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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368442 is a reply to message #368426] |
Fri, 01 June 2018 17:57   |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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<hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, May 31, 2018 at 7:25:24 PM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> It was available on the mainframe at UofF in 1973 when I had my first
>> exposure to computers, but we also had APL, so BASIC kind of
>> languished.
>
> BASIC timesharing was an excellent language, especially as HP and
> others expanded it in the 1970s, but it was still looked down
> upon by serious programmers. "Real programmers" were supposed
> to use Fortran or assembler in that era. APL was credible, too.
I always thought of BASIC as "poor man's FORTRAN."
--
Pete
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368443 is a reply to message #368434] |
Fri, 01 June 2018 17:57 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> wrote:
> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
>
>> On Thursday, May 31, 2018 at 5:11:01 PM UTC-4, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>
>>>> Nice program. I particularly like the way they briefly mention
>>>> Bill Gates only to point out that they were there first.
>
>>> The first to commercialize on BASIC. Without BASIC and the MITS 8800
>>> there might not be a Microsoft company today. Would be interesting to
>>> know if CP/M then would have lead the market well into the 1990s and
>>> beyond with GEM becoming the GUI of choice and Gary if Kildall would
>>> still be alive, not going to this bar and had this fight leading to his
>>> death...
>
>> I believe Gates and his friends were doing commercial work before
>> they did the BASIC compiler. So, I strongly suspect Gates still
>> would have developed a major software company.
>
> No, they weren't. Read Paul's book.
>
> Paul and Bill did have 1 attempt at a company prior to the advent of the Altair
> 8800: Traf-o-Data was a side-of-the-road traffic counter (now commonplace, but
> at the time unheard of) based on the 8008 processor. Because they did not have
> a development system for the 8008, Paul wrote a simulator for the processor in
> Macro-10 (PDP-10 assembler) which represented 8008 instructions as the address
> portion of LUUOs[1].
Wow, thats a whole lotta overhead! All the cost of handling an interrupt
for *every instruction.*
--
Pete
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368445 is a reply to message #368440] |
Fri, 01 June 2018 18:21 |
Quadibloc
Messages: 4399
Registered: June 2012
Karma: 0
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On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 3:09:44 PM UTC-6, Sarr Blumson wrote:
> And, to kick one of my favorite dead horses, Dartmouth BASIC was
> NOT an interpreter. It compiled to real machine code. Other
> implementations varied.
Yes, that's quite true, it was, I presume, one of those "load-and-go" compiler
systems; quite a few of those had already been written for FORTRAN by that time.
But _after_ Dartmouth BASIC, nearly all the other implementations were
interpreters. Quite a bit later, of course, it was considered worthwhile to make
compilers for BASIC that let you save the object... CBASIC, Borland's Turbo
BASIC, and so on. Microsoft's BASICA, GW-BASIC, and so on, were interpreters,
while QBASIC compiled, although it didn't let you save the object - a lot like
the original Dartmouth BASIC.
John Savard
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368449 is a reply to message #368434] |
Fri, 01 June 2018 19:42 |
Charles Richmond
Messages: 2754
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 6/1/2018 3:22 PM, Rich Alderson wrote:
> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
>
>> On Thursday, May 31, 2018 at 5:11:01 PM UTC-4, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>
>>>> Nice program. I particularly like the way they briefly mention
>>>> Bill Gates only to point out that they were there first.
>
>>> The first to commercialize on BASIC. Without BASIC and the MITS 8800
>>> there might not be a Microsoft company today. Would be interesting to
>>> know if CP/M then would have lead the market well into the 1990s and
>>> beyond with GEM becoming the GUI of choice and Gary if Kildall would
>>> still be alive, not going to this bar and had this fight leading to his
>>> death...
>
>> I believe Gates and his friends were doing commercial work before
>> they did the BASIC compiler. So, I strongly suspect Gates still
>> would have developed a major software company.
>
> No, they weren't. Read Paul's book.
>
> Paul and Bill did have 1 attempt at a company prior to the advent of the Altair
> 8800: Traf-o-Data was a side-of-the-road traffic counter (now commonplace, but
> at the time unheard of) based on the 8008 processor. Because they did not have
> a development system for the 8008, Paul wrote a simulator for the processor in
> Macro-10 (PDP-10 assembler) which represented 8008 instructions as the address
> portion of LUUOs[1].
>
Now wait... I read somewhere that Gates and Allen worked on weekends at
some Seattle company when the the two guys were still in high school or
junior high. At this company the two got good looks at the PDP-10
source code for compilers and editors... including a Dec BASIC. ISTM
that the two were paid something like $2 per hour.
I read _Idea Man_, but I'm not sure where I read about the above. _Idea
Man_ was written so much better that Walter Isaacson's biography of
Steve Jobs, which I also read. (IMO)
--
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368450 is a reply to message #368446] |
Fri, 01 June 2018 19:51 |
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Originally posted by: JimP
On 1 Jun 2018 23:05:05 GMT, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>
wrote:
> On 2018-06-01, JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> did try to run ADA on that machine... its was so slow that the
>
> Give it a break. The members of the Americans with Disabilities
> Association have enough trouble as it is.
I'm sure you know it was a programming language, to government
guidelines.
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368455 is a reply to message #368445] |
Fri, 01 June 2018 22:44 |
John Levine
Messages: 1405
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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In article <cb11f87e-44a9-4f0b-b4b3-998177600274@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 3:09:44 PM UTC-6, Sarr Blumson wrote:
>
>> And, to kick one of my favorite dead horses, Dartmouth BASIC was
>> NOT an interpreter. It compiled to real machine code. Other
>> implementations varied.
>
> Yes, that's quite true, it was, I presume, one of those "load-and-go" compiler
> systems; quite a few of those had already been written for FORTRAN by that time.
Dartmouth's compiler was quite impressive, typically compiling an
entire program in one or two clock ticks. It was so fast that nobody
bothered to save object code.
Later implementations tended to be tokenize and interpret, which has
plenty of its own issues.
--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368456 is a reply to message #368426] |
Fri, 01 June 2018 22:46 |
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Originally posted by: J. Clarke
On Fri, 1 Jun 2018 11:06:54 -0700 (PDT), hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> On Thursday, May 31, 2018 at 7:25:24 PM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> It was available on the mainframe at UofF in 1973 when I had my first
>> exposure to computers, but we also had APL, so BASIC kind of
>> languished.
>
> BASIC timesharing was an excellent language, especially as HP and
> others expanded it in the 1970s, but it was still looked down
> upon by serious programmers. "Real programmers" were supposed
> to use Fortran or assembler in that era. APL was credible, too.
At the time APL was like BASIC on steroids. Easy to learn,
interactive, immensely capable, but could take the rest of your life
to completely master.
> In the business world, away from academia, COBOL was popular.
> For the newly developed IBM System/3, RPG II was popular.
>
>
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368463 is a reply to message #368414] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 01:44 |
Charles Richmond
Messages: 2754
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 6/1/2018 10:48 AM, Andrew Swallow wrote:
> On 31/05/2018 22:12, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>> On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:56:45 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>
>>> On 31/05/2018 17:37, Bob Eager wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I learned BASIC in 1971. Our textbook was the one by Kemeny and Kurtz.
>>>
>>> I did my 3rd year engineering assignments in 1972 in BASIC on
>>> the teletypes of the PDP10 at Essex Uni, when we were all expected
>>> to do it in FORTRAN as had been taught :-)
>>
>> Am probably too young. I first came in contact with BASIC when I had the
>> Commodore 64 around 1983.
>>
>
> I met BASIC in 1975 on a 370/135 running the online operating system
> MUSIC. IBM had added many enhancements.
>
> On a VAX I used DEC's BASIC to format printouts since it had advanced
> string handling facilities.
On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain BASIC. I
never used it much, but some I knew at university did fairly complex
projects using this BASIC.
