Remembering BASIC on its 50th birthday

[DominionZA]

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/01/basic-programming-language-50th-birthday/

 

[DominionZA]

Nowadays, "basic" has a very different and derogatory*Urban Dictionary-style meaning. Fifty years ago on this very day, however, it was the name given to a new computer-programming language*born in a Dartmouth College basement. Devised initially by a group of the school's undergraduates and professors,BASIC's initial academic purpose*was simple: to enable time-sharing on Dartmouth computers with an easy-to-learn, English-based language. Programming itself has*greatly*evolved since, but our early memories of coding in BASIC are no less fond.

Oh my... Brings back fond memories. Where I started around 27 years ago - thanks to the old man.

 

[NoLogic001]

I remember this beauty. I'm flooded with grade 6 nostalgia , IBM PC 286 and mono colour displays........

 

[cguy]

Acorn BASIC in 1983 for me.

 

[DarthCat]

I started using BASIC on the zx spectrum

 

[DominionZA]

This is the thread where all us ballies surface

My first was GW Basic on an Ohio Scientific. Next was Apple 2+e (or something) and only then did x86 arrive.

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Have fun typing it all in!

http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/fraser.charlton/otherstuff/Valley/assets/Valley BASIC Listing.pdf

 

[SuperBru]

My first line of code was BASIC on a ZX 81

 

[The_Unbeliever]

My first line of code was BASIC on a ZX 81

10 PRINT "Hello World"

?

 

[DominionZA]

10 PRINT "Hello World"

?

Lololol - oh ye... Sigh.

 

[Paul Hjul]

QBASIC on MSDOS 6
irritated the life out of me that you could not compile to an executable - so you either made a batch file as well to run your program or ran it from in the interface;

later in life compiling code into executables has become a grand irritation ...

 

[Paul Hjul]

10 PRINT "Hello World"

?

You clearly aren't a Real Programmer
the first and every third line thereafter must contain GOTO

 

[NoLogic001]

This is the thread where all us ballies surface

My first was GW Basic on an Ohio Scientific. Next was Apple 2+e (or something) and only then did x86 arrive.

Thanks for that, I feel a bit younger now!

 

[GoB]

Oh yea I got a ZX Spectrum and ZX81 22 years ago, then QBasic and VB later.

The anti-Basic-snobs will say that it damages you permanently for the worst. I say:
hell:
FOR f% = 100 TO 40 STEP -5
SOUND f%, f% / 500
GOTO hell

 

[CheekyC]

Yes brings back memories. I started Basic in around 1980. Was on some main frame type computer Univac. Then there was another computer called Superbrain. Before the IBM PC and DOS came out. It was top the range with 64K memory!. Then dabbled on Spectrum and original IBM PC. My biggest Basic program was for my matric CS class. Wrote a bioruthm program with graphics and all. Then interfaced it to mainframe to do screendumps.

 

[gkm]

I also started with AppleSoft Basic on an Apple II+ around 1981. That was the good old days for sure. 48K memory of which the operating system and screen display each took a share. Now one would allocate 48K of memory for a single data structure without blinking, in those days it was everything you had.

 

[_kabal_]

Some real old timers around here

 

[Batista]

10 PRINT "Hello World"

?

That looks very similar to c64 programming...