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Reading these made me wonder: what was the best self-hosted language on the C64 (or Apple II or other early computers)? Like if those computers had existed in
by ianbicking 5y ago
Reading these made me wonder: what was the best self-hosted language on the C64 (or Apple II or other early computers)?
Like if those computers had existed in a world like today with open source and easy communication, what could the development environment have looked like?
I had an Apple II as a kid and knowledge and tools were so _scarce_ ... there was a certain magic to the secret world of the computers, but mostly I was cut off by a lack of access. And I'm sure some of the languages in this list were denied the audience they deserved by that same lack of access. (COMAL for instance looks like it would have been a breath of fresh air for my younger self)
- jhbadger 5y agoI'd vote for a version of Forth. Forth has fallen out of favor these days because it works best when you don't really have an operating system as such and so the Forth system can become the OS. And because it's arguably not that maintainable with large systems, I suppose. But on 8-bit systems running at low clock speeds like in the 1980s it was ideal. It ran quickly and used little memory. And unlike other development systems of the day there were freely available Forth systems that were public domain software and you could legally obtain them from a friend or from companies that could sell you copies for the price of the disks themselves. On the Apple II, my favorite Forth was Mad Apple Forth created in Madison, WI and which used to have a user group for it there.
- chrismcb 5y agoFor the cbm64 i'd argue the best language was assembly. Nothing else really came close. And considering we were fairly well connected via BBS communication was decent. Not a good as today, but pretty good.