Donkey

Donkey is an arcade-themed video game that was released in 1981. It is a racing game developed by Microsoft and published by IBM, to demonstrate the features of the new IBM PCs back in the day. The game was written in BASIC, specifically IBM BASIC, which was included with IBM's first personal computers. Donkey was one of the first games developed by Microsoft and was co-written by Bill Gates himself. It is a single-player game where the player controls a car on a racetrack. However, the racetrack gets intercepted by Donkeys, and the player must steer the car to avoid colliding with them. Donkey can be played using the keyboard, the controls are displayed on the bottom right of the screen. Scores are displayed on either side of the racetrack.
The game features Simple, text-based graphics, typical of early 1980s computer games. The car and donkeys are represented using ASCII characters. A limited amount of Sound effects is also available. The idea behind the game was to popularise the BASIC programming language and serve as an example of it's capabilities. The source code has been used in educational materials to teach BASIC programming to students. "Donkey" holds a place in gaming history as an early example of PC gaming and Microsoft's involvement in game development. It can be considered the predecessor of many popular racing games released in the subsequent years. Despite its simplicity, many users during the time described it as addictive and challenging. It holds a nostalgic value among early PC users and is a crucial piece of study for those interested in the history of computer games and their evolution.

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