--
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368464 is a reply to message #368429] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 01:48 |
Charles Richmond
Messages: 2754
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 6/1/2018 1:14 PM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
>> On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 3:11:14 AM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
>>
>>> However, BASIC for the Honeywell 316 and 516 came with a price tag, IIRC. And
>>> there was CALL/360 BASIC from IBM, and I think Tymshare had BASIC... so I don't
>>> think Microsoft was the first to charge money for a BASIC interpreter.
>>
>> GE Timesharing offered BASIC.
>>
>> HP offered its 2000 series with BASIC and was popular in time sharing.
>> But I don't know if users of the 2000 series had to pay for the
>> compiler or if it was bundled in.
>>
>
> HP-3000 had a nice BASIC interpreter as well.
>
The HP 3000, and especially the HP 2000, minicomputers were popular to
use in an educational setting. Several high schools/junior highs might
have an HP 3000 somewhere... a machine on which each of the schools
would establish dial-up accounts for their students.
--
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368465 is a reply to message #368445] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 01:54 |
Charles Richmond
Messages: 2754
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 6/1/2018 5:21 PM, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 3:09:44 PM UTC-6, Sarr Blumson wrote:
>
>> And, to kick one of my favorite dead horses, Dartmouth BASIC was
>> NOT an interpreter. It compiled to real machine code. Other
>> implementations varied.
>
> Yes, that's quite true, it was, I presume, one of those "load-and-go" compiler
> systems; quite a few of those had already been written for FORTRAN by that time.
>
> But _after_ Dartmouth BASIC, nearly all the other implementations were
> interpreters. Quite a bit later, of course, it was considered worthwhile to make
> compilers for BASIC that let you save the object... CBASIC, Borland's Turbo
> BASIC, and so on. Microsoft's BASICA, GW-BASIC, and so on, were interpreters,
> while QBASIC compiled, although it didn't let you save the object - a lot like
> the original Dartmouth BASIC.
>
Sometimes BASIC would be compiled *not* to machine language, but to some
mid-level code that was much easier to interpret than working from the
original BASIC source code. Although the mid-level language was *not*
as efficient as the machine code would have been, this still would speed
along the interpreter quite a bit. For example, a FOR loop that
executed its code 10,000 times would take *much* longer if you had to
re-translate the source of each statement every time through the loop!
--
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368466 is a reply to message #368411] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 01:59 |
Charles Richmond
Messages: 2754
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 6/1/2018 10:22 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 9:16:07 AM UTC-6, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>
>> I knew that, so what did I type?
>
> You left out the word "Symbolic", as I thought was clear as I quoted and
> attributed correctly: you wrote "Beginner's All Purpose Instruction Code".
>
> Perhaps, too, it would be clearer as "Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction
> Code" so that "purpose" is neither a separate word nor capitalized.
>
ISTM that the word "BASIC" was a backronym... meaning that they started
with the word BASIC and then figured out the phrase it stood for later on.
--
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368467 is a reply to message #368424] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 02:03 |
Charles Richmond
Messages: 2754
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 6/1/2018 1:02 PM, David Jones wrote:
> My first exposure to BASIC was back in 1975 too. It was on a Wang 2200 that the middle school would borrow for a week or two at a time. We'd all huddle around it and get as much time and use as we could out of it.
>
>
ISTM that the Wang 2200 could support up to 16 terminals, each of which
could be used to program in BASIC. IMO this was a machine developed ay
Wang because they wanted the education market... schools and colleges
would buy the system much more often than businesses.
--
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368468 is a reply to message #368466] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 03:52 |
mausg
Messages: 2483
Registered: May 2013
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 2018-06-02, Charles Richmond <numerist@aquaporin4.com> wrote:
> On 6/1/2018 10:22 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 9:16:07 AM UTC-6, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>
>>> I knew that, so what did I type?
>>
>> You left out the word "Symbolic", as I thought was clear as I quoted and
>> attributed correctly: you wrote "Beginner's All Purpose Instruction Code".
