BASIC Computer Language Turns 40 1042
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the everybody's-training-wheels dept.
from the everybody's-training-wheels dept.
5 REM nam37 codes
10 PRINT "In 1963 two Dartmouth College math professors had a radical"
20 PRINT "idea - create a computer language muscular enough to harness"
30 PRINT "the power of the period's computers, yet simple enough that even"
40 PRINT "the school's janitors could use it."
50 END
10 PRINT "In 1963 two Dartmouth College math professors had a radical"
20 PRINT "idea - create a computer language muscular enough to harness"
30 PRINT "the power of the period's computers, yet simple enough that even"
40 PRINT "the school's janitors could use it."
50 END
missing line (Score:5, Funny)
A Poem! (Score:5, Funny)
They had a dream (Score:5, Funny)
And now we have ... (Score:5, Funny)
Janitors are programmers too! (Score:5, Funny)
And that, children, is where the seeds of garbage collection were sowed.
-Adam
5 REM Testing.. (Score:5, Funny)
20 PRINT "that all comments in this story"
30 PRINT "be typed in basic"
40 END
Re:ahem (Score:2, Funny)
Re:ahem (Score:2, Funny)
-Peter
Obligatory Dijkstra quote (Score:5, Funny)
Re:5 REM Testing.. (Score:5, Funny)
20 END
Re:missing line (Score:5, Funny)
10 PRINT "First Post"
20 GOTO 10
Re:ahem (Score:1, Funny)
In other news, slashdot submitters use a Pentium to calculate important historical dates.
plurvet
Re:I miss the simple life (Score:3, Funny)
RE: FP (Score:1, Funny)
20 GOTO 10
(note to mods: this is funny; please moderate accordingly)
re: janitors are programmers too! (Score:2, Funny)
ed
Nostolgia (Score:5, Funny)
| * |
| * |
| * |
| * |
|* |
| |
| |
*BOOM* YOU CRASHED. TRY AGAIN? [Y/N]
Re:ahem (Score:5, Funny)
20 PRINT "Born: 1964"
30 END
Re:I miss the simple life (Score:1, Funny)
I would... (Score:2, Funny)
It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC; as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. (Edsger Dijkstra)
Re:I miss the simple life (Score:2, Funny)
Re:missing line (Score:5, Funny)
Re:5 REM Testing.. (Score:5, Funny)
System.out.println("GOTO 10");
Re:ahem (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They had a dream (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They had a dream (Score:1, Funny)
I have to keep modifying the SPEEDCONST though.
Re:ahem (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Edsger Dijkstra? Does not like it (Score:2, Funny)
No, Dijkstra has it right; there are styles one should use and styles one should not. BASIC forces you to use the latter. This must later be beaten out of you if you are to become proficient.
Your seeming moral ambiguity about the styles one can use spring from a personal coping mechanism attemptimg to rationalize your bad habits as valid. They are not.
Or something.
Re:Edsger Dijkstra? Does not like it (Score:3, Funny)
It feels like elementary school again (Score:5, Funny)
15 ? CHR$(7)
20 goto 10
Re:WHY! WON'T! IT! DIE! (Score:2, Funny)
probably because someone stuck a "goto 10" before the "end"
a BASIC error (Score:5, Funny)
11 PRINT "Happy Birthday to you"
12 PRINT "Happy Birthday dear BASIC"
13 END
Dammit... Missed out a line. Now I remember why I should always increment line numbers by 10.
Today we use Bash (Score:1, Funny)
First Post
First Post
First Post
First Post
First Post
.
.
.
.
.
Re:5 REM Testing.. (Score:5, Funny)
> 20 PRINT "that all comments in this story"
> 30 PRINT "be typed in basic"
> 40 END
EdsgerDijkstra?Does not like it-Take the MONO-Rail (Score:1, Funny)
Spoken like someone who's never had to maintain a lick of code in his life.
"Those who think that there is no place for anything like a GOTO should look at html."
I take that back. Someone who's never coded in his life.
