10 Print Chr$(205.5+rnd(1)) ― Goto 10

This book takes a single line of code--the extremely concise BASIC program for theCommodore 64 inscribed in the title--and uses it as a lens through which to consider the phenomenonof creative computing and the way computer programs exist in culture. The authors of thiscollaboratively written book treat code not as merely functional but as a text--in the case of 10PRINT, a text that appeared in many different printed sources--that yields a story about its making,its purpose, its assumptions, and more. They consider randomness and regularity in computing andart, the maze in culture, the popular BASIC programming language, and the highly influentialCommodore 64 computer.

Nick Montfort is Associate Professor of Digital Media at MIT and the coauthor of Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System (MIT Press, 2009). Patsy Baudoin is Digital Humanities, Media and Film Studies, and Women's & Gender Studies Librarian at MIT. John Bell is Assistant Professor of Innovative Communication Design at the University of Maine. Ian Bogost is Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC, and the coauthor of Newsgames: Journalism at Play (MIT Press, 2010). Jeremy Douglass is a postdoctoral researcher in software studies at the University of California, San Diego, in affiliation with Calit2. Michael Mateas is Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Mark C. Marino is Associate Professor (Teaching) and directs the Humanities and Critical Code Studies (HaCCS) Lab at the University of Southern California. Casey Reas is Professor of Design Media Arts at UCLA and coauthor of Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists (MIT Press, 2007). Mark Sample is Associate Professor of English at George Mason University. Noah Vawter is a sound artist.