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`Win+X I` brings up a PowerShell window. It’s supremely integrated - it can do ANYTHING a compiled .NET language can do, including calling into unmanaged COM, e

`Win+X I` brings up a PowerShell window. It’s supremely integrated - it can do ANYTHING a compiled .NET language can do, including calling into unmanaged COM, etc.. And it’s super simple - you can get started with simple string processing and file manipulation in just a few characters. It’s just not popular in the same way BASIC was.

7thaccount 3y ago
Agree with everything you've said about Powershell. It's pretty cool. Buuut...the common Basic computers of the time had commands that let you do built-in graphics in a very simple manner. Not anything as crazy complex as the .NET charting and GUI stuff available to Powershell now. It's a real shame there isn't a built-in DSL that could allow normal users (i.e. not full time developers) to build some really simple games in like half a page of code.
- Someone 3y ago
  > the common Basic computers of the time had commands that let you do built-in graphics in a very simple manner. I don’t remember Commodore Basic for the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 doing graphics other than through a series of POKEs.
  - egypturnash 3y ago
    Commodore was very much the exception here. Pretty much every other 8-bit computer's Basic had a bunch of commands to do graphics and sounds. But Jack Tramiel just slapped in a licensed copy of Microsoft's Basic with the least amount of work necessary to make it run.
    - Someone 3y ago
      I know, but it also was one of the most common of the “common Basic computers” of the time.
    - Cockbrand 3y ago
      The Commodore machines at least had a fairly extensive set of graphics symbols to create basic [pun not intended] graphics. For sound, though, there indeed wasn't really anything in Commodore BASIC V2. Tangential: Artist Raquel Meyers does really great stuff with the CBM graphics character set, see https://www.raquelmeyers.com/ https://www.raquelmeyers.com/
    - lproven 3y ago
      Yup. I think the C64 alone was responsible for a lot of the bad press BASIC got in the 1980s-1990s, from former Commodore owners who knew that one, terrible BASIC and concluded from a sample size of 1 that BASIC was bad. Most other BASICs were better. Some on machines of the same era were much better. The BBC Micro had the same CPU and had BBC BASIC, the fastest interpreted BASIC ever written, with types, structured code, named procedures with local variables, inline assembler, rich graphics and sound support and more... in 32 kB of ROM (half for the modular extensible OS, the other half for the BASIC). Tramiel cheaped out: the machine had 20 kB of ROM, with an OS half the size and a BASIC half the size (plus a fancy character set). I expanded on this a few years ago, here: https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/71381.html https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/71381.html
  - phkahler 3y ago
    I had Microsoft basic on an Interact of all things, and it had plot x,y and a way to set color.

7thaccount 3y ago

Agree with everything you've said about Powershell. It's pretty cool. Buuut...the common Basic computers of the time had commands that let you do built-in graphics in a very simple manner. Not anything as crazy complex as the .NET charting and GUI stuff available to Powershell now. It's a real shame there isn't a built-in DSL that could allow normal users (i.e. not full time developers) to build some really simple games in like half a page of code.

Someone 3y ago
> the common Basic computers of the time had commands that let you do built-in graphics in a very simple manner. I don’t remember Commodore Basic for the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 doing graphics other than through a series of POKEs.
- egypturnash 3y ago
  Commodore was very much the exception here. Pretty much every other 8-bit computer's Basic had a bunch of commands to do graphics and sounds. But Jack Tramiel just slapped in a licensed copy of Microsoft's Basic with the least amount of work necessary to make it run.
  - Someone 3y ago
    I know, but it also was one of the most common of the “common Basic computers” of the time.
  - Cockbrand 3y ago
    The Commodore machines at least had a fairly extensive set of graphics symbols to create basic [pun not intended] graphics. For sound, though, there indeed wasn't really anything in Commodore BASIC V2. Tangential: Artist Raquel Meyers does really great stuff with the CBM graphics character set, see https://www.raquelmeyers.com/ https://www.raquelmeyers.com/
  - lproven 3y ago
    Yup. I think the C64 alone was responsible for a lot of the bad press BASIC got in the 1980s-1990s, from former Commodore owners who knew that one, terrible BASIC and concluded from a sample size of 1 that BASIC was bad. Most other BASICs were better. Some on machines of the same era were much better. The BBC Micro had the same CPU and had BBC BASIC, the fastest interpreted BASIC ever written, with types, structured code, named procedures with local variables, inline assembler, rich graphics and sound support and more... in 32 kB of ROM (half for the modular extensible OS, the other half for the BASIC). Tramiel cheaped out: the machine had 20 kB of ROM, with an OS half the size and a BASIC half the size (plus a fancy character set). I expanded on this a few years ago, here: https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/71381.html https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/71381.html
- phkahler 3y ago
  I had Microsoft basic on an Interact of all things, and it had plot x,y and a way to set color.