>>
>> Perhaps, too, it would be clearer as "Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction
>> Code" so that "purpose" is neither a separate word nor capitalized.
>>
>
> ISTM that the word "BASIC" was a backronym... meaning that they started
> with the word BASIC and then figured out the phrase it stood for later on.
>
>
>
As I unnderstand it, too.
--
greymaus.ireland.ie
Will Rant for Food
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368469 is a reply to message #368455] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 07:23 |
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Originally posted by: Gareth's Downstairs Computer
On 02/06/2018 03:44, John Levine wrote:
> In article <cb11f87e-44a9-4f0b-b4b3-998177600274@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 3:09:44 PM UTC-6, Sarr Blumson wrote:
>>
>>> And, to kick one of my favorite dead horses, Dartmouth BASIC was
>>> NOT an interpreter. It compiled to real machine code. Other
>>> implementations varied.
>>
>> Yes, that's quite true, it was, I presume, one of those "load-and-go" compiler
>> systems; quite a few of those had already been written for FORTRAN by that time.
>
> Dartmouth's compiler was quite impressive, typically compiling an
> entire program in one or two clock ticks. It was so fast that nobody
> bothered to save object code.
Interesting, does that also indicate interactive development where
the compilation speed would be largely unapparent?
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368470 is a reply to message #368463] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 07:27 |
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Originally posted by: Gareth's Downstairs Computer
On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>
> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain BASIC. I
> never used it much, but some I knew at university did fairly complex
> projects using this BASIC.
>
Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
language is irrelevant.
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368471 is a reply to message #368450] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 07:55 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1 Jun 2018 23:05:05 GMT, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>
> wrote:
>
>> On 2018-06-01, JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> did try to run ADA on that machine... its was so slow that the
>>
>> Give it a break. The members of the Americans with Disabilities
>> Association have enough trouble as it is.
>
> I'm sure you know it was a programming language, to government
> guidelines.
>
Wasn't that "Ada"?
--
Pete
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368472 is a reply to message #368470] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 07:55 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Gareth's Downstairs Computer
<headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>
>> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain BASIC. I
>> never used it much, but some I knew at university did fairly complex
>> projects using this BASIC.
>>
>
> Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
> storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
> language is irrelevant.
>
Not really. For example the PL/M compiler was originally written in
FORTRAN, but that's not the language most would choose today, nor COBOL.
--
Pete
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368474 is a reply to message #368472] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 09:07 |
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Originally posted by: Gareth's Downstairs Computer
On 02/06/2018 12:55, Peter Flass wrote:
> Gareth's Downstairs Computer
> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>>
>>> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain BASIC. I
>>> never used it much, but some I knew at university did fairly complex
>>> projects using this BASIC.
>>>
>>
>> Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
>> storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
>> language is irrelevant.
>>
>
> Not really. For example the PL/M compiler was originally written in
> FORTRAN, but that's not the language most would choose today, nor COBOL.
>
The language chosen does not dissipate its irrelevance.
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368476 is a reply to message #368442] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 12:19 |
Andrew Swallow
Messages: 1705
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 01/06/2018 22:57, Peter Flass wrote:
> <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>> On Thursday, May 31, 2018 at 7:25:24 PM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:
>>
>>> It was available on the mainframe at UofF in 1973 when I had my first
>>> exposure to computers, but we also had APL, so BASIC kind of
>>> languished.
>>
>> BASIC timesharing was an excellent language, especially as HP and
>> others expanded it in the 1970s, but it was still looked down
>> upon by serious programmers. "Real programmers" were supposed
>> to use Fortran or assembler in that era. APL was credible, too.
>
> I always thought of BASIC as "poor man's FORTRAN."
>
The writers of BASIC obviously knew FORTRAN. They chose GOTOs over blocks.
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368477 is a reply to message #368470] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 12:26 |
Andrew Swallow
Messages: 1705
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 02/06/2018 12:27, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
> On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>
>> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain BASIC.
