Editing Dartmouth BASIC (section)

===Games in BASIC===
Kemeny actively encouraged games on the DTSS platform, and considered it to be one of the major reasons for the success of the DTSS system.{{r|kemeny1972}} He was likely the author of an [[early mainframe game]]. Although Kemeny did not take credit for it, he later referred to ''FTBALL'' by stating it "was written on Sunday after a certain [[1965 Dartmouth Indians football team|Dartmouth]]-[[1965 Princeton Tigers football team|Princeton]] game in 1965 when Dartmouth won the [[Lambert-Meadowlands Trophy|Lambert trophy]]. It's sort of a commemorative program". The game was an upset over heavily favored Princeton.<ref>{{cite web |title=John Kemeny and Tecmo's BASIC FTBALL Granddaddy |url=https://tecmobowl.org/forums/topic/69925-john-kemeny-and-tecmo%E2%80%99s-basic-ftball-granddaddy/ |date=17 October 2017 |access-date=25 July 2018 |archive-date=25 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180725214835/https://tecmobowl.org/forums/topic/69925-john-kemeny-and-tecmo%E2%80%99s-basic-ftball-granddaddy/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>{{efn|[[David Ahl]] stated Kemeny had written it when describing the game in BASIC Computer Games.{{sfn|Ahl|1978|p=64}}}}

As the system expanded, especially after the addition of string handling in BASIC, the DTSS system became a major platform for the development of many [[text-based game]]s. In the early 1970s, the [[People's Computer Company]] began publishing these in their magazine, typically converted to the more widely available HP BASIC. Many of these listings were collected in their 1975 book, ''What to do after you hit return''. Although these are published in HP BASIC form, the majority of them trace their history to either DTSS or the [[Lawrence Hall of Science]] in California where a similar machine was set up, known as DECISION.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/Whattodoafteryouhitreturn |publisher=People's Computer Company |date=1975 |title= What to do after you hit return}}</ref>

A more famous collection is ''[[BASIC Computer Games]]'' of 1978, where about half of the programs in the book were either written at Dartmouth, including another by Kemeny, Batnum, or more commonly, one of the many high schools that were connected to it after 1968. A particularly prolific high school was [[Lexington High School (Massachusetts)|Lexington High School]] in [[Massachusetts]] but many other schools appear as well. A number of the programs do not list their original locations, but come from authors that were likely connected to the system through a school or public projects like Project SOLO.{{sfn|Ahl|1978}}

[[Multiplayer video game]]s became possible in BASIC when [[Stephen J. Garland|Stephen Garland]] and John McGeachie developed the MOTIF Multiple Online Terminal Interface for DTSS.  To start a game, a user typed LINK followed by a session name instead of RUN, thereby enabling other users to connect to the game by typing JOIN followed by the session name.  MOTIF then multiplexed input and output for the BASIC program, prepending a string identifier to the beginning of each line of input and output.  The first programs developed with this interface were a two-person  version of FTBALL and a five-person poker game.  More serious was a management game that allowed up to ten students at the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration to compete in the production and marketing of a single product.<ref>John S. McGeachie, "Multiple terminals under user program control in a time-sharing environment", ''Communications of the ACM'' 16:10, October 1973, pages 587&&ndash;590.</ref>