Kindred Code

Introduction

10 Print has been introduced as a window into an otherwise inaccessible sphere of discussion, stories, and meaning. The illumination of what a neophyte may have once perceived as an impenetrable cluster of otherwise familiar symbols has now commenced. It should be clear that 10 Print is a minimal collection of commands needed to produce output on a computer screen. One may regard the nature of its output, like any poem or story, as more than an amalgamation of characters. In fact, its parameters and emergent symbols are skillfully selected to reflect to combine and form larger ideas. In this way, it is akin to today's Computer Generated graphics and virtual slide presentations which are used to help tell stories within visual media, even though it is many times simpler and substitutes . Future chapters will detail the aesthetic choices of these parameters and explain how the open nature of the BASIC programming language as implemented on the Commodore 64 platform allows amateurs to react and produce responses to the program.

To further the understanding of 10 Print as an expressive piece of code, this chapter focuses on the further uses of computer programs as an expressive media. This is key a difference from computer software used an interactive application, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, etc. In this chapter, code is treated an autonomous, expressive medium.