Can anyone recall my favorite childhood programming book?

Question

Way back in the late 80s I was learning to program on my Tandy 2000 which had two 5.25" disk drives. My grandmother bought be a programming book from Radio Shack. It was a great book about BASIC and I really enjoyed it. I was hoping somebody might recall the title, author, etc?

• It looked kind of like this book http://stackoverflow.com/questions/832941/what-was-your-first-programming-book/832951#832951
• It was current as of the late 80s maybe 1990 or so
• It was not a game programming book, it was on programming in general
• Most of all I recall each chapter began with a funny cartoon that the author or somebody had drawn, to demonstrate the principle of the chapter
• The cover was gray as in that link, but had a bigger computer drawn on it, and maybe a man also

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Edit: Scratch that, Josh's Comment makes more sense.

I was only just born in the late 80's so this is complete guesswork on my part. but Getting Started with Color Basic: TRS-80 Color Computer Seems to fit your description

Answer 2

What about Computer Monsters?

Answer 3

My childhood was in the 1960's. Personal computing had not been invented. We did have a pong game, right next to the 8 track tape player on top of the console TV.

My first PC was a VIC 20 and I had several programming books for it, but I don't think I would have been considered a "child" by then, although my wife may disagree and say I am still enjoying my "childhood".

Answer 4

Could it be Computer Programming in BASIC for everyone?

Answer 5

Sorry guys so far no good. It had a mundane title, like "Computer Programming in BASIC For Everyone", but it was printed much later that 1977, probably more like 1987 really. It was a perfect bound paperback, about 1.5 or 2 inches thick, so it was kind of big. And the cover was not in color, it was gray with white writing I believe. I really appreciate you guys wracking your brains for me. If I could find this book, it would mean a lot to me!

Answer 6

Here's a list from Amazon with BASIC programming books published before 1990.