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I agree that dropping into the basic interpreter was amazing on the old 8 bit computers. Things have really changed recently with the popularity of Retro comput

I agree that dropping into the basic interpreter was amazing on the old 8 bit computers. Things have really changed recently with the popularity of Retro computing as I wrote about the exact same thing around 10-15 years ago (I can't find the post unfortunately) and I was downvoted a lot as almost all the commenters seemed to think that accessing DevTools in Google Chrome and entering Javascript commands was that same thing as the interactive Basic mode of a Commodore 64 in my case. Oh, how times have changed for the better now :)

nox100 3y ago
I grew up typing programs from softdisk magazine, Compute! etc... into TRS-80, Apple II, Atari 800, and C-64. I still think JavaScript in a browser is better. JavaScript is way more powerful than Basic on any of those 4 platforms. The canvas 2D API is way more capable and easy than what came with those systems. Even getting something like <input type="text"> Was 50-150 lines of code in BASIC, by which I mean a text input line with a cursor and editing and not just BASIC's "INPUT" command which provided nearly zero editing support. Libraries like pixi.js or three.js or p5.js etc make it trivial to get fancy graphics on the screen. Making something you can share it with your friends or the entire world with a link, even if they don't own the same type of machine running the same OS. Host them on codepen, jsfiddle, github pages, all free. I loved my experience with Basic and those old machines but I wouldn't force my kids to learn that way.
- bestouff 3y ago
  Except it's way less discoverable. The BASIC prompt was all you got on some 8 bits computers, so it made playing with it almost mandatory. Also everything was way simpler (less abstractions layers, no network) to grok for a young kid.
  - ikari_pl 3y ago
    And all of your BASIC was in the manual, taught to you as soon as you bought the computer.
    - pcdoodle 3y ago
      I picked BASIC in 3rd grade reading a "stolen" math book. I saw a bunch of 10 line examples in its pages and remembered that weird pc jr. cartridge that said basic. The cartridge seemed useless until that day....
  - nox100 3y ago
    my experience was I would not have learned anything without a manual and examples. There was no autocomplete so there was no discoverabliy and there was no internet so unless you bought a book or happened to have access to a library that had modern basic books you were out of luck. VS Today wheer there are 1000s of websites that will teach you JavaScript and 1000s of free video classes and hundreds of thousands of free examples. JavaScript is several orders of magnitude more discovable than basic ever was
- ikari_pl 3y ago
  It's hard to compare these, it's like comparing a shovel to an excavator. If a browser had to be implemented in 16 KB of binary, and use at most 48kB of RAM when running, many of the APIs you enjoy having would not be there. And it's not even about features of the language itself. There was a time when you could have both - the language and the functionalities of a browser - IE supported VBScript in script tags: <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBScript">  </SCRIPT>
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
teamonkey 3y ago
“It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.“ I genuinely feel that Dijkstra’s famous rant about BASIC had a big hand in killing it off. I don’t think it was the intention but it created so much bias against BASIC. If you created something in basic, or even suggested using it, someone would post that quote in the usenet thread. Like Godwin’s Law. It’s a shame, because it was so accessible, not just because it was right there but also because it does make it very easy for beginners to understand programming in a way that structured programming doesn’t. If there’s one language guilty of causing brain damage it’s surely JavaScript.
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  For me the biggest motivation to not dip my toes too much into BASIC on 8-bit computers was the abysmal performance. If I remember right, assembler was about 100x faster, compiled high-level languages like PASCAL about 10x faster, and FORTH somewhere inbetween compiled languages and assembler.
  - zozbot234 3y ago
    FORTH could've been a very elegant alternative to BASIC on 8-bit class hardware, but one major problem with it was that having to enter absolutely everything as RPN/postfix notation could be very unintuitive at times. E.g. prefix or mixfix notation for some things such as math is only very slightly harder to parse, but then provides a big gain in user friendliness. And floating point math takes up a big chunk of the code in typical BASIC ROMs, so it was clearly regarded as important to duplicate that desk calculator-like UX.
    - klyrs 3y ago
      Perhaps forth for newbies wouldn't be too friendly... but you can totally write an infix parser in forth, and toggle in and out of that parser.
    - jdougan 3y ago
bigbillheck 3y ago
> accessing DevTools in Google Chrome and entering Javascript commands was that same thing as the interactive Basic mode of a Commodore 64 It's not the same, it's better.
- zubairq 3y ago
  Author of parent comment here: As a funny side note, my current project for ten years has been JavaScript based :)
musicale 3y ago
> accessing DevTools in Google Chrome and entering Javascript commands was that same thing as the interactive Basic mode of a Commodore 64 JavaScript is ubiquitous (which is why I consider it to be BASIC's de facto heir), but it's (much) less accessible than BASIC was. And as good BBSes, user groups, and print magazines may have been for sharing C64 programs, the internet is pretty great for sharing JavaScript programs with people all over the world.

