6/24/2023 0 Comments Chipmunk basic if commandsSince the 1980s, BASIC evolved to no longer require line numbers, instead using labels which it can jump to, along with adopting new programming paradigms. This is not to be confused with SmallBASIC, which is an open source (GPL) BASIC dialect with accompanying interpreters for modern platforms.īASIC dialects can also be found in many graphing and programmable calculators from Ti, HP, Casio and others, although many of these dialects are not directly compatible with the original BASIC standard (ISO/IEC 10279:1991). Microsoft also released Small Basic in 2008, which it says targets novice programmers, for example students who used a visual programming language like Scratch previously. The latter allows writing VB code for the. Over at Microsoft, BASIC spawned Visual Basic, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and VB. Here it should be noted that BASIC didn’t live and die with Commodore and Atari. Aside from folks who like to play with old computers, of course. BASIC Today The PureBasic Visual Designer.Īll good and well, you may say at this point, but nobody is dragging out that C64 to do some BASIC programming today. Fortunately, on the C64 and similar systems, fixing a mistyped line would be as easy as retyping it, hitting ‘Return’ and the interpreter shell would update the line in question. This feature of interpreted code means that the easy distribution method of code as listings in computer magazines and reference books would only be as good as the quality of the printed code and one’s own typing skills. Running the same code through a compiler would however have found those errors. The C64 runs Commodore BASIC 2.0, which is based on Microsoft BASIC.Ĩ0 IF Y’ error. For an extremely simple but fun example of how BASIC can be used, let’s take a look at an application for the Commodore 64 ( courtesy of C64-Wiki) that moves an arrow around the screen while printing its screen coordinates using a joystick connected to the second joystick port. To start off with, let’s see a bit of what BASIC is about. Are people actually still using the Basic language? As BASIC implementations between different home computers were relatively consistent, this provided for a lot of portability. Running existing BASIC code as well as compiled programs on one’s computer, or even typing them in from a listing in a magazine all belonged to the options. In this interpreter shell, one could use the hardware, write and load BASIC programs and save them to tape or disk. Instead of compiling BASIC source code, BASIC interpreters would interpret and run the code one line at a time, trading execution speed for flexibility and low resource use.Īfter turning on one’s microcomputer, the BASIC interpreter would usually be loaded straight from an onboard ROM in lieu of a full-blown operating system. This was good, because compiling a program takes a lot of RAM and storage, neither of which were plentiful in microcomputers. The advantage of having BASIC integrated into these systems was obvious: not only were most people who bought such a home computer already familiar with BASIC, it allows programs to be run without first being compiled. When the 1970s saw the arrival of microcomputers, small and cheap enough to be bought by anyone and used at home, it seemed only natural that they too would run BASIC. Taking its cues from popular 1960s languages like FORTRAN and ALGOL, it saw widespread use on time-sharing systems at schools, with even IBM joining the party in 1973 with VS-BASIC. Fortunately most of these licensed or were derived from the most popular microcomputer implementation of BASIC: Microsoft BASIC.īASIC has its roots in academics, where it was intended to be an easy to use programming language for every student, even those outside the traditional STEM fields. This wasn’t necessarily always the exact same BASIC the commands and syntax differed between whatever BASIC dialect came with any given model of home computer (Commodore, Atari, Texas Instruments, Sinclair or any of the countless others). There was a time, not even that long ago, when the lingua franca of the home computer world was BASIC. In addition to inspiring a large part of home computing today, BASIC is still very much alive today, even outside of retro computing. Surely BASIC is properly obsolete by now, right? Perhaps not.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |