Grand Text Auto

On Saturday, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death (and, happy birthday, too, Will), I delivered to Twitter, via post-haste dispatch, the following four Commodore 64 BASIC programs, versions of the famous “Hello world” program:


400 ? chr$(147)"hello world":for a=1 to 500:next:? chr$(19)"brave":new:rem #c64

400 ? chr$(144)chr$(79)chr$(84)”hello world”:rem #c64

400 ? “hello world”chr$(4^3+(2b or not 2b)):rem #c64

400 for a=0to255:? chr$(147)spc(a)”(QRQ) hello world”:next:? chr$(147):rem #c64

Type ’em in to a for-real Commodore 64 or to this Web-based emulator here. No special characters are involved, so entering these programs should be easy; lowercase letters will appear capitalized and the few capital ones will appear as graphical symbols.

In Nashville, Husky Jackal Theater has presented Terminator the Second, which enacts the story of Terminator 2 with a text composed entirely of lines from Shakepeare’s plays. Video is available.

Also, I have been watching a certain TV show set during the Korean War with a certain fan fiction author, and I believe the guys making passes at guys, wearing dresses, mugging with guys, etc. have suggested a new possible genre of writing that would have to be called S*L*A*S*H.