3 ms·

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

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.

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.