Checkers For The Commodore 64

Lester W. Cain

Want a rest from those fast-paced arcade games? Try playing the sedate, ancient game of checkers against your 64. Not much frustration, and you're likely to win.

Move your piece in this game of checkers using the four cursor controls. Move the ? cursor to the piece to begin with, and press RETURN. This will change the cursor to a @. Now, move to where you want to go, and press RETURN. The computer will not allow wrong moves. To cancel your move, press the DEL key. If no move is possible, press the space bar.

The computer logic is not tournament quality, since the program checks moves only one level deep. The King moves lack somewhat, but, otherwise, the computer plays a pretty fair game. If you don't pay attention, you could get into trouble.

Here's a brief explanation of the program.

Program Description

Line Nos.

30 -160 Subroutines the computer uses to scan its move. It is only one level deep.

200 - 480 Routine to get the player's move.

490 - 504 Error checks disallowing invalid moves.

509 - 580 Update arrays; if a jump was made, update score.

581 - 585 Check for another move; it so, go get next move.

700 - 880 Main scan loop; calls routines at beginning of program; helps speed up computer process.

1800 - 1820 Print prompts at the bottom of the screen.

1900 - 2160 Print logo and instructions.

2300 - 2470 Mostly initialization.

2600 - 2690 Print the game board.

2700 - 2850 POKE new array to the board after every move.

2870 - 3000 Update the scores.