A long time ago (in a galaxy very, very near....) a book of programs was published called [external link] "BASIC Computer Games - Microcomputer Edition". This book contains 101 traditional line-numbered BASIC games, which have been minimally tweaked to run under the Windows Vintage BASIC Interpreter (no knowledge of BASIC programming is required to run them). By today's standards these games are very simple, and like all vintage games that were written without consideration of high MHz processors, might run too fast without modification. They are however excellent teaching examples for new BASIC programmers.

BASIC Computer Games - Microcomputer Edition   snap  List

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bcg .zip

For convenience, below are two versions of the Windows Vintage BASIC interpreter. This is a serious modern Interpreter, capable of running complex traditional line-numbered BASIC programs.
Here is an external link to the softwares HTML User's Guide.

32-bit Vintage BASIC (ver 1.0.1) Freeware - "stand-alone"

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vintbas .zip

64-bit Vintage BASIC (ver 1.0.3) Freeware - "must install"

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vintbas64 .zip

Not as simple as "PILOT", but certainly easy to learn, "BASIC" was a commonly used interpreted programming language in the 1970's. Computers as different as mini-mainframes and Commodore 64s all had BASIC Interpreters. BASIC was so familiar, that when IBM released its first PC, they chose to include a version of traditional line-numbered BASIC ("BASICA") within the computers system ROM.

BASIC, although reasonable portable, allows for the inclusion of machine architecture and Interpreter specific function calls. During the 1980's for example, there were numerous line-number BASIC Interpreters written for the x86 CPU, including BASICA, GW-BASIC, EBasic, PowerBasic, and others. Each touted extra features, and each required a slightly different script syntax. As such, if you acquire one of these older x86 CPU BASIC programs, you may have to modify it slightly so that it runs without errors under your preferred Interpreter.

BASIC programs are human readable Text scripts. Every line is successively assigned a higher (not necessarily sequential) number, which allows for looping with GOTO statements. Programmers typically number each line a decade apart, so that they can inject new lines in-between later if necessary, without having to completely renumber the entire script. Early BASIC programs were often embarrassingly simple, but they did not have to be. The traditional line-numbered BASIC language can today for example, be used to write sophisticated Windows applications.

Compiled programs run faster than Interpreted programs, a very important consideration in the days of slower CPUs, which is why compiled languages such as Assembly have existed alongside BASIC. They also have the advantage that, because they do not have to rely on a compatible Interpreter to run, they will always run as intended. Their disadvantage is that compiled programs are not portable between systems without first modifying and recompiling the source code (which is often not available). With BASIC, and other interpreted languages such as PHP and JavaScript, the source code is the human readable script itself, which programmers can modify on the fly.

Due to the slowness of older computer hardware, many BASIC programmers at the time would compile their BASIC scripts. Be sure to check for this before downloading a BASIC program from the Internet, as you will not easily be able to make modifications to these scripts to accommodate your preferred Interpreter. Microsoft went still further, and in an attempt to lock programmers to their own proprietary software, released the programming tools Q-Basic, QuickBasic, and VisualBasic. Each used syntax familiar to traditional BASIC programmers, but the structured language programming scripts they produce (and which Microsoft presumptuously christens "Basic") are totally incompatible with traditional line-numbered BASIC Interpreters.

Traditional line-numbered BASIC requires no special programming tools. BASIC programs can be written entirely with "Notepad"! In fact, before the Internet, or even BBSes, BASIC programs were most often disseminated on the pages of magazines. Your local library probably has numerous BASIC programs sitting on their shelves, waiting for you to input them into your computer.