Adventures in Atari BASIC: Lesson Eight – Multiple Graphics Modes and Marquee Text

By Mikey Walters

In Lesson Seven, we learned how to draw Space Assault’s title screen, complete with theme music generated by Atari BASIC’s SOUND statement, and through the course of this series, we’ve covered nearly the complete source code of the game. Appropriately, the last section of code to discuss is the “game over” screen, which uses yet another powerful feature of the Atari Home Computer to combine multiple graphics modes…

Angels Unaware: A Woman’s Powerful Place in Alien Abduction Narratives

By Michael Grasso

Two of the most famed alien abduction narratives of the Cold War period were explored through first-person accounts in popular books: John C. Fuller’s The Interrupted Journey: Two Lost Hours Aboard a Flying Saucer (1965), about the abduction experience of Betty and Barney Hill, and Raymond E. Fowler’s The Andreasson Affair (1979), about the experiences of Betty Andreasson…

“Down Here It’s Our Time”: The Outsider and the Child in James Kahn’s ‘The Goonies’

By Amy Mugglestone

If you grew up in the ’70s or ’80s, chances are you’ll have some movie novelizations hidden in a forgotten corner of your bookcase, or perhaps gathering dust in your parents’ attic. As movie merchandising gained momentum following the success of large franchises like Star Wars, novelizations became almost ubiquitous, and in many cases hugely popular, with some adaptations selling in their millions…

A Final Outrage: The Album Art of Blue Öyster Cult

By Richard McKenna

Despite the dispiriting fug of “classic rock” that hangs about their name—largely thanks to the persistence in popular culture of the song for which they are best known, the wonderful but largely unrepresentative “Don’t Fear the Reaper—Blue Öyster Cult began life as a high-concept countercultural proposition whose aim was to bring an underground literary and musical sensibility, as well as wit, to the dull, self-indulgent ceremonies of rock…

Adventures in Atari BASIC: Lesson Six – Enemies and Earthquakes

By Mikey Walters

In Lesson Five, we learned about Space Assault’s “main loop” and how game events quickly occur in succession to give the appearance of happening simultaneously. We also handled the actions of our human player, such as moving the crosshair via joystick and firing the Fission Gun Tower. Now it’s time to give the Clovis Aliens their due, so let’s code their relentless, earthshaking attack!