On This Date in 1964, the First BASIC Program 258
palegray.net notes that on this day in 1964, the first BASIC program was run. From the Wired article:"Mathematicians John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz had been trying to make computing more accessible to their undergraduate students. One problem was that available computing languages like Fortran and Algol were so complex that you really had to be a professional to use them. BASIC is still alive and well these days, from Microsoft's VB.net to cross-platform variants like REALbasic. For the old-school among us, there's always Joshua Bell's Apple II BASIC emulator implemented in Javascript."
HELLO WORLD (Score:5, Funny)
10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"
20 GOTO 10
And it is still running to this day.
Re: (Score:2)
10 SIN
20 GOTO HELL
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
20 SWEET
30 GOTO 10
(with credits to Futurama)
Re: (Score:2)
http://usuarios.lycos.es/bbrp/matematicas/mat_1ACV03_2.jpg [lycos.es]
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, your BASIC dialect had a RENUM command.
Not all [wikipedia.org] did. In those particular runtime environments, your program would have looked like
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
10 PRINT "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!"
20 GOTO 10
You forgot the semicolon (Score:2)
Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello Worl
d Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello Wor
ld Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello Wo
rld Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello W
orld Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello
World Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello World Hello
Re: (Score:2)
here was mine (Score:2)
20 x = x +1
30 ? x
40 goto 10
and it was a complete failure...
even
10 ? "crap"
fails...
how good is this implementation?
3583 bytes free (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Looking at the code, have no idea how I wrote that, other than maniacal focus on computer back then. I got into high school in '81 and totally lost interest in computers. Darn you girls! Darn your boobs!
Re: (Score:2)
Typing in those programs was a pain, but it did help the future programmer:
Re: (Score:2)
Layne
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I learned BBC Basic on old Acorn Archimedies computers
I used it on my BBC Model A with 16KB. I had a lot of fun with it and wrote loads of programs, including my first Mandelbrot set. It was a big step up from the simpler Basics I started with on the local college mini via a Teletype. I remember the editor being quite good for the time.
There is something to be said for simple languages where you just type in a few commands with no worries about loading libraries. Mind you, I would have killed for something like Python.
I ended up working on some fairly big app
Can you really call VB "BASIC"? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I remember in high school using qbasic (I think that's what it was) which was structured with procedures, at least. One of my partners wrote the core code, and I had to refactor it to take advantage of the structured part of the language. Of course, we didn't call it "refactoring" back then, we called it "cleaning up this goddam spaghetti."
Thank you, bitsavers! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dartmouth/BASIC_Oct64.pdf [mirrorservice.org]
And, their original 'hello world' program does linear algebra (page "9")
What BASIC means (Score:4, Informative)
There, consider yourselves enlightened.
I found that out from an article in PC format, back in the long ago.
Also, for the 'it's not a language' crowd, it *was* for those of us who were learning how to program back then. Ok, I wouldn't use it now, but I really enjoyed it in the eighties.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I used Power Basic fairly recently to measure transistor base current as part of a project. It worked nicely with the simple architecture of a 6502 microprocessor where really all you needed was to accept input via a serial port and sampling into a graph (don't ask - there are some really dated pieces of equipment in use in some establishments in the UK, especially where electronics are being taught - I've had instructors who thought Kirchoff's ideas were radical).
Mind you I had to wire the circu
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, I wouldn't use it now, but I really enjoyed it in the eighties.
LSD?Re: (Score:2)
There, consider yourselves enlightened.
I thought it stood for:
Bought
Apple;
Suck
It,
Commodore
RealBasic? Try SmallBasic... (Score:2)
I first used it because I couldn't find any other decent interpreters for an ancient Palm, then discovered it supported just about every platform I regularly use (oddly enough, however, no official Mac build exists, though I'd imagine you could get the Linux version to build on OS X).
And now
Basic vs. Python? (Score:2)
Dartmouth BASIC (Score:4, Informative)
Kemeny [wikipedia.org] himself was largely responsible for the revolution in computing, at least at Dartmouth, and his influence went way beyond developing BASIC. The man went from being a brilliant mathematician and computer scientist to being a brilliant mathematician/CS prof/president of the college. He saw that computing would be ubiquitous -- someday -- and issued every student a network ID. In the mid-70s. There were teletypes all over campus (in the performing arts center, even!) where everyone was invited to log on.