>> I never used it much, but some I knew at university did fairly complex
>> projects using this BASIC.
>>
>
> Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
> storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
> language is irrelevant.
>
>
If the computer language cannot handle character you soon hit problems.
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368478 is a reply to message #368466] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 12:28 |
Andrew Swallow
Messages: 1705
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 02/06/2018 06:59, Charles Richmond wrote:
>
> ISTM that the word "BASIC" was a backronym... meaning that they started
> with the word BASIC and then figured out the phrase it stood for later on.
>
>
Theses things are normally a feed back process. When STARTER and LEARNER
failed try BASIC
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368479 is a reply to message #368477] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 13:32 |
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Originally posted by: Gareth's Downstairs Computer
On 02/06/2018 17:26, Andrew Swallow wrote:
> On 02/06/2018 12:27, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>> On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>>
>>> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain BASIC.
>>> I never used it much, but some I knew at university did fairly
>>> complex projects using this BASIC.
>>>
>>
>> Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
>> storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
>> language is irrelevant.
>>
>>
> If the computer language cannot handle character you soon hit problems.
All the languages with which I've been involved from the very lowest
to PASCAL and FORTRAN, had an inalienable capability to deal with
all forms of data having binary representations.
You don't hit a problem if you need a couple of hours' work to turn in
string handling capabilities; after all, the C language has no string
handling facilities, and relies on a string library, and, usually, a
CHAR data type defined in terms of its binary size and signing.
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368480 is a reply to message #368479] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 13:37 |
Andrew Swallow
Messages: 1705
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 02/06/2018 18:32, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
> On 02/06/2018 17:26, Andrew Swallow wrote:
>> On 02/06/2018 12:27, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>> On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain
>>>> BASIC. I never used it much, but some I knew at university did
>>>> fairly complex projects using this BASIC.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
>>> storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
>>> language is irrelevant.
>>>
>>>
>> If the computer language cannot handle character you soon hit problems.
>
>
> All the languages with which I've been involved from the very lowest
> to PASCAL and FORTRAN, had an inalienable capability to deal with
> all forms of data having binary representations.
>
> You don't hit a problem if you need a couple of hours' work to turn in
> string handling capabilities; after all, the C language has no string
> handling facilities, and relies on a string library, and, usually, a
> CHAR data type defined in terms of its binary size and signing.
>
The ICL 1900 read characters into integers in A1 format. IF statements
compared by subtracting which resulted in overflow.
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368484 is a reply to message #368480] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 14:55 |
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Originally posted by: Gareth's Downstairs Computer
On 02/06/2018 18:37, Andrew Swallow wrote:
> On 02/06/2018 18:32, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>> On 02/06/2018 17:26, Andrew Swallow wrote:
>>> On 02/06/2018 12:27, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>> On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain
>>>> > BASIC. I never used it much, but some I knew at university did
>>>> > fairly complex projects using this BASIC.
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
>>>> storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
>>>> language is irrelevant.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> If the computer language cannot handle character you soon hit problems.
>>
>>
>> All the languages with which I've been involved from the very lowest
>> to PASCAL and FORTRAN, had an inalienable capability to deal with
>> all forms of data having binary representations.
>>
>> You don't hit a problem if you need a couple of hours' work to turn in
>> string handling capabilities; after all, the C language has no string
>> handling facilities, and relies on a string library, and, usually, a
>> CHAR data type defined in terms of its binary size and signing.
>>
>
> The ICL 1900 read characters into integers in A1 format. IF statements
> compared by subtracting which resulted in overflow.
I know not what is A1 format, but awareness of such a problem makes it
seem to be a simple matter to adjust values or else to translate to
an internal format.
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368485 is a reply to message #368202] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 15:09 |
hancock4
Messages: 6746
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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On Saturday, June 2, 2018 at 2:39:59 PM UTC-4, Dave Garland wrote:
>> I always thought of BASIC as "poor man's FORTRAN."
