3 ms·

I loved Amiga Basic. My first taste of programming without line numbers.

kbelder 1y ago
Amiga Basic still seems to me like the pinnacle of the basic language. Line numbers were optional, structured programming with loops and true functions, a graphics library... but still firmly BASIC. Not bits of code embedded in a UX editor, not some compiler-based C wannabee...
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Dartmouth BASIC was designed as compiled on the fly language, no interpreter. As for C wannabe, BASIC got famous before C had any meaningful meaning outside Bell Labs.
  - musicale 1y ago
    I think "C wannabe" is a complaint about some modern BASICs trying to be too much like C. Dartmouth BASIC and timesharing were remarkable achievements: a simplified version of Fortran that could be learned in an afternoon but could be used for a wide variety of programs, including games; a fast, interactive compiler; and efficient resource usage and multiplexing that enabled a single machine to be shared by dozens (?) of interactive users. BASIC was also simple enough that it could be implemented compactly and efficiently on 8-bit microcomputers, while retaining its ease of learning for beginners and non-experts. And you could still write/run games with it.
    - pjmlp 1y ago
      And could be used as systems programming language on 8 and 16 bit home computers, long before C got famous outside UNIX, while being safer at it. So there is nothing like wanting to be like C, when its mainstream adoption predates C. Actually I am quite thankful to have learnt systems programming on 8 and 16 bit systems, with BASIC and Pascal variations, macro Assemblers, exactly long before C's mainstream adoption, because I am not tainted with the idea before C there was nothing else, as it eventually became a common myth.
      - anthk 1y ago
        I still see Forth far more advanced than Basic and C+Unix it's a bit meh. Being orthogonal with pipes it's cool, but Forth did that better since day 1 and without even a wordlist. On Pascal, good for DOS, and maybe the Classic Mac, but even under Unix there were really good underused platforms, like TCL/Tk +SQLite. More crude than VB, for sure; but, seriously, most of the time a quick tool in that language would cover the 90% of the needs of any corporation.
- mrandish 1y ago
  Having come from an 8-bit micro with ROM BASIC to the Amiga 1000 in 1985, I too was excited when I read about AmigaBASIC. It really seemed next gen. Unfortunately, once I started actually trying to do interesting things with it, I found it was surprisingly slow compared my 8-bit micro's ROM BASIC. Of course even though the 8-bit was only running at ~1Mhz compared to the Amiga's ~7Mhz, the 8-bit's ROM BASIC was written in hand-coded assembler (and by some really good programmers, including BillG himself (in the case of the Radio Shack Color Computer I used)). I think AmigaBASIC must have been written in C and designed with portability in mind.
bemmu 1y ago
I was in primary school when I heard about AmigaBasic. I was incredibly excited by it, I told my friend it would make it possible for us to build anything, for example we could build an ice hockey game. I hated ice hockey. I was just so excited that building anything at all with it seemed amazing. But it turned out it was basically unusable on a TV because of the narrow cursor and difficult to read font. But AMOS was great, and we built a simple one-room adventure game prototype on it.
snvzz 1y ago
AmigaBASIC is still going, in some form. There's Cursor[0], a compiler with an editor from 1994, unfortunately proprietary and not further developed. Maybe someone could get a hold of the author to try and get them to open the source code for preservation and potential further development. There's also aqb[1], a reboot, MIT license. And a very nice alternative in AmigaOS, Blitzbasic, got its source code opened and forked, with renewed development for AmigaOS as AmiBlitz3[2], as well as ports to other platforms. 0. https://aminet.net/package/dev/basic/Cursor https://aminet.net/package/dev/basic/Cursor 1. https://github.com/gooofy/aqb https://github.com/gooofy/aqb 2. https://aminet.net/package/dev/basic/AmiBlitz3 https://aminet.net/package/dev/basic/AmiBlitz3
- danielktdoranie 1y ago
  Thanks for the links!

Amiga Basic still seems to me like the pinnacle of the basic language. Line numbers were optional, structured programming with loops and true functions, a graphics library... but still firmly BASIC. Not bits of code embedded in a UX editor, not some compiler-based C wannabee...

pjmlp 1y ago
Dartmouth BASIC was designed as compiled on the fly language, no interpreter. As for C wannabe, BASIC got famous before C had any meaningful meaning outside Bell Labs.
- musicale 1y ago
  I think "C wannabe" is a complaint about some modern BASICs trying to be too much like C. Dartmouth BASIC and timesharing were remarkable achievements: a simplified version of Fortran that could be learned in an afternoon but could be used for a wide variety of programs, including games; a fast, interactive compiler; and efficient resource usage and multiplexing that enabled a single machine to be shared by dozens (?) of interactive users. BASIC was also simple enough that it could be implemented compactly and efficiently on 8-bit microcomputers, while retaining its ease of learning for beginners and non-experts. And you could still write/run games with it.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    And could be used as systems programming language on 8 and 16 bit home computers, long before C got famous outside UNIX, while being safer at it. So there is nothing like wanting to be like C, when its mainstream adoption predates C. Actually I am quite thankful to have learnt systems programming on 8 and 16 bit systems, with BASIC and Pascal variations, macro Assemblers, exactly long before C's mainstream adoption, because I am not tainted with the idea before C there was nothing else, as it eventually became a common myth.
    - anthk 1y ago
      I still see Forth far more advanced than Basic and C+Unix it's a bit meh. Being orthogonal with pipes it's cool, but Forth did that better since day 1 and without even a wordlist. On Pascal, good for DOS, and maybe the Classic Mac, but even under Unix there were really good underused platforms, like TCL/Tk +SQLite. More crude than VB, for sure; but, seriously, most of the time a quick tool in that language would cover the 90% of the needs of any corporation.
mrandish 1y ago
Having come from an 8-bit micro with ROM BASIC to the Amiga 1000 in 1985, I too was excited when I read about AmigaBASIC. It really seemed next gen. Unfortunately, once I started actually trying to do interesting things with it, I found it was surprisingly slow compared my 8-bit micro's ROM BASIC. Of course even though the 8-bit was only running at ~1Mhz compared to the Amiga's ~7Mhz, the 8-bit's ROM BASIC was written in hand-coded assembler (and by some really good programmers, including BillG himself (in the case of the Radio Shack Color Computer I used)). I think AmigaBASIC must have been written in C and designed with portability in mind.

bemmu 1y ago

I was in primary school when I heard about AmigaBasic. I was incredibly excited by it, I told my friend it would make it possible for us to build anything, for example we could build an ice hockey game. I hated ice hockey. I was just so excited that building anything at all with it seemed amazing. But it turned out it was basically unusable on a TV because of the narrow cursor and difficult to read font. But AMOS was great, and we built a simple one-room adventure game prototype on it.

snvzz 1y ago

AmigaBASIC is still going, in some form. There's Cursor[0], a compiler with an editor from 1994, unfortunately proprietary and not further developed. Maybe someone could get a hold of the author to try and get them to open the source code for preservation and potential further development. There's also aqb[1], a reboot, MIT license. And a very nice alternative in AmigaOS, Blitzbasic, got its source code opened and forked, with renewed development for AmigaOS as AmiBlitz3[2], as well as ports to other platforms. 0. https://aminet.net/package/dev/basic/Cursor https://aminet.net/package/dev/basic/Cursor 1. https://github.com/gooofy/aqb https://github.com/gooofy/aqb 2. https://aminet.net/package/dev/basic/AmiBlitz3 https://aminet.net/package/dev/basic/AmiBlitz3

danielktdoranie 1y ago
Thanks for the links!