Sidenote, as related to me by a Dartmouth math/philosophy prof: Kemeny led the school into the era of coeducation, and expanded student enrollment by about a third when women came. Problem was, this put the college way over its housing capacity. So, being who he was, he ran a series of simulations on the mainframe to figure out how to cram 1.3n where there had previously been n students -- staggering schedules, stretching semesters, you name it. The result was the strange/unique Dartmouth program where all sophomores attend for the summer quarter, and are forced off campus/abroad during the "regular" school year. I can't help but admire the guy's approach to the knapsack problem in a different context...
Re: (Score:2)
All hail the mighty GOTO! (Score:2)
Do your part to help fight global warming!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In any case, this was not a language intended for software developers (like Algol). Nor was it a language intended for scientists (like Fortran). It was intended for CS students. Goto is desirable for demonstrating simple models of computation.
Dartmouth Basic had if/then, gosub, and for/next loops, which were much less gawdawful than Fortran's Do loops. It had fewer than a dozen functions, but they were well chosen to give students th
Re: (Score:2)
Fond Memories at Dartmouth (Score:2)
They had DECwriter LA36's (like was used to print the Lions' book), old-fashioned 110 baud teletypes with paper tape readers and punches, and if you were lucky you could get some time on one of the Tektronix vector terminals. They also had some very odd GE printing terminals whose printing looked a lot better than the DECwriters. I was
Where are they today? (Score:2)
with or without line numbers? (Score:2)
It was a real revelation to see some Amiga BASIC code in a magazine without!
Then some recent stuff like Batari BASIC which is basically a pre-processor into 6502 ASM showed how closely it maps to ASM - in fact, given that Im surprised compiled BASICs weren't more popular especially on slow home computers back in the day!
And of course Batari BASIC showed me line #s still weren't important, just fancy labels really.
Oblig. 2010 after reading the comments (Score:2)
All I needed... (Score:2)
I shall incite a mob to hang ye, destroyers of beauty.
Commercial grade (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not much of a milestone (Score:2)
[... and cue the
No discussion on BASIC is complete... (Score:2)
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BasicConsideredHarmful [c2.com]
I wish I could find the original document.
Old BASIC stuff: HP, Amiga (Score:2)
mark-sense cards (Score:2)
my first program (Score:2)
I was overjoyed and amazed that it was possible to create something that is completely incomprehensible by humans, yet does something useful. Fortunately, my programming style has changed a bit over the years :-)
Algol wasn't that complicated (Score:2)
I don't remember it being conceptually difficult. It just had the block structure syntax. Which is actually a lot easier for non-trivial programs than BASIC's spaghetti code.
Dijkstra's knock wasn't on BASIC _specifically_ (Score:3, Interesting)
So for the record it's worth noting that Dijkstra wasn't ranting against BASIC, specifically. He was ranting against anything that wasn't ALGOL or a derivative thereof, and he was equally harsh about the other major languages of the day:
"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.
APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums.
FORTRAN, 'the infantile disorder', by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.
In the good old days physicists repeated each other's experiments, just to be sure. Today they stick to FORTRAN, so that they can share each other's programs, bugs included.
It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
GOSUB 1960 (Score:4, Informative)
Still, BASIC was the first language I used in CS at school in 1975. Then FORTRAN IV. Fond memories.
I still have my coveted IBM flowchart template
Perhaps I should have stolen the code for the compiler & sold it to hobbyists, who knows I might be rich now......
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The language that drove me to discover Pascal, around '81!
Re: (Score:2)
Not quite dead yet....
Re: (Score:2)
I say Fortran IV. They taught us some Fortran 77, but I was already looking into pascal. I wanted string handling and input parsing. ("Drop Lamp") All that left/right stuff! It's like moving a cursor with batch processing!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm now back to 2008
There in lies the key to success (Score:2)
Kudos to Gates and Allen for taking the opportunity, however obvious it is to us today is wasn't so back then to others. That one step opened doors for many of us and we still have that legacy. So while some may or may not like was Microsoft became what they did was ever so important to the early days of hobbyist (soon to be home) computing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Although maybe that's a good thing...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Breakfast was a bit of a disaster, this morning, I'm afraid to say. There is an
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Dialup via a 110-baud acoustic coupler on an ASR-33 teletype - now *that's* "old school"!
