[Coco] Happy Birthday BASIC!

[James Jones]

Speaking of the University of Oklahoma and BASIC, check out
http://foldoc.org/GO-GO.

On Wed, May 3, 2017 at 5:33 AM, James Jones <jejones3141 at gmail.com> wrote:

> No, it's not just you. Here's the standard quote from Edsger W. Dijkstra: "It
> is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have
> had a prior exposure to BASIC <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/BASIC>: as
> potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of
> regeneration." Dijkstra would have written me off; I got my start (not
> counting curiosities like the Bell Labs CARDIAC cardboard sort-of computer
> we were all given in junior high) in 1971 with a few weeks' exposure to
> BASIC on a Data General Supernova thanks to the University of Oklahoma (and
> in particular Dr. Richard V. Andree) and an NSF-sponsored setup with weekly
> lectures and lab time. BTW, Supernova BASIC had the original Dartmouth
> BASIC "MAT" statements and functions for matrix operations.
>
> Kemeny and Kurtz themselves didn't like microcomputer BASICs of the sort
> that Microsoft, or rather Micro-Soft, churned out in the early days; they
> referred to them as "gutter BASIC".
>
> The thing is that the early BASICs are not suited for anything but tiny
> programs, thanks to primitive control structures, no data structures other
> than arrays, no data types other than floating point numbers and strings,
> one global namespace for all variables, and subroutines as the closest
> thing to a way to break tasks down into smaller pieces. BASICs like Color
> BASIC are not a help but an impediment to writing any nontrivial program.
>
> On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 3:54 PM, Glen Hewlett <glen.hewlett at sympatico.ca>
> wrote:
>
>> I don’t know if it’s just me but I had always felt that BASIC was looked
>> down upon by most serious programmers in the 80’s and 90’s.  I always
>> thought it was an awesome language and easy to write programs with.  Super
>> quick development/test/debug times and easy to learn.
>>
>> Maybe because of the name Beginner’s All purpose Symbolic Instruction
>> Code had the name Beginner in it made it so that it was looked down at, I
>> don’t know.  Sure there are more powerful languages but for general purpose
>> programming on an old computer I think BASIC is awesome.
>>
>> I’m still fighting with my Pacman transcode in 100% assembly, but I have
>> written some programs in BASIC on the CoCo to help me convert the ROM
>> graphics from the original hardware into something the CoCo 3 can use and
>> it was a joy.  I also wrote some BASIC code to convert graphic sprites into
>> compiled sprites and enjoyed the experience on the CoCo.
>>
>> FYI - There is a compiler for QB for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android
>> called QB64 that takes your BASIC program and compiles it into a super fast
>> machine language program native to your computer.  I only mention it since
>> Quick Basic is VERY similar to CoCo Basic and someone here might get a kick
>> out of using it.  It can be found here: http://www.qb64.net/
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Glen
>>
>> > On May 2, 2017, at 4:11 PM, Wayne Campbell <asa.rand at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > It is there, albeit as a brief allusion to the fact:
>> >
>> > History -> Origin
>> > 2nd paragraph
>> > 3rd sentence reads:
>> >
>> > "Wanting use of the language to become widespread, its designers made
>> the
>> > compiler available free of charge."
>> >
>> > Wayne
>> >
>> > On May 2, 2017 11:44 AM, "Salvador Garcia via Coco" <
>> coco at maltedmedia.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> Something that I did not locate in that Wiki entry is that the original
>> >> BASIC was a compiled language.
>> >>
>> >> Seeing how many shunned BASIC because it was interpreted, I believe
>> that
>> >> this is an important item.
>> >>
>> >> And if anyone feels nostalgic, you can still program like it is 1964
>> here:
>> >>
>> >> http://www.vintageisthenewold.com/program-in-basic-like-it-is-1964/
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Salvador
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>      From: Frank Pittel <fpittel at gmail.com>
>> >> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>> >> Sent: Tuesday, May 2, 2017 11:10 AM
>> >> Subject: [Coco] Happy Birthday BASIC!
>> >>
>> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC
>> >>
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>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
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>
>