Re: BASIC turns 60

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
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I'd wager that even if you don't know anything else about it, most
people have at least heard of the BASIC programming language. Designed
as an easy-to-use language, its comparatively lightweight footprint
paired well with the newest microcomputers of the 70s and 80s. It was
the de facto standard language for many PCs - in fact, for the longest
time, even IBM PC/Compatibles would try to boot to a BASIC interpreter
if no boot-sector was found on floppy or hard-drive, burning the
nonsensical "No ROM BASIC System Halted" message into many a PC-users
brain if there was a disk failure).

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In some ways BASIC was the Java of its time; a common language that
(more or less) ran on many different computers regardless of
hardware.* Many classic games were coded in BASIC, and -even as the
world slowly moved away from that language - many developer's first
steps (and games!) were made using BASIC. Microsoft's first product
was a BASIC interpreter; without it, they'd never have had the cash to
'create' their DOS operating system and we might still all be under
the thumb of IBM (and probably still using 16-bit processors. IBM
hated innovation). I myself have semi-fond memories of typing in BASIC
programs from some magazine into my 8-bit PC, and then struggling to
understand what the hell I was doing.

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Anyway, BASIC turned 60 today, with the first BASIC program being run
1 May 1964 in Dartmouth College. So let's all raise a glass to this
pioneer of computing that helped make the microcomputer industry the
success it is today.

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* not quite, since BASIC interpretations varied from platform to
platform, but - especially in the early days - it didn't take too much
effort to port programs between different systems

10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"
20 GOTO 10
RUN
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Do any of you remember this BASIC games too like Lemonade on Apple 2? ;)