Re: (Score:2)
Damn kids with your new-fangled PEEK and POKE and not having to use LET . . . get off my lawn.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I worked on all sorts of little BASIC compilers though. One I remember was calle
Re: (Score:2)
You're new around here, aren't you?
Fortran at 15? (Score:2)
BASIC was easy and my friend even wrote a program in BASIC on his Apple IIe to help his dad's business partner keep inventory. I used it to...ummmm...do very interesting things with a Hayes SmartModem and BASIC.
Re: (Score:2)
Pascal was recommended as a teaching language precicely because of it's structure. Some people said that learning to program with BASIC caused untold amount of damage on the psyche, something that some people never recovered from
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, we're all just so impressed that you're such an uber-geek and so much more intelligent than anyone else here. You're so damned smart we'll all have to just fall on our knees and worship you. Why is it people here feel like they always have to prove they're smarter than everyone else on /.? Are they that insecure that they have to prove themselves?
The statement "Why is it people here feel like they always have to prove they're smarter than everyone else on /.?" is redundant. You should say it rather like this: "Why is it people on /. feel like they always have to prove they're smarter than everyone else?"
There, that's better.
Re: (Score:2)
The statement "Why is it people here feel like they always have to prove they're smarter than everyone else on /.?" is redundant. You should say it rather like this: "Why is it people on /. feel like they always have to prove they're smarter than everyone else?"
I've been helping people improve sentence structure since I was 3 - Allow me to assist.
/.". In your statement, "people on /." are proving their superiority to "everyone else". This leaves open the interpretation that /. users try to best everyone whether on /. o
The basic problem with the revision you've suggested is that it lacks the clarification present in the original statement regarding the subject's target. In the original statement, "people here" are proving their superiority to "everyone else on
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
By your way of thinking we should bash Newton, Aristotle and others that made great achievements just because their ideas are now obsolete.
Newton's ideas are obsolete? They seem pretty solid to me. Relatively speaking, there are very few cases where his ideas are insufficient.
If you were trying just to be funny then learn some new friggin jokes.
I'm new here and I'm already tired of this everlasting bash on jokes that soar over your head. If you don't like somebody's humor, don't laugh. But do you really have to announce to the world that you didn't find it funny and be ugly to the guy that tried? That's just bad karma, man - Don't be hatin'. A bad joke is a world better than a pointless flame. (Unless i
Re: (Score:2)
and BOOLEAN was never TriState .. (Score:2)
There were other Basics, BBC Basic and Sinclair BASIC are two that come to mind. Is Microsoft the same company that remade BOOLEAN as a TRISTATE value, eg TristateUseDefault, TristateTrue, TristateFalse
was: Re:VB
Many "OO" languages have tristate Booleans (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
\rebel without a clue
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm...I think there's a Perl contest in here somewhere, make a one-line/short Perl/regexp script that converts between C# and VB. Extra points for making it look like pretty ASCII art.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Huh? I've used VB.Net and C#, and they are simply two slightly different syntactic layers on top of the .Net class libraries. You can set up your code exactly the same way, the differences are just some syntactic sugar.
Re:Best thing on Bell's site is not the emulator . (Score:2)
I learned it from my cousin and passed it along to my friends in grade school. We alternated between tanks and ships, as we felt like it.
Re: (Score:2)
20 PRINT "Bite your tongue, Eander"
30 IF TONGUE=1 GOTO 60
40 PRINT "No, really, BASIC is great!"
50 GOTO 30
60 PRINT "Now, go create some BASIC code"
70 END
Re: (Score:2)
30 IF TONGUE=1 GOTO 60
40 PRINT "No, really, BASIC is great!"
60 PRINT "Now, go create some BASIC code"
70 END
[John]
Re: (Score:2)
Said another way: only elite BASIC programmers numbered their lines by one's......at least until the RENUMBER command (some implementations).
Layne
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
[John]
Re: (Score:2)
* Not everyone wants to be a programmer-- some people just want to get stuff done. I trained a (very hesitant) group of people how to use SQL today; by the end of the session, they were surprised with the expressiveness and simplicity of the language. But it's not a "real" language. It's domain-specific, and that's fine. Same with regexps-- great at one thing; other things would totally suck. But do I really want to
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, it's just advanced typing... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What if MicroSoft bought Be and used that as the basis for a new OS?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)