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Thread: Anyone ever use this?

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    Member Ada Lovelace's Avatar
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    Default Anyone ever use this?

    When I was first learning how to program, I used BASIC on the
    old Acorn Computers (they barely had 250MB of RAM back then.
    There were hardly any IDE's, C was around and C++ of course, but
    it was not really mainstream for beginners back in the late 1980's
    early 1990's. Anyway, did anyone use the BASIC language that
    looked like this:

    "F12" - begins BASIC
    Type Auto for line numbers

    10 REM=============
    20 REM My first ever computer program
    30 REM Written by Ada Skyla Rose
    40 REM Prints hello
    50 PRINT "Hello"
    60 ENDPROC
    70 END
    80 RUN

    If I remember correctly, REM stood for "remark" which was the
    old term for a comment. I loved this language - and although it was
    as 'basic' as could be, it was great just seeing something I created
    come to life. Just though I would share

    Wishes Ada xx
    If to Err is human - then programmers are most human of us all.
    "The Analytical Engine offers a new, a vast, and a powerful language . . .
    for the purposes of mankind
    ."
    Augusta Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace (1851)

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    Default Re: Anyone ever use this?

    250MB? Wow!

    I started with FOCAL on the 12-bit PDP-8 in high school but moved to an updated version of the same computer (I think) that had a BASIC interpreter. I wrote pages and pages of code that looked like what you've posted, including many of the oft-maligned and essentially banned GOTO statements, because I didn't know better. We stored our programs first on punched paper tape and then on 8" discs. When I was able to begin personal computing shortly after college, the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore 64 both had BASIC interpreters, but I don't recall staying with BASIC for long.

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    Member Ada Lovelace's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone ever use this?

    Great insight Greg thanks for sharing

    Yeah I remember the Vic-20 and the C64 too - amazing machines for the decade they
    were around too. Reminds me of when I later moved to the Amiga (also a creation of
    Commodore) - think it was the version 500, one of the first models they produced.

    I began learning a game language called Amiga Basic - it was quite complex from what
    I was used to - but considering the power of the hardware (and who could forget the
    AMAZING Sound Chip of the Amiga - some fantastic video games were created by some
    pretty awesome (but now defunct) companies: Psygnosis, Ocean, Rainbow Arts to name but
    a few. Miss those days - I know you can get Amiga Emulators to access the ROM's but
    it's not quite the same.

    Wishes Ada xx
    If to Err is human - then programmers are most human of us all.
    "The Analytical Engine offers a new, a vast, and a powerful language . . .
    for the purposes of mankind
    ."
    Augusta Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace (1851)

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    Member jdv's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone ever use this?

    There are still a few BASIC systems around, even though most of them have long ago ceased to be interpreter-only languages. Everyone has heard of Visual Basic, of course, but there is another one out there that escapes me that has been able to deploy fully capable cross-platform apps for years.

    Funny story: an implementation of BASIC for the MITS Altair 8800 (and other S-100 bus computers) was written by Bill Gates, et al, and the subject of heated exchanges by Gates and others over actually paying for the software. BASIC was, in some important ways, the crucible that formed (then) "Micro-Soft".

    I no longer have the many cassettes on which I saved my library of BASIC programs. I started out on TRS-80 BASIC on the Color Computer and the TRS-80 Model I. A few years later I was using a compiled BASIC on pre-Macintosh Apples of some variety for high-school Computer Science projects.

    I moved on to other, possible more capable languages tools since (FORTH being a notable example). If I've learned anything over the years, it is to not immediately dismiss things for appearing out-moded.

    In my career as a Java programmer I've had to do much more than just wrangling Java. I've been charged with projects that required BASIC (for a customer Access reporting tool in Access Basic), COBOL (learned it in high school, actually wrote a real program still in use at [REDACTED]), and Pascal (again, a high school language that came in handy for Delphi Object Pascal integration work I was charged with.) I recently took a job as a Lua coder and immediately spent months learning C++ (a language I'd so far been able to avoid, mostly).

    Now I'm wrangling ISO C on Linux because I was hired as a Java programmer who could learn C# for a Microsoft shop.

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    Member Ada Lovelace's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone ever use this?

    Great story and a really interesting read.

    You are one of few people I know of who have done more than
    peeked at the FORTAN language (if that is what FORTH is). Great
    language - used for huge mathematical projects nowadays if I
    recall. Lua and C++ seem to go very well as a tight niche' in
    video game development - a few AAA games require both for
    the engine/psychics.

    Having an extensive background is always useful. I used to
    know the ADA language quite well too - very complicated but
    at the same time very useful. Before I started learning Java I
    spent 4 years learning C myself. Not quite mastered it but I
    can probably write a fair bit of code without looking at a book.

    I hope to get that comfortable with Java eventually Also,
    it seems from one angle that managed languages seem to be
    the trend for desktop and applet applications too - so knowing
    Java and C# is always going to be a benefit.

