — into object code. ... For the hip hop group, see Commodore 64 (band). ... MikroBITTI is a Finnish computer magazine (founded in May 1984), published by Helsinki Media, aimed mainly for beginner to mid-level readers. ... Bootstrapping alludes to a German legend about Baron Münchhausen, who was able to lift himself out of a swamp by pulling himself up by his own hair. ...

See also

• Micro Adventure

Micro Adventure is the title of a series of books for young adult readers, published by Scholastic, Inc. ...

External links

• Classic Computer Magazine Archive
• THE TYPE FANTASTIC (TTFn): The Sinclair magazine type-in programs archive – By Jim Grimwood; original archive by Michael Bruhn