3 ms·

You could always install DOSBOX and GW-BASIC. Then you can play around with the PLAY statement (feed it a string of notes), the SOUND statement (feed it frequen

You could always install DOSBOX and GW-BASIC. Then you can play around with the PLAY statement (feed it a string of notes), the SOUND statement (feed it frequencies) and the DRAW/LINE/PRESET/COLOR/PALETTE statements (draw coloured shapes on the screen).

jmj42 14y ago
I remember, at age 8 or 9, being so proud of myself for having developed an app that played a couple of complete songs using SOUND in tandy basic on our first PC (an 8088 w/ a whopping huge 10MB hard drive). My father (an amateur singer), used the "Wind beneath My Wings" version for to warm up before practice.
- Scriptor 14y ago
  When I was 10 I started reading a VB book and was inordinately proud of myself for learning how to customize the toolbars in the IDE. I just assumed that that was a major part of programming. I also misunderstood the part on autocompletion and thought it meant most of your code was autogenerated. I wasn't the most tech-literate child, but at least I've come a decent way since then.
  - chris_wot 14y ago
    Damn I feel old. I was using GW-BASIC when I was 8 :-(
- bitwize 14y ago
  Me: PLAY "l16ecececececececececececececececececececececececec" My dad: * runs out to answer the "telephone" * Me: * trollface
reidrac 14y ago
I learnt to program with GW-BASIC when I was 13 and, as you say, it had all these high level built in functions that made easy getting results. Most of the stuff I programmed when I was 13 was crap, but it was amazingly funny! Today I would recommend Python to start tinkering, but to be honest I think it was easier back then. My PC had 512KB of RAM (it doesn't matter, GW-BASIC allowed only 64KB for both your code and your data), CGA graphic card (4 colors), 8MHz CPU and no HDD disk; and even with all these limitations, I think it was easier than Python + PyGame.

3 ms·

You could always install DOSBOX and GW-BASIC. Then you can play around with the PLAY statement (feed it a string of notes), the SOUND statement (feed it frequen

by RyanMcGreal 14y ago

jmj42 14y ago
I remember, at age 8 or 9, being so proud of myself for having developed an app that played a couple of complete songs using SOUND in tandy basic on our first PC (an 8088 w/ a whopping huge 10MB hard drive). My father (an amateur singer), used the "Wind beneath My Wings" version for to warm up before practice.
- Scriptor 14y ago
  When I was 10 I started reading a VB book and was inordinately proud of myself for learning how to customize the toolbars in the IDE. I just assumed that that was a major part of programming. I also misunderstood the part on autocompletion and thought it meant most of your code was autogenerated. I wasn't the most tech-literate child, but at least I've come a decent way since then.
  - chris_wot 14y ago
    Damn I feel old. I was using GW-BASIC when I was 8 :-(
- bitwize 14y ago
  Me: PLAY "l16ecececececececececececececececececececececececec" My dad: * runs out to answer the "telephone" * Me: * trollface
reidrac 14y ago
I learnt to program with GW-BASIC when I was 13 and, as you say, it had all these high level built in functions that made easy getting results. Most of the stuff I programmed when I was 13 was crap, but it was amazingly funny! Today I would recommend Python to start tinkering, but to be honest I think it was easier back then. My PC had 512KB of RAM (it doesn't matter, GW-BASIC allowed only 64KB for both your code and your data), CGA graphic card (4 colors), 8MHz CPU and no HDD disk; and even with all these limitations, I think it was easier than Python + PyGame.