>>
>
> I learned Fortran II in 1965, and BASIC in the early 1980s. BASIC
> always felt like a dialect of Fortran (that could handle strings
> decently) to me.
I don't know if BASIC's designers had Fortran in mind, but BASIC
definitely mirrors Fortran. Generally, BASIC is easier to use
than Fortran for simple applications; for heavy-duty stuff,
Fortran is better.
For younger children, BASIC was easier to teach and learn.
For the _typical_ student, having completed Algebra-II was
usually necessary for best understanding of Fortran; the
REAL/INTEGER variables could cause confusion.
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368486 is a reply to message #368476] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 15:11 |
hancock4
Messages: 6746
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Saturday, June 2, 2018 at 12:19:34 PM UTC-4, Andrew Swallow wrote:
> The writers of BASIC obviously knew FORTRAN. They chose GOTOs over blocks.
BASIC had GOSUB. Some BASIC's had CHAIN.
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368487 is a reply to message #368434] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 15:15 |
hancock4
Messages: 6746
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 4:22:50 PM UTC-4, Rich Alderson wrote:
> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
>
>> On Thursday, May 31, 2018 at 5:11:01 PM UTC-4, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>
>>>> Nice program. I particularly like the way they briefly mention
>>>> Bill Gates only to point out that they were there first.
>
>>> The first to commercialize on BASIC. Without BASIC and the MITS 8800
>>> there might not be a Microsoft company today. Would be interesting to
>>> know if CP/M then would have lead the market well into the 1990s and
>>> beyond with GEM becoming the GUI of choice and Gary if Kildall would
>>> still be alive, not going to this bar and had this fight leading to his
>>> death...
>
>> I believe Gates and his friends were doing commercial work before
>> they did the BASIC compiler. So, I strongly suspect Gates still
>> would have developed a major software company.
>
> No, they weren't. Read Paul's book.
>
> Paul and Bill did have 1 attempt at a company prior to the advent of the Altair
> 8800: Traf-o-Data was a side-of-the-road traffic counter (now commonplace, but
> at the time unheard of) based on the 8008 processor. Because they did not have
> a development system for the 8008, Paul wrote a simulator for the processor in
> Macro-10 (PDP-10 assembler) which represented 8008 instructions as the address
> portion of LUUOs[1].
>
> Paul and Bill always wanted to write a BASIC for a microprocessor, but could
> not find one powerful enough until the 8080 came along. Paul revised the 8008
> simulator for the 8080, and that was what they used to produce the first BASIC.
> Variants were used at Microsoft for the next 15 years to produce all the micro
> versions of BASIC which they sold; Microsoft was a PDP-10 shop until PCs were
> capable of self-hosting.
In my humble opinion, given Gates' passionate use of computers in
high school, I believe they would've simply gone into some other
programming project had BASIC not come along. I believe even in
high school Gates was doing some commercial work (using his schools'
computers.)
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368488 is a reply to message #368438] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 15:18 |
hancock4
Messages: 6746
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 5:03:15 PM UTC-4, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
> Other providers like the mentioned Honeywell might have provided BASIC,
> but it were the commercial available computers for the novice in the late
> 70s and mid 80s kicking off people dealing with BASIC and writing
> programs. Just because it came with their computer.
From the late 1960s onward, many schools got Teletypes and timesharing
and offered BASIC classes.
In 1968, our school district had GE Timesharing.
(Some school districts had other kinds of computers.)
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368490 is a reply to message #368469] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 16:07 |
Andreas Kohlbach
Messages: 1456
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Sat, 2 Jun 2018 12:23:56 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>
> On 02/06/2018 03:44, John Levine wrote:
>> In article <cb11f87e-44a9-4f0b-b4b3-998177600274@googlegroups.com>,
>> Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>
>> Dartmouth's compiler was quite impressive, typically compiling an
>> entire program in one or two clock ticks. It was so fast that nobody
>> bothered to save object code.
