“CURSOR’s programs haven’t been exclusively games; a number of serious applications and utilities have been included over the years. But it’s the games we remember best, and many of the CURSOR games have been memorable.”
—Jim Butterfield, PET Fun and Games, COMPUTE! October 1982, p. 139.

CURSOR Tape Software – Index by Category

This is an index of all the programs published in CURSOR, in alphabetical order sorted by category. Each index entry shows you the filename, CURSOR’s description of the file, and a link to the corresponding writeup in this guide. I listed the games first, because let's be honest: in the age of emulation, most users are here for the games.

This is a long list but there were over 150 programs on the 30 tapes.

Programs with ! at the end of their filename have sound.

Games

ALIENS! (Issue #16): The aliens are attacking, but you can protect earth by destroying them before they land. By Mike Hamilton.
BAT! (Issue #14): You are a bat that must eat insects to remain alive. Gravity and inertia make your task quite difficult, to say nothing of the dirt bugs and lint. By C. T. Nadovich.
BJACK (Issue #6): John Melissa wrote this game from his home town of Las Vegas. Double down, take insurance, bet your paycheck!
BONZO! (Issue #16): Randall Lockwood wrote this game of the Bonzo Dog Chase.
BOX (Issue #6): Howard Arrington wrote this simulation of the Parker Brother's game "Black Box". One of the more difficult logic games we have seen – be prepared to spend a few hours testing your brain.
BRICK (Issue #1): Throw a brick as close to a window as possible. Addictive!
BSHIP (Issue #5): A super game of Battleship. You vs. Captain PET. By Howard Arrington.
CANYON! (Issue #12): Train to become a starship pilot, using either joysticks or the numeric pad to control your ships. By Larry Stevens.
CATCH! (Issue #16): Play catch with the PET. By George Leotti.
COPS (Issue #14): It's Cops vs. the Crooks. A game of skill and courage on a 25 by 25 grid. Idea by Sheila Dolgowich.
COURSE (Issue #10): An interesting obstacle course, with varying degrees of difficulty. By Glen Fisher.
DEMON! (Issue #11): Can you capture the demon? (Has great sound effects). By Ken Morley.
DOTS (Issue #3): The game of Dots – you against the computer.
DUNGEON (Issue #15): You are trapped in a dark, dank dungeon, trying to find gold (at $600 an ounce), and kill the beasts that attack you. By Brian Sawyer.
EVEREST (Issue #15): You are an armchair mountaineer in this entertaining simulation by Brian Sawyer. (Watch out for avalanches and blinding snowstorms.)
FBALL (Issue #7): Football on your PET: play another player, or try your skill against the machine. By Mark Pelczarski.
FERRY! (Issue #13): Try to ferry supplies across the asteroid belt. Has great sound effects. By Dr. John J. Matrella.
FIFTEEN (Issue #15): The classic puzzle where you try to get the fifteen numbers arranged numerically. By David Platton.
FIRE! (Issue #16): You pilot a Fire Department helicopter as you try to put out a blaze. By Brian Sawyer.
GAMMON (Issue #9): A very good 16K game of Backgammon – you against the PET. By David Malmberg and Glen Fisher.
GOMOKU (Issue #15): You play Gomoku against a tough (and fast) computer opponent. The object: place five "stones" in a row.
GUESS (Issue #2): A number guessing game where you try to trap a number the computer selects.
HANOI (Issue #5): Excellent animated version of the classic logic puzzle. By Glen Fisher.
HMAN (Issue #5): The word game "Hangman" (without those ugly gallows...) By Glen Fisher.
JOUST (Issue #18): Computers in the Middle Ages? Well, put on your armor and challenge a friend to a joust. Brian Sawyer.
LEAP (Issue #13): A challenging logic game: try to remove all but one peg. Idea by Sheila Dolgowich.
MAD (Issue #2): You supply the words to "fill in the blanks" to one of five crazy stories.
MATCH (Issue #14): How is your memory? Try and find the 32 pairs of symbols hidden on an 8 by 8 grid. (You'll have to concentrate!) By Julia Hallford.
MAZE (Issue #8): You must find all the hidden gold in the maze. By Howard Arrington.
MIND (Issue #7): The Mastermind puzzle: try to guess a pattern of four colors. By Glen Fisher.
NAB! (Issue #16): It's you against the computer, as you try to escape a head-on crash. By Malcolm Michael.
PEG (Issue #11): A clever pegboard game. By Julia Hallford.
PICKUP (Issue #12): Your mission: gather all of the dangerous chemicals. A game of great skill and daring. By Larry Phillips.
PIEGRAM (Issue #12): You and the PET throw pies at one another. Idea by Sheila Dolgowich.
POLICE! (Issue #17): As Chief of Police you try to protect the city against a crime wave. By Kurt Carpenter.
QUIX! (Issue #3): A memory game with great sound effects.
RACE (Issue #2): A 1 or 2 person auto race game that will keep you busy for a while. You can control the number of players, the number of obstacles or "pylons" that will appear in the track, and the speed of your car.
RATRUN (Issue #13): You are a rat in a maze (shown in perspective), and are trying to find the cheese. By C. T. Nadovich.
REVERS! (Issue #8): The game of Reversi: you against the PET, or another player. By Glen Fisher.
SEARCH (Issue #14): Generate excellent word search puzzles. Uses the PET printer. By Hal Carey.
SHARK (Issue #1): You are a great white shark that eats people, while skin-divers try to kill you. Ouch!
SHEEP (Issue #18): Herd the sheep into the barn before they eat the crops. By Peter Stearns.
SHOOT (Issue #5): You shoot a gun at a falling target. Not as easy as it looks! By Gary Bainbridge.
SLOT! (Issue #9): The CURSOR Casino, with sound! By Mark Heaney.
SPACE! (Issue #8): Fly your PET into deep space as you pursue the enemy. By Greg Erker.
SPOT (Issue #17): Two players compete to stack four markers in a row. Art Carpet wrote this challenging game.
WIPEOUT (Issue #11): Roll the dice and try to eliminate the 12 numbers. By Sheila Dolgowich.
YAHTZEE (Issue #9): The game of Yahtzee for one to four players. By Glen Fisher.
ZAP (Issue #2): You control a rather strange missile, and try to hit targets that appear on the screen. Addictive.

