Sinclair BASIC

Begin with a story

The Meet BASIC lessons grow through four small projects. Enter a greeting, store and edit a program, ask for words, then finish a story you can save and share. Build Lucky Number with clues, chance and another round; give Oracle Stone a rhythm and a shared routine; then compare two ways to steer a marker. Together they lead towards Bright Spark and Volley, where the ball keeps moving while you steer the paddle. Touchdown then adds gravity, limited fuel and a landscape to cross, building from vertical practice landings to the full approach.

The current course

Meet BASIC → Bright Spark → Volley → Touchdown. Begin at the start or join a game that interests you; each explains the BASIC it uses. Story Builder, Lucky Number and Oracle Stone are part of Meet BASIC.

01

PrimerBegin with a story, then a guessing game.

1 module

0

Meet BASIC

Stories, guessing, a playful oracle and a marker you can steer.

Keyword entry and editingPRINT, LET and INPUTStrings and readable outputSaving and recovering a program

15 / 15 units

02

First ProgramsRemember signals, keep a ball in play, then land a craft.

3 modules

1

Bright Spark

Remember the signals, repeat the order, complete sixteen rounds

Strings as growing sequencesSTR$ / VAL / LEN / indexingThe flash (BRIGHT + BEEP)The game loop (show, repeat, check, grow)

7 / 7 units

2

Volley

Keep the ball in play, then improve how the court is drawn

Continuous movement and keyboard pollingDirection, boundaries and paddle contactScore, serve and retryPAPER shapes and selective redrawing

8 / 8 units

3

Touchdown

Brake a fall, steer over a ridge and land gently on the pad

Position, velocity, gravity and thrustFuel and simultaneous keyboard controlsTerrain arrays and contact checksCustom characters and consecutive erase/redraw

11 / 11 units

BASIC reference

Look up commands, graphics, sound, saving and debugging in the Sinclair BASIC reference lessons. Use them when a question arises; they are not an extra course to complete first.

Earlier games

These existing lessons offer more games to explore. They belong to an earlier course and may refer to its sequence or assume earlier lessons. They are separate from the current course above.

• Dice Roller — Roll dice and watch patterns emerge from randomness
• Cipher — Guess the word one letter at a time
• Locksmith — Crack the code — logic and deduction
• Sonar — Hunt by coordinates on a hidden grid
• Three in a Row — The computer plays against you
• The Caverns — Fear of the unseen — atmosphere through hidden information
• Yearfall — Choices land later — resource management
• Crates — Push crates to targets — the mechanic is the game

Explore an idea further

The Craft develops game-design questions such as feedback, challenge and player choices. Foundations explores programming concepts. Z80 assembly offers another way into the Spectrum, where you work directly with processor instructions and memory.