>
> Interesting, does that also indicate interactive development where
> the compilation speed would be largely unapparent?
I guess I am missing a link here. Why did none of the BASICs coming with
the 8bit micros need a compiler and rather interpret the code instead?
--
Andreas
My random toughts and comments
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368492 is a reply to message #368484] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 17:19 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Gareth's Downstairs Computer
<headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 02/06/2018 18:37, Andrew Swallow wrote:
>> On 02/06/2018 18:32, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>> On 02/06/2018 17:26, Andrew Swallow wrote:
>>>> On 02/06/2018 12:27, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>> > On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain
>>>> >> BASIC. I never used it much, but some I knew at university did
>>>> >> fairly complex projects using this BASIC.
>>>> >>
>>>> >
>>>> > Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
>>>> > storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
>>>> > language is irrelevant.
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> If the computer language cannot handle character you soon hit problems.
>>>
>>>
>>> All the languages with which I've been involved from the very lowest
>>> to PASCAL and FORTRAN, had an inalienable capability to deal with
>>> all forms of data having binary representations.
>>>
>>> You don't hit a problem if you need a couple of hours' work to turn in
>>> string handling capabilities; after all, the C language has no string
>>> handling facilities, and relies on a string library, and, usually, a
>>> CHAR data type defined in terms of its binary size and signing.
>>>
>>
>> The ICL 1900 read characters into integers in A1 format. IF statements
>> compared by subtracting which resulted in overflow.
>
> I know not what is A1 format, but awareness of such a problem makes it
> seem to be a simple matter to adjust values or else to translate to
> an internal format.
>
>
A1 stores input one character per word, so you lose somewhere between 75%
and 84% of your memory, in return for having something that is a bit easier
to handle. Otherwise you have to shift and mask to manipulate characters.
--
Pete
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368493 is a reply to message #368490] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 17:20 |
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Originally posted by: J. Clarke
On Sat, 02 Jun 2018 16:07:09 -0400, Andreas Kohlbach
<ank@spamfence.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Jun 2018 12:23:56 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>
>> On 02/06/2018 03:44, John Levine wrote:
>>> In article <cb11f87e-44a9-4f0b-b4b3-998177600274@googlegroups.com>,
>>> Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dartmouth's compiler was quite impressive, typically compiling an
>>> entire program in one or two clock ticks. It was so fast that nobody
>>> bothered to save object code.
>>
>> Interesting, does that also indicate interactive development where
>> the compilation speed would be largely unapparent?
>
> I guess I am missing a link here. Why did none of the BASICs coming with
> the 8bit micros need a compiler and rather interpret the code instead?
I think the real issue is the nature of a compiler and cost and
availability of hardware.
A compiler takes a source program, generates an object program, and
then to actually do anything you need to load and execute the object
program.
To make this work you need to have enough storage of some kind (paper
tape, mag tape, disk, drum, RAM, doesn't matter, you need to have
enough) to store all the pieces. Early micros did not have much RAM
and typically if they had a storage device other than the operator's
paper notebook it was paper tape or an audio cassette recorder, so
turnaround time for compiled code would be slow.
An interpreter only needs storage for the source code, a scratchpad,
and the output, so it can run reasonably well on a machine with
limited RAM and a slow storage device, hence the popularity on early
hobbyist micros (and yes, to the nits who think that hobbyists are
only allowed to own toys, I mean the ALTAIR and its clones).
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368494 is a reply to message #368490] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 18:29 |
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Originally posted by: Bob Eager
On Sat, 02 Jun 2018 16:07:09 -0400, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Jun 2018 12:23:56 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>
>> On 02/06/2018 03:44, John Levine wrote:
>>> In article <cb11f87e-44a9-4f0b-b4b3-998177600274@googlegroups.com>,
>>> Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dartmouth's compiler was quite impressive, typically compiling an
>>> entire program in one or two clock ticks. It was so fast that nobody
>>> bothered to save object code.
>>
>> Interesting, does that also indicate interactive development where the
>> compilation speed would be largely unapparent?