nox100 3y ago

I grew up typing programs from softdisk magazine, Compute! etc... into TRS-80, Apple II, Atari 800, and C-64. I still think JavaScript in a browser is better. JavaScript is way more powerful than Basic on any of those 4 platforms. The canvas 2D API is way more capable and easy than what came with those systems. Even getting something like <input type="text"> Was 50-150 lines of code in BASIC, by which I mean a text input line with a cursor and editing and not just BASIC's "INPUT" command which provided nearly zero editing support. Libraries like pixi.js or three.js or p5.js etc make it trivial to get fancy graphics on the screen. Making something you can share it with your friends or the entire world with a link, even if they don't own the same type of machine running the same OS. Host them on codepen, jsfiddle, github pages, all free. I loved my experience with Basic and those old machines but I wouldn't force my kids to learn that way.

bestouff 3y ago
Except it's way less discoverable. The BASIC prompt was all you got on some 8 bits computers, so it made playing with it almost mandatory. Also everything was way simpler (less abstractions layers, no network) to grok for a young kid.
- ikari_pl 3y ago
  And all of your BASIC was in the manual, taught to you as soon as you bought the computer.
  - pcdoodle 3y ago
    I picked BASIC in 3rd grade reading a "stolen" math book. I saw a bunch of 10 line examples in its pages and remembered that weird pc jr. cartridge that said basic. The cartridge seemed useless until that day....
- nox100 3y ago
  my experience was I would not have learned anything without a manual and examples. There was no autocomplete so there was no discoverabliy and there was no internet so unless you bought a book or happened to have access to a library that had modern basic books you were out of luck. VS Today wheer there are 1000s of websites that will teach you JavaScript and 1000s of free video classes and hundreds of thousands of free examples. JavaScript is several orders of magnitude more discovable than basic ever was
ikari_pl 3y ago
It's hard to compare these, it's like comparing a shovel to an excavator. If a browser had to be implemented in 16 KB of binary, and use at most 48kB of RAM when running, many of the APIs you enjoy having would not be there. And it's not even about features of the language itself. There was a time when you could have both - the language and the functionalities of a browser - IE supported VBScript in script tags: <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBScript">  </SCRIPT>
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

teamonkey 3y ago

“It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.“ I genuinely feel that Dijkstra’s famous rant about BASIC had a big hand in killing it off. I don’t think it was the intention but it created so much bias against BASIC. If you created something in basic, or even suggested using it, someone would post that quote in the usenet thread. Like Godwin’s Law. It’s a shame, because it was so accessible, not just because it was right there but also because it does make it very easy for beginners to understand programming in a way that structured programming doesn’t. If there’s one language guilty of causing brain damage it’s surely JavaScript.

flohofwoe 3y ago
For me the biggest motivation to not dip my toes too much into BASIC on 8-bit computers was the abysmal performance. If I remember right, assembler was about 100x faster, compiled high-level languages like PASCAL about 10x faster, and FORTH somewhere inbetween compiled languages and assembler.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  FORTH could've been a very elegant alternative to BASIC on 8-bit class hardware, but one major problem with it was that having to enter absolutely everything as RPN/postfix notation could be very unintuitive at times. E.g. prefix or mixfix notation for some things such as math is only very slightly harder to parse, but then provides a big gain in user friendliness. And floating point math takes up a big chunk of the code in typical BASIC ROMs, so it was clearly regarded as important to duplicate that desk calculator-like UX.
  - klyrs 3y ago
    Perhaps forth for newbies wouldn't be too friendly... but you can totally write an infix parser in forth, and toggle in and out of that parser.
  - jdougan 3y ago

bigbillheck 3y ago

> accessing DevTools in Google Chrome and entering Javascript commands was that same thing as the interactive Basic mode of a Commodore 64 It's not the same, it's better.

zubairq 3y ago
Author of parent comment here: As a funny side note, my current project for ten years has been JavaScript based :)

musicale 3y ago

> accessing DevTools in Google Chrome and entering Javascript commands was that same thing as the interactive Basic mode of a Commodore 64 JavaScript is ubiquitous (which is why I consider it to be BASIC's de facto heir), but it's (much) less accessible than BASIC was. And as good BBSes, user groups, and print magazines may have been for sharing C64 programs, the internet is pretty great for sharing JavaScript programs with people all over the world.