Atari BASIC Listing for ARROW, a little game I wrote in February 1989.

I recorded a video to show what the game looks like: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/schoschie/3301606694/">www.flickr.com/photos/schoschie/3301606694/</a>

When it runs, this happens:

• Jump to a subroutine starting in line 1000 that initializes some settings such as foreground and background colors and hiding the cursor. In lines 1010–1020, the »sprite« for the little spaceship is created. Lines 1025–1040 make a title screen and wait for the joystick button to be pressed. Line 1045 clears the screen, pauses for about a second and then sets up the »space« sound. It then returns to the main program starting in line 20.

• In the main program, a random number of bullet symbols (representing asteroids) is drawn in random locations on a line. The joystick is polled: if it's pushed to the left, move the spaceship sprite 10 units to the left. Same for the right. Then there is a check for a collision between spaceship and asteroid. If so, jump to the »Game Over« code in line 500. Otherwise, begin the main program from the top (it's an infinite loop).