>
> I guess I am missing a link here. Why did none of the BASICs coming with
> the 8bit micros need a compiler and rather interpret the code instead?
Several reasons, but space was one issue. If you compiled into a custom
interpretive code, you could optimise the design of that code to be very
compact. This saved precious memory space. One of my colleagues produced
a BASIC system that didn't store the source code at all, but rather
stored a bit more with the interpretive code - he could then regenerate
the source code if the user wanted to list it or save it.
There was also the overhead of linkers, loaders etc. all of which were
not needed if interpreted. For most purposes, speed wasn't an issue.
--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368495 is a reply to message #368493] |
Sat, 02 June 2018 20:04 |
Gene Wirchenko
Messages: 1166
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Sat, 02 Jun 2018 17:20:59 -0400, J. Clarke
<jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 02 Jun 2018 16:07:09 -0400, Andreas Kohlbach
> <ank@spamfence.net> wrote:
[snip]
>> I guess I am missing a link here. Why did none of the BASICs coming with
>> the 8bit micros need a compiler and rather interpret the code instead?
>
> I think the real issue is the nature of a compiler and cost and
> availability of hardware.
>
> A compiler takes a source program, generates an object program, and
> then to actually do anything you need to load and execute the object
> program.
>
> To make this work you need to have enough storage of some kind (paper
> tape, mag tape, disk, drum, RAM, doesn't matter, you need to have
> enough) to store all the pieces. Early micros did not have much RAM
> and typically if they had a storage device other than the operator's
> paper notebook it was paper tape or an audio cassette recorder, so
> turnaround time for compiled code would be slow.
>
> An interpreter only needs storage for the source code, a scratchpad,
> and the output, so it can run reasonably well on a machine with
> limited RAM and a slow storage device, hence the popularity on early
> hobbyist micros (and yes, to the nits who think that hobbyists are
> only allowed to own toys, I mean the ALTAIR and its clones).
To get specific, a tiny BASIC (interpreted) could be implemented
in 2K. A compiler needs a lot more.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368502 is a reply to message #368490] |
Sun, 03 June 2018 03:06 |
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Originally posted by: David Wade
On 02/06/2018 21:07, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Jun 2018 12:23:56 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>
>> On 02/06/2018 03:44, John Levine wrote:
>>> In article <cb11f87e-44a9-4f0b-b4b3-998177600274@googlegroups.com>,
>>> Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dartmouth's compiler was quite impressive, typically compiling an
>>> entire program in one or two clock ticks. It was so fast that nobody
>>> bothered to save object code.
>>
>> Interesting, does that also indicate interactive development where
>> the compilation speed would be largely unapparent?
>
> I guess I am missing a link here. Why did none of the BASICs coming with
> the 8bit micros need a compiler and rather interpret the code instead?
>
I guess in the early days there were not many folks with the cash for a
floppy disk drive. Given you are working with tape loading and running
from memory is attractive...
Dave
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| Re: The birth of BASIC [message #368506 is a reply to message #368488] |
Sun, 03 June 2018 09:24 |
Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Sat, 2 Jun 2018 12:18:10 -0700 (PDT)
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 5:03:15 PM UTC-4, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>
>> Other providers like the mentioned Honeywell might have provided BASIC,
>> but it were the commercial available computers for the novice in the
>> late 70s and mid 80s kicking off people dealing with BASIC and writing
>> programs. Just because it came with their computer.
>
> From the late 1960s onward, many schools got Teletypes and timesharing
> and offered BASIC classes.
In the early to mid 70s our school had a Teletype, and there was a
lunchtime BASIC class offered to a few of us. The Teletype did not connect
to a timesharing service, it connected to another Teletype to send and
receive paper tapes of programs to be run, and the results of yesterday's
runs. Getting a syntax error back was a real time waster.
The Teletype was only available to us during break and lunch. After
school a sixth former would make the call and deal with the tapes whilst
trying to chat up the operator at the other end.
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
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