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Bill Gates' DONKEY.BAS for IBM PC remade for iPhone and iPad

Bill Gates' DONKEY.BAS for IBM PC remade for iPhone and iPad

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The world's first PC game, DONKEY.BAS, co-written by Bill Gates, has been remade and released for iOS. It's available now for $0.99.

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donkey.bas

If you were shocked when Microsoft released Kinectimals for iOS last December, here's another App Store surprise with a deep Redmond connection — the world's first PC game, DONKEY.BAS, co-written by Bill Gates. Developer XVision created the remake of the "great grandma of all racing games" as an homage to the 1981 original, which was written by Gates and Neil Konzen, an early Microsoft employee. The game retains the original's 8-bit graphics and sounds, as well as the simple one-button control to manically change lanes in order to avoid oncoming donkeys. Another remake had previously been released for Windows Phone 7, a somewhat more fitting home considering the game's roots. While DONKEY.BAS first shipped pre-installed on PC-DOS and the original IBM PC, you're going to have to shell out $0.99 for the universal iOS remake.