It was. This was because Commodore was trying to keep the cost of the machine down, and BASIC 2 (along with the Commodore "kernal" [sic], the closest thing the

It was. This was because Commodore was trying to keep the cost of the machine down, and BASIC 2 (along with the Commodore "kernal" [sic], the closest thing the computer had to an OS) fitted into an 8 kB ROM. CBM BASIC 2 was terrible. It didn't support any of the C64's excellent (for the time) sound and graphics. It didn't have structured command (IF... THEN... ELSE, REPEAT... UNTIL, WHILE... WEND etc.) or named procedures or local variables or anything. But it was small. This terrible BASIC is why most of the world became convinced that BASIC was a bad programming language. Other contemporaneous 8-bit home computers had much better BASICs, notably the Acorn 8-bits, but also Sinclair, Oric and others. https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/71381.html https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/71381.html