A whole book about a single line of code. By ten authors.

This book takes a single line of code—the extremely concise BASIC program for the Commodore 64 inscribed in the title—and uses it as a lens through which to consider the phenomenon of creative computing and the way computer programs exist in culture.

The authors of this collaboratively written book treat code not as merely functional but as a text—in the case of 10 PRINT, a text that appeared in many different printed sources—that yields a story about its making, its purpose, its assumptions, and more. They consider randomness and regularity in computing and art, the maze in culture, the popular BASIC programming language, and the highly influential Commodore 64 computer.

1. 5 SERIES FOREWORD
2. 10 INTRODUCTION
3. 15 REM VARIATIONS IN BASIC
4. 20 MAZES
5. 25 REM PORTS TO OTHER PLATFORMS
6. 30 REGULARITY
7. 35 REM VARIATIONS IN PROCESSING
8. 40 RANDOMNESS
9. 45 REM ONE-LINERS
10. 50 BASIC
11. 55 REM A PORT TO THE ATARI VCS
12. 60 THE COMMODORE 64
13. 65 REM MAZE WALKER IN BASIC
14. 70 CONCLUSION
15. 75 END
16. 80 THANKS
17. 85 WORKS CITED
18. 90 VARIANTS OF 10 PRINT
19. 95 ABOUT THE AUTHORS
20. 100 INDEX

Nick Montfort is Associate Professor of Digital Media at MIT and the coauthor of Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System (MIT Press, 2009).

Patsy Baudoin is the MIT Libraries liaison to the MIT Media Lab.

John Bell is Assistant Professor of Innovative Communication Design at the University of Maine.

Ian Bogost is Professor of Digital Media at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC, and the coauthor of Newsgames: Journalism at Play (MIT Press, 2010) and other books.

Jeremy Douglass is a postdoctoral researcher in software studies at the University of California, San Diego, in affiliation with Calit2.

Mark C. Marino is Associate Professor (Teaching) and directs the Humanities and Critical Code Studies (HaCCS) Lab at the University of Southern California.

Michael Mateas is Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Casey Reas is Professor of Design Media Arts at UCLA and coauthor of Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists (MIT Press, 2007).

Mark Sample is Assistant Professor of English at George Mason University.

Noah Vawter is a sound artist.