4 ms·

The biggest achievement of BASIC was probably that it was the gateway drug into computing for teenagers throughout the 80's, because every popular home computer

The biggest achievement of BASIC was probably that it was the gateway drug into computing for teenagers throughout the 80's, because every popular home computer came with a BASIC builtin, available right after switching the computer on.

sokoloff 3y ago
Exactly! My Atari booted up to a READY prompt and even loading a program/game from tape required typing a BASIC command. The on-ramp was incredibly shallow and smooth.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  Yes. You owned the entire machine, there was a progression to assembler (awkard, but possible if you didn't mind hand-assembling the hex and typing into a BASIC shell), and you could a huge amount just with that. The capabilities and the limits captured your imagination in a way that the modern stack doesn't come close to. And especially in the UK, easy and cheap access to 8-bit machines for teenagers launched a generation of coding careers. So Dijsktra is wrong. It's very possible to learn CS principles after learning BASIC. it's certainly an adjustment, but it's very easy to sell if you explain that you can build larger structured projects from smaller elements, including more complex data structures - not a difficult concept for anyone who taught themselves assembler from magazine articles and books, because there was no other help or support. The other thing BASIC did was gave some of those teens a career. The cost of entry to a small game business was very low, and there were plenty of games that didn't even need assembler. A bit of advertising in the magazines, maybe some hand duplication to start with, and good games made non-trivial money almost immediately, through organic word of mouth promotion.
  - jaybrendansmith 3y ago
    I found it very easy to learn these principles once BASIC taught me loops and functions. Once out of BASIC, a tough concept to grok was passing pointers and different data types, because BASIC made global and local variables so brainless. Object-oriented languages are in many ways further from assembly than BASIC, but even VB teaches you objects and methods and properties albeit in a very simple form. Leaving the virtual box framework of basic was also somewhat difficult, but I don't think learning basic made it any harder or easier, just more frustrating because it seemed so pointless at first. It's like learning to drive an automatic and having someone tell you that you must now learn a manual transmission with manual brakes and steering, and how to change the oil/clean the carb. Seems silly at first, but ultimately rewarding.
- karmakaze 3y ago
  Same here, got my Atari 400 (with the membrane keyboard) and wrote so many games, then later utility programs, machine code routines, and not long after macro assembler. In no time, we were exposed to FFI (calling machine code routines) and internals (like BASIC program/token storage to make a line renumbering utility), and all the hardware interface memory locations. Learning how software copy-protection worked and defeating it was a great reverse-engineering/debugging passtime. We were always reading about new tricks and sharing with each other who had the same machines. Getting a copy of the "De Re Atari" document was the holy grail where we felt like we had access to know everything, and we mostly did. I even tried as a kid to make a multitasking 'game' which failed because I didn't know enough about interrupt handlers, but I was close--it worked, briefly.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    I threw away lots of stuff (in multiple rounds) from my computing childhood. De Re Atari survived all those rounds, even the ones where the Atari computers themselves did not. It did feel religious in a way.
    - karmakaze 3y ago
      So true. The seeking and finding and revelation in its contents was something else. It also took a lot of reading and applying to get everything out of it.
greenbit 3y ago
Indeed. Flick that power switch and in less than a second, that machine was READY!
- ikari_pl 3y ago
  that's what the first post was about:) https://retrofun.pl/2021/05/18/hobbyarding/ https://retrofun.pl/2021/05/18/hobbyarding/
B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
> every popular home computer came with a BASIC builtin, Until the Mac put the kibosh on that. You were firmly on the outside of the box, and to get in you had to buy either a box of floppies from Apple (MDW, was it?) or something like Lightning C which was just a couple of disks if memory serves. Later there was the Hypercard thing, a scripting tool from Apple which did get some traction, but was never very popular.
- krallja 3y ago
  Microsoft BASIC for the Macintosh was quite nice, actually!
- skymast 3y ago
  [dead]
- kalleboo 3y ago
  Microsoft wouldn’t let Apple release a BASIC for the Mac https://folklore.org/MacBasic.html https://folklore.org/MacBasic.html
karmakaze 3y ago
The article mentions processing.js as a modern equivalent, which it can serve being rather high level and outputting great graphics. But that misses the "close to the machine" aspect of having a computer fully within the control of your hands. Similarly using a web browser and View Source for HTML/CSS+JS was a modern equivalent before we had all the single-page-apps/frameworks that make it incomprehensible. And again the 'machine' is an abstracted web client. The Commander X16 project[0] aims to recreate that environment for modern times (and also available for purchase). It's effectively what a C64 might be today, with more (but still limited) memory and easy to program graphics and sound. Something like a Raspberry Pi 400 looks the part but would end up running something like Linux and OpenGL ES2.0 which isn't much different than a regular desktop. I can't find the original video where I saw the project getting started, but here's a review[1] that runs through what it is. [0] https://www.commanderx16.com/ https://www.commanderx16.com/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFIk8WV-RYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFIk8WV-RYQ
- citrin_ru 3y ago
  What modern equivalents lack compare to pre-internet computers (including ones which come with BASIC) is a distraction free environment.
- AlexeyBrin 3y ago
  I think Agon Light or Neo6502 are more affordable and as close to the machine as Commander X16.
  - karmakaze 3y ago
    Yeah the Commander X16 isn't the most affordable, but I think it's the most accurate 'retro' machine. Specifically the custom VERA graphics hardware works in ways analogous to the machines of the time with various tile or bitmap modes and sprites. It's also in the 'batteries included' camp with lots of software support to get right into writing programs rather than lower-level tinkering. There's even a full emulator[0] available so you can hack with friends who don't have one, or share your creations to run in the emulator. [0] https://github.com/x16community/x16-emulator https://github.com/x16community/x16-emulator

sokoloff 3y ago

Exactly! My Atari booted up to a READY prompt and even loading a program/game from tape required typing a BASIC command. The on-ramp was incredibly shallow and smooth.

