Celebrating 45 Years of DONKEY.BAS: 131 Lines of Pure Brilliance

Celebrating the 45th anniversary of a true relic, we have a browser-based port of the 1981 IBM PC masterpiece: DONKEY.BAS.

🎮 How to Play

To navigate the hazards, use the following inputs:

• Space / Tap: Switch your current lane.
• Esc: Return to the title screen.

"This program served as a primary demonstration of the BASICA environment's ability to handle color graphics and audio on early IBM PC DOS systems."

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🛠️ Technical Specifications & History

The game was a collaborative effort between Neil Konzen and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

The original source code was remarkably concise, consisting of exactly $L = 131$ lines of code.

Implementation Details

The current version is a JavaScript recreation of the original CGA gameplay, though it incorporates some modern creative liberties to make it work in a browser.

Available Features:

• Authentic Sound
• CRT Filter
• Cheat Mode
• FullScreen Toggle
• "About" Section

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💻 Logic Flow

The game's basic loop can be visualized as follows:

To give you a taste of the era, the code looked something like this:

10 PRINT "DONKEY.BAS"
20 REM 131 LINES OF GLORY
30 GOTO 10

The age of the software can be calculated simply as: $\text{Current Year} - 1981 = 45 \text{ years}$

This port ensures that the legacy of DONKEY.BAS continues to gallop through the digital age.