4 ms·

Why did a broadcasting corporation have a version of BASIC?

ttrrooppeerr 3y ago
And why is always on the HN front page? Seems like never ending stream of news about it.
jlarcombe 3y ago
As part of an ambitious public-service project to help increase computer literacy in Britain, supported by the Department for Trade & Industry and the Department for Education. They decided that they needed standardised hardware to support the project, and a standardised language with which to programme it. Acorn already had a somewhat more primitive but flexible BASIC, and were quite readily able to adjust it to fulfil the BBC's specification (drawn up by John Coll, an independent educator, who later wrote the BBC Micro manual).
soneil 3y ago
Well, they needed /something/ to run on the BBC micro. Part of the BBC's mandate (public funding requires public benefit, the mandate is essentially the contractual definition of the BBC's "deliverables") requires the production of educational content. As part of this, they had a programs for computer literacy in the early 80s - and commissioned a computer to go with them. So we had the BBC Micro running BBC Basic. We still had some left in school well into the 90s. It's an interesting bit of history, because it gave a huge boost to the company that won the contract. Acorn soon after went on to develop the Acorn RISC Machine, featuring the ARM1 processor.
chasil 3y ago
The history of BBC Basic is on the wiki. Sophie Wilson wrote the language, first in 6502 assembler, later in ARM assembler. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_BASIC This linked article of interviews has much greater depth. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7307636.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7307636.stm
- SpaceManNabs 3y ago
  Yeah I first looked that up and kept getting confused. Like why make BBC Micro? Other comments kinda helped but I am still confused lol.

And why is always on the HN front page? Seems like never ending stream of news about it.

As part of an ambitious public-service project to help increase computer literacy in Britain, supported by the Department for Trade & Industry and the Department for Education. They decided that they needed standardised hardware to support the project, and a standardised language with which to programme it. Acorn already had a somewhat more primitive but flexible BASIC, and were quite readily able to adjust it to fulfil the BBC's specification (drawn up by John Coll, an independent educator, who later wrote the BBC Micro manual).

soneil 3y ago

Well, they needed /something/ to run on the BBC micro. Part of the BBC's mandate (public funding requires public benefit, the mandate is essentially the contractual definition of the BBC's "deliverables") requires the production of educational content. As part of this, they had a programs for computer literacy in the early 80s - and commissioned a computer to go with them. So we had the BBC Micro running BBC Basic. We still had some left in school well into the 90s. It's an interesting bit of history, because it gave a huge boost to the company that won the contract. Acorn soon after went on to develop the Acorn RISC Machine, featuring the ARM1 processor.

chasil 3y ago

The history of BBC Basic is on the wiki. Sophie Wilson wrote the language, first in 6502 assembler, later in ARM assembler. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_BASIC This linked article of interviews has much greater depth. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7307636.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7307636.stm

SpaceManNabs 3y ago
Yeah I first looked that up and kept getting confused. Like why make BBC Micro? Other comments kinda helped but I am still confused lol.