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
Yes. You owned the entire machine, there was a progression to assembler (awkard, but possible if you didn't mind hand-assembling the hex and typing into a BASIC shell), and you could a huge amount just with that. The capabilities and the limits captured your imagination in a way that the modern stack doesn't come close to. And especially in the UK, easy and cheap access to 8-bit machines for teenagers launched a generation of coding careers. So Dijsktra is wrong. It's very possible to learn CS principles after learning BASIC. it's certainly an adjustment, but it's very easy to sell if you explain that you can build larger structured projects from smaller elements, including more complex data structures - not a difficult concept for anyone who taught themselves assembler from magazine articles and books, because there was no other help or support. The other thing BASIC did was gave some of those teens a career. The cost of entry to a small game business was very low, and there were plenty of games that didn't even need assembler. A bit of advertising in the magazines, maybe some hand duplication to start with, and good games made non-trivial money almost immediately, through organic word of mouth promotion.
- jaybrendansmith 3y ago
  I found it very easy to learn these principles once BASIC taught me loops and functions. Once out of BASIC, a tough concept to grok was passing pointers and different data types, because BASIC made global and local variables so brainless. Object-oriented languages are in many ways further from assembly than BASIC, but even VB teaches you objects and methods and properties albeit in a very simple form. Leaving the virtual box framework of basic was also somewhat difficult, but I don't think learning basic made it any harder or easier, just more frustrating because it seemed so pointless at first. It's like learning to drive an automatic and having someone tell you that you must now learn a manual transmission with manual brakes and steering, and how to change the oil/clean the carb. Seems silly at first, but ultimately rewarding.
karmakaze 3y ago
Same here, got my Atari 400 (with the membrane keyboard) and wrote so many games, then later utility programs, machine code routines, and not long after macro assembler. In no time, we were exposed to FFI (calling machine code routines) and internals (like BASIC program/token storage to make a line renumbering utility), and all the hardware interface memory locations. Learning how software copy-protection worked and defeating it was a great reverse-engineering/debugging passtime. We were always reading about new tricks and sharing with each other who had the same machines. Getting a copy of the "De Re Atari" document was the holy grail where we felt like we had access to know everything, and we mostly did. I even tried as a kid to make a multitasking 'game' which failed because I didn't know enough about interrupt handlers, but I was close--it worked, briefly.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  I threw away lots of stuff (in multiple rounds) from my computing childhood. De Re Atari survived all those rounds, even the ones where the Atari computers themselves did not. It did feel religious in a way.
  - karmakaze 3y ago
    So true. The seeking and finding and revelation in its contents was something else. It also took a lot of reading and applying to get everything out of it.

greenbit 3y ago

Indeed. Flick that power switch and in less than a second, that machine was READY!

ikari_pl 3y ago
that's what the first post was about:) https://retrofun.pl/2021/05/18/hobbyarding/ https://retrofun.pl/2021/05/18/hobbyarding/

B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago

> every popular home computer came with a BASIC builtin, Until the Mac put the kibosh on that. You were firmly on the outside of the box, and to get in you had to buy either a box of floppies from Apple (MDW, was it?) or something like Lightning C which was just a couple of disks if memory serves. Later there was the Hypercard thing, a scripting tool from Apple which did get some traction, but was never very popular.

krallja 3y ago
Microsoft BASIC for the Macintosh was quite nice, actually!
skymast 3y ago
[dead]
kalleboo 3y ago
Microsoft wouldn’t let Apple release a BASIC for the Mac https://folklore.org/MacBasic.html https://folklore.org/MacBasic.html

karmakaze 3y ago

The article mentions processing.js as a modern equivalent, which it can serve being rather high level and outputting great graphics. But that misses the "close to the machine" aspect of having a computer fully within the control of your hands. Similarly using a web browser and View Source for HTML/CSS+JS was a modern equivalent before we had all the single-page-apps/frameworks that make it incomprehensible. And again the 'machine' is an abstracted web client. The Commander X16 project[0] aims to recreate that environment for modern times (and also available for purchase). It's effectively what a C64 might be today, with more (but still limited) memory and easy to program graphics and sound. Something like a Raspberry Pi 400 looks the part but would end up running something like Linux and OpenGL ES2.0 which isn't much different than a regular desktop. I can't find the original video where I saw the project getting started, but here's a review[1] that runs through what it is. [0] https://www.commanderx16.com/ https://www.commanderx16.com/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFIk8WV-RYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFIk8WV-RYQ

citrin_ru 3y ago
What modern equivalents lack compare to pre-internet computers (including ones which come with BASIC) is a distraction free environment.
AlexeyBrin 3y ago
I think Agon Light or Neo6502 are more affordable and as close to the machine as Commander X16.
- karmakaze 3y ago
  Yeah the Commander X16 isn't the most affordable, but I think it's the most accurate 'retro' machine. Specifically the custom VERA graphics hardware works in ways analogous to the machines of the time with various tile or bitmap modes and sprites. It's also in the 'batteries included' camp with lots of software support to get right into writing programs rather than lower-level tinkering. There's even a full emulator[0] available so you can hack with friends who don't have one, or share your creations to run in the emulator. [0] https://github.com/x16community/x16-emulator https://github.com/x16community/x16-emulator