The BASIC programming language turns 60

Easy-to-use programming language that drove Apple, IBM, and Commodore PCs debuted in 1964.

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[JPL-ACE]

Note that Picaxe micro computer chips have Basic built in and makes home development of controllers easy and cheap.

My 1st programing was FORTRAN in college but most of my early programing was on a TRS80

 

[littlesmith]

Started in '87 on an Atari ST. My first encounter with a programming language was with the infamous ST BASIC (a.k.a. The Text Adventure for BASIC-freaks). Luckily I quickly could get hands on GfA-BASIC and later a C compiler and an assembler to learn that programming is really fun.

 

[fellow human]

did run a timeshared multi-user BASIC interpreter service in the 1970s & early 1980s on a Data General NOVA (and later Eclipse) minicomputer, with public terminals at LHS, and TTYs connected via leased line to quite a number of high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area

Just goes to show how much of a revolution the personal computer was. When the above was state of the art the idea of having your own computer at home/school/workplace running whatever you want was mind blowing.

It's hard to fathom today just how much of a leap that was. The Apple //, C64, TRS80 etc. seem quaint now but they heralded the computing ubiquity we have today.

 

[Dzov]

Just goes to show how much of a revolution the personal computer was. When the above was state of the art the idea of having your own computer at home/school/workplace running whatever you want was mind blowing.

It's hard to fathom today just how much of a leap that was. The Apple //, C64, TRS80 etc. seem quaint now but they heralded the computing ubiquity we have today.

I sometimes read old science fiction and it's always entertaining when spaceship pilots have to read their speed from a fluid in a graduated cylinder as computer displays weren't a thing.

 

[fellow human]

I sometimes read old science fiction and it's always entertaining when spaceship pilots have to read their speed from a fluid in a graduated cylinder as computer displays weren't a thing.

yeah I love that too, what people used to think the future would be like in the past. Really puts into perspective how limited a view we have of the future.

Wow they thought we'd be using graduated cylinders
Wow they thought we'd be using knobs and dials
Wow they thought we'd be using 2D screens
Wow they thought we'd be using AR glasses
Wow they thought we'd be using holographic projections
Wow they thought we'd be using neural interfaces
Wow they thought we'd be sending humans
Wow they thought we'd be corporeal beings

Which ones of these seem quaint depends on the current year.

 

[brionl]

It was a major plot point in Starman Jones (1953, R.A. Heinlein) that to make interstellar jumps they had to look up values from a table in a printed book, and then make calculations on a slide rule. All while under hard time pressure in the last minutes before execution.

 

[wjhonson]

Yes it is fashionable among the children to bemoan the death of BASIC. I am here to tell you, as a computer programmer for the past forty years, that BASIC is alive and well and runs close to half of all back-end (non customer facing) offices in the world.

 

[alisonken1]

It was a major plot point in Starman Jones (1953, R.A. Heinlein) that to make interstellar jumps they had to look up values from a table in a printed book, and then make calculations on a slide rule. All while under hard time pressure in the last minutes before execution.

To expand on that, the books were actually binary representations of the light readouts from the astrogation computer.

• Look up in the book the binary light pattern on the computer readout
• Calculate the next entry via slide rule
• Lookup the slide rule results to retrieve the secondary binary pattern in the book
• Enter the secondary binary pattern into the computer input

Rather entertaining at the time (one of the Juvenile series of books).

 

[Br.Bill]

Learned it on an Amiga 500 and hacked ANSI graphics into Petra BBS. So fun

AmigaBASIC! Used it on my A1000 for a year, then bought a compiler that could build executables out of AmigaBASIC code. Wrote my own terminal program with a zillion bells and whistles. This was after learning TRS-80 Level II BASIC in the late 1970s.

 

[fellow human]

AmigaBASIC! Used it on my A1000 for a year, then bought a compiler that could build executables out of AmigaBASIC code. Wrote my own terminal program with a zillion bells and whistles. This was after learning TRS-80 Level II BASIC in the late 1970s.

heh I wrote a terminal of sorts in AmigaBASIC too, but it was designed to send graphics drawing instructions over the modem as a kind of graphic BBS. Sort of like RoboBoard that came later, if anyone remembers that, or if you squint a bit, web pages.

I actually still have the source printed out on paper!

 

[Gomez Addams]

Yes it is fashionable among the children to bemoan the death of BASIC. I am here to tell you, as a computer programmer for the past forty years, that BASIC is alive and well and runs close to half of all back-end (non customer facing) offices in the world.

No, Basic is certainly not dead. There's a guy who periodically posts about it here : Basic is not dead!

 

[fensox]

AmigaBASIC! Used it on my A1000 for a year, then bought a compiler that could build executables out of AmigaBASIC code. Wrote my own terminal program with a zillion bells and whistles. This was after learning TRS-80 Level II BASIC in the late 1970s.

Man I forgot all about that compiler that made executable basic code. I had that too. I miss those days! Your terminal would have had a heavy lift to beat JRComm but I bet it was fun to write.

 

[VB6 Programming]

And now there is the new twinBASIC programming language.
Due for first release in early 2025, twinBASIC can import and run Vb6 source code and forms (and also VBA).
twinBASIC adds 64-bit compilation, Unicode support, multi-threading, an optimising compiler, and many more new features.
Later, twinBASIC programming will be available on Linux, MacOS and Android.

 

[zogus]

yeah I love that too, what people used to think the future would be like in the past. Really puts into perspective how limited a view we have of the future.

Wow they thought we'd be using graduated cylinders
Wow they thought we'd be using knobs and dials
Wow they thought we'd be using 2D screens
Wow they thought we'd be using AR glasses
Wow they thought we'd be using holographic projections
Wow they thought we'd be using neural interfaces
Wow they thought we'd be sending humans
Wow they thought we'd be corporeal beings

Which ones of these seem quaint depends on the current year.

You remind me of how, many eons ago when I was young and intrepid, I started working on a plug-in for Escape Velocity that included this gag:

”And you know what? Back in the 21st century, they thought gamma-ray bursts were extra-galactic!” The astrophysicist is laughing hysterically now. “How could they be so dense!?” You have no idea why this is supposed to be funny.

…Um, now that I think about it, maybe it was a good thing I never finished it.