Happy 50th birthday, BASIC

[mahatmakanejeeves]

It's an acronym. It stands for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.

BASIC

The Golden Age of Basic

Tech Talk Computing Software
By Stephen Cass
Posted 1 May 2014 | 12:59 GMT

IEEE Spectrum isn’t the only thing celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. On this day in 1964, the first software written in Basic was successfully run on a GE-225 mainframe at Dartmouth College. As critical a moment as that was to the history of computing, I want to skip ahead twenty years and talk about what Basic meant to a generation of neophyte coders in the 1980s, of which I was one.

Today, programmers can begin their journeys into the world of code in quite a few ways. 8 to 12-year olds can use MIT’s Scratch, manipulating colorful blocks on screen to build programs. Older kids can tinker with writing HTML and Javascript, have a go at writing Python scripts on a Raspberry Pi or just go straight to downloading free compilers and development environments for languages like C or C++. Visual and musical artists can try their hand at Processing. There’s even the option of learning how to build insanely elaborate devices in the virtual world of Minecraft. Online tutorials and courses, written and video-based, abound.

But in the 1980s, most kids didn’t have access to the Internet, integrated development environments, rich graphics, or even a choice of languages. What we had were 8-bit home computers, a blinking cursor, and Basic.

And it was wonderful. God, it really was.

[HERVEPA]

1. FORTRAN FOREVER!

Curently working on modifying a FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation) program written 25 years ago.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Don't drop the cards.

I'm sure (or, I hope) it's up to a more recent version than the one I used so many years ago. Goodness, I remember taking a stack of cards to The Computer Room so that The Computer Operator could run my program. Which usually did not happen, as I had forgotten a semicolon in a line somewhere.

Ah, the good old days. Soon, though, we would be able to access computers from a distance. This is from 1983. It "weighs only 15 pounds."



PT-210 Portable Data Terminal

The PT-210 weighed 15 pounds and came in a briefcase-style case. It contained a full-size 53-key keyboard, an acoustic coupler that communicated at 110 or 300 baud, and a “whisper-quiet” thermal printer.

[HERVEPA]

8. Used this in mid-70's

http://terminals.classiccmp.org/wiki/index.php/File:Anderson_Jacobson_AJ_630-1.jpg

[antigop]

6. My first computer job was teaching FORTRAN. nt

[Jesus Malverde]

3. " And it was wonderful. God, it really was."

PHP über alles

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. Stop it, you bad person.

One of my favorite movies from the early 80s is WarGames, a real period piece.

A nearby Goodwill had a one-day special on video and audio recordings on obsolete (or so-called obsolete) formats a few years back. It didn't matter what you got - cassettes, LPs, videocassettes - they were four for a dollar. I snagged the VHS of WarGames and a bunch of other stuff, including D.C. Cab, which just had its 30th anniversary.

[TlalocW]

4. In an old man voice

Back in the day we didn't have your fancy-schmancy procedures or your hoity-toity OOP with its dad-blamed inheritance. We had GOSUBs! That's the way it was, and we liked it! God, how we loved it!

I started with BASIC programming in the 1980s.

TlalocW

[tridim]

7. I think "poke" will always be my favorite BASIC command.

POKE 53281,16

[riqster]

9. Started programming in 1973. BASIC was the gateway drug for developers.

Then COBOL, FORTRAN with the dreaded "floor sort" (after which I started numbering my cards) and on from there.

After my mother passed away, I discovered one of my first FORTRAN programs in her attic. Wrapped up with a ribbon and a bow. I had no idea she had kept it for all those years.

And yes, I cried.