    Wishes Ada xx
    If to Err is human - then programmers are most human of us all.
    "The Analytical Engine offers a new, a vast, and a powerful language . . .
    for the purposes of mankind
    ."
    Augusta Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace (1851)

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    Default Re: Anyone ever use this?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ada Lovelace View Post

    You are one of few people I know of who have done more than
    peeked at the FORTAN language (if that is what FORTH is).
    I've never actually done anything with FORTRAN, other than had someone explain to me how a chunk of ambiguous FORTRAN in a test caused a rocket to do something Very Bad, forcing them to blow it up. (I now have a very good reason for internalizing why "==" exists...)

    Forth is different sort of beast often found in situations where there is no OS and/or for embedded devices.

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    Default Re: Anyone ever use this?

    Quote Originally Posted by jdv View Post
    Forth is different sort of beast often found in situations where there is no OS and/or for embedded devices.
    Interesting. Thanks for the link too, much appreciated. It's also quite a scary
    prospect that a logical error in a program would cause a rocket to have to be
    destroyed. I do hope they got it right the next time - or use a debugger.

    Wishes Ada xx
    If to Err is human - then programmers are most human of us all.
    "The Analytical Engine offers a new, a vast, and a powerful language . . .
    for the purposes of mankind
    ."
    Augusta Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace (1851)

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    Default Re: Anyone ever use this?

    Ahh yes basic. Wrote my first program when I was 9 in basic. A little menu system to run my games because I kept forgetting the commands. Had user input validation and funny messages to boot. I think I spent longer tinkering with it than I did playing wolf3d and space quest. Good times.

    Messed around with the early versions of VisualBasic and Java but really fell in love with programming with ADA when I was about 16. Really wish there was still career opportunities with ADA because it's a great language.

    As for old school stuff I've done a bit of assembly with PIC microcontrollers and notch's abandoned 0x10c computer the DCPU. PLC ladder logic is also pretty nifty but it's a strange beast; you essentially draw your programs rather than write them.
    Computers are fascinating machines, but they're mostly a reflection of the people using them.
    -- Jeff Atwood

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    Member Ada Lovelace's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone ever use this?

    Quote Originally Posted by ChristopherLowe View Post
    Messed around with the early versions of VisualBasic and Java but really fell in love with programming with ADA when I was about 16. Really wish there was still career opportunities with ADA because it's a great language.
    I 100% agree with that statement. Finding a use for ADA is very
    tough - as these days it is used in railroad systems, medical systems
    and security and data-basing. Although it is OOP (1995 revision) it is
    very difficult to learn - and a couple of C programmers I know and went
    to college with, could not handle the "bizzare" syntax

    I still have my ADA tutorial papers that I printed out - it's fun to read over
    it and make sense of it all, these years after I stopped learning it.

    Wishes Ada xx
    If to Err is human - then programmers are most human of us all.
    "The Analytical Engine offers a new, a vast, and a powerful language . . .
    for the purposes of mankind
    ."
    Augusta Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace (1851)

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    Default Re: Anyone ever use this?

    Quote Originally Posted by jdv View Post
    There are still a few BASIC systems around, even though most of them have long ago ceased to be interpreter-only languages. Everyone has heard of Visual Basic, of course, but there is another one out there that escapes me that has been able to deploy fully capable cross-platform apps for years.
    Could you be thinking of Realbasic as the multi platform one? It's now know as Xojo (rumour has it because the company thought that coders would think it was just a reincarnation of the old basic language). I started on Basic using GW-Basic and QBasic but unfortunately I was only young then and didn't really appreciate how much of a head start the could have given me if I'd learnt them properly. Learnt some Xojo/Realbasic a few years and now learning Java, although it's tougher going.

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    Default Re: Anyone ever use this?

    Surprisingly, I found BASIC quite difficult and C easier. One of the reasons was I hated all
    the GOTO statements and jumping around BASIC. Yes - it did teach me the principles of
    what a program looked like, but when I dipped my toes into C, using functions and how
    to properly 'leap' around code without GOTO labels was much nicer to look at.

    Wishes Ada xx
    If to Err is human - then programmers are most human of us all.
    "The Analytical Engine offers a new, a vast, and a powerful language . . .
    for the purposes of mankind
    ."
    Augusta Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace (1851)

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    Default Re: Anyone ever use this?

    BASIC is still around...
    Though old, BASIC is still around. Like most languages, it has gone through several versions, but the classic language constructs (like GOTO statements) are still implemented. Also, several open source projects exist that offer classic BASIC interpreters for use on Win32 and Linux computers.

    Personally, I have an old IBM PCjr sitting in the corner of the computer room. I occasionally load Advanced BASIC, by plugging the cartridge in, for the sake of nostalgia.

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    Default Re: Anyone ever use this?

    I still use BASIC but not as much as I used to but i made a random number generator, the programming language is one of my favorite's along with ArnoldC, Ante and java.