Graphics, Sound, and Animations

BAR (Issue #3): A vertical bar graphing program.
CLOCK! (Issue #4): An $800 digital alarm clock that also chimes on the quarter hour. By John Fox.
COMING (Issue #14): Amaze your friends: turn your 97 pound PET into a ________.
DROMEDA! (Issue #18): The CURSOR Creature Feature, a cartoon in living black and white. By James Carr.
FACE (Issue #5): Become a police artist! You (and your faithful computer) can draw almost any sort of face. By Glen Fisher.
FLIGHT! (Issue #12): Watch as Canadian astronauts land on the moon. By Ken Morley.
GAUSS! (Issue #12): Watch (and listen) as the PET drops 1000 balls an hour into one of the 12 bins. By Glen Fisher.
HAWAII! (Issue #15): Another animated cartoon from Ken Morely.
HI-RES (Issue #18): Who says you can't do high-resolution graphics on a PET? HI-RES gives you dot-by-dot control over a section of your screen! By Dave Dixon.
LETTER (Issue #17): Big letters (and numbers) will appear on your PET screen when you press a key. By Michael Contino.
PAPER (Issue #7): Yes, you too can be a famous wallpaper designer. By Ralph Dufour.
PLOT (Issue #1): A simple demonstration of plotting.
SOUND! (Issue #7): The CURSOR sound effects library: French Police, lasers, even birds. By Ken Matthews.
WANDER (Issue #1): A (drunk) worm crawls over the screen of your PET.

Education

ADD (Issue #8): Great addition drill that makes the magic of "carrying" clear. By Donald Ross.
BOP (Issue #4): Chisanbop – the Korean technique of counting to 99 on your fingers. By Glen Fisher.
CARDS (Issue #3): Produces the tapes for the FLASH program.
FLASH (Issue #3): Review "flash cards" in random order.
EST (Issue #2): The program presents various lengths of bars and sizes of rectangles so you can estimate length and area in metric units. It's harder than you might think...
MORSE! (Issue #14): Practice Morse code with this program by Norman Parron. (As you might guess, this program requires sound...)
RULER (Issue #17): Kids will enjoy learning how to read a ruler in this educational program. Based on an idea by David Dwyer.
STATES (Issue #11): Learn the states and capitals of the United States. By Art Carpet.
TITRATE (Issue #10): Practice titration by turning your PET into a chemistry lab. By Garry Flynn.

Programming

ASM (Issue #10): A simple assembler for the 6502. By Glen Fisher.
FLIP (Issue #9): A utility to help convert text in programs from old to new ROMs. By Glen Fisher.
INP (Issue #4): A short but powerful subroutine for use in your programs. Designed to be easy to merge with your code. Solves your input problems in elegant fashion. By Glen Fisher.
LIST (Issue #6): But what if you need to look at that PACKed program? LIST to the rescue, with blanks inserted, line numbers aligned, and the best of all, cursor keys shown in the standard "spelled out" form, e.g. [DOWN], etc. (Old ROMs only).
MERGE (Issue #17): Combine two BASIC programs, merging them by line number. (Requires 2040 disk.) By Glen Fisher.
NPACK (Issue #17): Squeeze all the blanks out of your flabby BASIC programs. (For New ROMs only.) By Glen Fisher.
PACK (Issue #6): If you write large PET programs you will appreciate this handy routine that eliminates all blanks from your BASIC programs. (Old ROMs only).
READER (Issue #10): This program turns machine code into DATA statements. By Glen Fisher.
X (Issue #8): A "skeleton" of routines to use when you submit programs to CURSOR.

Serious Business

CALC (Issue #4): Everything you ever wanted in an $800 calculator. Hex, octal, decimal. Integer math only. By Glen Fisher.
CARS (Issue #13): A program that will assist you in maintaining cost records for one or more cars. By John Grove.
CED (Issue #4): The CURSOR editor. Allows you to enter, edit, save, and load three screens of text. (Old ROMs only). By Glen Fisher.
CEDPR (Issue #6): Prints files produced by the CED Editor in CURSOR #4. (Old ROMs only).
CIRCLE (Issue #9): Great circle navigation. How far is it to...Program by Martin Mabee.
DBOOK (Issue #8): An easy-to-use date book for birthdays, etc. By Glen Fisher.
FINANCE (Issue #10): Calculate mortgages, pension plans, savings, etc. By T. M. Wagner.
HI CALC (Issue #11): A high precision calculator. By Glen Fisher.
PRICER (Issue #7): A cost estimation program, designed for contractors who bid on government work. By Glen Fisher.
TCARD (Issue #13): A convenient tool for wading through mounds of time cards. Idea by Herb Sandy.
TYPER (Issue #1): A typewriter demo (for the "little" keyboard).
WEATHER (Issue #18): Predict the weather? Dr. Randall Lockwood wrote this very useful program.