Re:ahem (Score:5, Funny)
20 PRINT "Born: 1964"
30 END
25 PRINT "Spell checked: Never"
RUN
60 PROFIT! (Score:4, Funny)
-------------------^
Command Not Found "PROFIT"
Maximum Program Length (Score:2, Funny)
Damn! (Score:2, Funny)
Obligatory AYBABTU (Score:2, Funny)
10 PRINT "In A.D. 2101"
20 PRINT "War was beginning."
30 PRINT "Captain: What happen ?"
40 PRINT "Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb."
50 PRINT "Operator: We get signal."
60 PRINT "Captain: What !"
70 PRINT "Operator: Main screen turn on."
80 PRINT "Captain: It's You !!"
90 PRINT "Cats: How are you gentlemen !!"
100 PRINT "Cats: All your base are belong to us."
110 PRINT "Cats: You are on the way to destruction."
120 PRINT "Captain: What you say !!"
130 PRINT "Cats: You have no chance to survive make your time."
140 PRINT "Cats: HA HA HA HA
150 PRINT "Captain: Take off every 'zig' !!"
160 PRINT "Captain: You know what you doing."
170 PRINT "Captain: Move 'zig'."
180 PRINT "Captain: For great justice."
190 GOTO 5
And lo...... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:From the Jargon File (Score:2, Funny)
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE
SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language
Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for
Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code
with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN,
END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make
a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus
they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without
the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging.
Re:missing line (Score:2, Funny)
60 END
editors: GOTO 10
Re:WHY! WON'T! IT! DIE! (Score:3, Funny)
shouldn't that be... (Score:3, Funny)
60 PRINT "COOL! I USED TO PROGRAM ON MY APPLE
70 GOTO 50
CVS
BASIC Sex Ed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A Poem! (Score:4, Funny)
Whow... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:a BASIC error (Score:4, Funny)
10 gosub 60
20 gosub 60
30 print "happy birthday dear BASIC"
40 gosub 60
50 end
60 print "happy birthday to you"
70 return
(tested in MS Office XP VBA, will not work in vb.net as gosub has now gonesub and will not return)
Re:WHY! WON'T! IT! DIE! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Today we use Bash (Score:5, Funny)
10 PRINT "Jorkapp is a Programmer"
20 GOTO 10
but it was too - Basic. IMO, my sig in C is more 1337.
Re:A Poem! (Score:5, Funny)
10 GOTO 30
20 REM ???
30 PRINT "PROFIT!"
Re:A Poem! (Score:5, Funny)
1K Adventure (Score:5, Funny)
10 PRINT "You are in a cave."
20 PRINT "Go N, S, E OR W?"
30 INPUT A$
40 GOTO 10
Re:Look at all these posts. (Score:5, Funny)
Haiku in English is dumb
Add last line next time
Re:And now we have ... (Score:5, Funny)
5 REM Jeez (Score:2, Funny)
20 LINE INPUT A$
30 PRINT "Wrong, they write basic programs and post them to slashdot"
40 END
I'm a janitor! (Score:3, Funny)
sig (Score:2, Funny)
I am somewhat into programming language theory, and I have seen the pages of alternative languages... It looks to me like the "Hello World" program in one of the languages that just uses the primitive combinators.
But, what is funny: I paste it into google, and it says:
Heh... did I mean to use somewhat random-looking string of characters A, or did I really want somewhat random-looking string of characters B?
BASIC? That's too newfangled for me! (Score:5, Funny)
My first BASIC project (Score:5, Funny)
After learning the basics, I started my first project - a random text generator. I wanted to see if, left to its own devices, the Apple II would eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Or at least, produce a few dirty words on its own.
I spent two days coding (never having used a keyboard before, typing was arduous)
The program went like this:
10 A=INT(RND(1)*30) +1
20 REM
30 IF A=1 THEN $B="A"
40 IF A=2 THEN $B="B"
...
340 IF A=30 THEN $B="."
350 PRINT $B;
360 GOTO 10
If I recall, there was no "copy" or "paste" function in the boot ROM AppleII BASIC. Typing this was hell on my 9-year-old fingers.
The good news is, the program worked. The bad news is, after I'd finished it, the teacher showed me how to cut 29 lines out of my program using the $CHR() function. I wanted to shoot him.
All in all, BASIC served me well. It's a great intro programming language for pre-teens.
My favorite basic program... (Score:2, Funny)
20 GOTO 10
You never knew what it would do! Sometimes nothing, sometimes it'd play music, sometimes it'd draw pictures! It was great!
Re:A Poem! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:missing line (Score:2, Funny)
Ah! The magic "how to get kicked out of a Radio Shack" code!
Re:missing line (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Obligatory Dijkstra quote (Score:3, Funny)
Stupid computer trick... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Today we use Bash (Score:5, Funny)
while(1) sounds like the Queen talking.
Re:A Poem! (Score:5, Funny)
Just goes to show you, like comedy, its all in the timing.
C64 (Score:2, Funny)
The program was pretty long (or at least we felt so) but after a while we were finally finished!
But we couldn't figure out how to start it. We checked the manual like a 100 times, but didn't find any solution. So eventually, we had to turn it off...bummer!
Later we learned that we just should've typed in the command "Run".