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It was interesting to hear that Smalltalk was originally a language for Children (similar to Logo), and was coded in BASIC. Alan Kay expressed some dismay afte

• igouy 4y ago
  > … and was coded in BASIC. I don't know that there wasn't some initial implementation "coded in BASIC" — Smalltalk 71? otoh — "Smalltalk 72, which was done in BCPL on a Data General Nova." https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Adele_Goldberg#Developing_Smalltalk https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Adele_Goldberg#Developing_Smal...
  • scroot 4y ago
    > I don't know that there wasn't some initial implementation "coded in BASIC" — Smalltalk 71 Dan has said/written before that the "first pass" -- which was done in like a weekend or something -- was done in BASIC just to get a feel for the thing. It wasn't a full blown environment or anything.
    • igouy 4y ago
      And the canonical source — 'Much to my surprise, only a few days later, Dan Ingalls showed me the scheme working on the NOVA. He had coded it up (in BASIC!), added a lot of details, such as a token scanner, a list maker, and the like, and there it was -- running. As he like to say: "You just do it and it's done."' "The Early History of Smalltalk" ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 28, Issue 3, March 1993 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/234286.1057828 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/234286.1057828