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I don't get how an interpreted language like Basic on an Apple ][ series is considered to be any closer to the hardware than Node is today when most of the stuf

I don't get how an interpreted language like Basic on an Apple ][ series is considered to be any closer to the hardware than Node is today when most of the stuff we were programming amounted to writing scripts to solving simple math, logic or business problems (keeping it the context of high school). The goal of the teachers was basically to teach us the difference between procedures and functions and some basic concepts like recursion. "What you were doing was effectively operating system programming" is a _major_ stretch.

yellowapple 12y ago
Because BASIC on an Apple II doesn't involve a massive JIT compiler running on a massive userland and drivers running on a massive kernel with virtual memory and processes and such. It instead involves a very thin layer over the firmware of the computer itself. Sure, you weren't doing a lot of PEEKing or POKEing, but the fact that you could do those things proves my point. The sorts of programming you were doing was barely higher-level than the sorts of programming involved with an OSDev-style "Hello, world!" kernel[0]. My remark is not a stretch at all. At most you had a few thin conveniences (like having some graphics-related features already available to you, since Woz had prioritized that when he designed the Apple II's BASIC interpreter); beyond that, it was direct access to everything from RAM to tapes (unless you were running Apple DOS, but that was not at all required for BASIC programming on an Apple II, and the Apple II didn't ship with it). [0]: http://wiki.osdev.org/Bare_Bones#Writing_a_kernel_in_C http://wiki.osdev.org/Bare_Bones#Writing_a_kernel_in_C
- slantyyz 12y ago
  >> barely higher-level BASIC for all intents and purposes, was considered a high level language when I learned it. From what I remember, BASIC kinda had a similar reputation as PHP does today (probably unfair) in that it wasn't generally taken very seriously as a programming language. You didn't use BASIC to make real programs on an Apple ][. For that, you'd do it in assembly or machine language. That bias is still stuck in my head even after 3 decades.

yellowapple 12y ago

Because BASIC on an Apple II doesn't involve a massive JIT compiler running on a massive userland and drivers running on a massive kernel with virtual memory and processes and such. It instead involves a very thin layer over the firmware of the computer itself. Sure, you weren't doing a lot of PEEKing or POKEing, but the fact that you could do those things proves my point. The sorts of programming you were doing was barely higher-level than the sorts of programming involved with an OSDev-style "Hello, world!" kernel[0]. My remark is not a stretch at all. At most you had a few thin conveniences (like having some graphics-related features already available to you, since Woz had prioritized that when he designed the Apple II's BASIC interpreter); beyond that, it was direct access to everything from RAM to tapes (unless you were running Apple DOS, but that was not at all required for BASIC programming on an Apple II, and the Apple II didn't ship with it). [0]: http://wiki.osdev.org/Bare_Bones#Writing_a_kernel_in_C http://wiki.osdev.org/Bare_Bones#Writing_a_kernel_in_C

slantyyz 12y ago
>> barely higher-level BASIC for all intents and purposes, was considered a high level language when I learned it. From what I remember, BASIC kinda had a similar reputation as PHP does today (probably unfair) in that it wasn't generally taken very seriously as a programming language. You didn't use BASIC to make real programs on an Apple ][. For that, you'd do it in assembly or machine language. That bias is still stuck in my head even after 3 decades.