On Wed, 1 May 2024, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote:
Nostalgia keeps pressing ahead: It was 60 yrs. ago that BASIC came into
existence. I remember very well writing in Apple Basic and GW Basic later
on. As a non-compiled OS, an interpreted OS, it was just the right tool for
a microcomputer with limited memory. I recall fondly taking code from
popular magazines and getting them to run. It was thrilling indeed!
Happy computing,
Murray 🙂
BTW, BASIC ("Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code") was
developed at Dartmouth college by Kurtz and Kemeny. More than 30 years
later was the first time (or so they claimed) that they EVER got around to
trying ANY of the BASICs based on their original language.
They were APALLED!
They came out with "TRUE BASIC", to counter the various "street BASICs.
picky details, . . .
BASIC was a non-compiled interpreted LANGUAGE, not an OS ("Operating
System"), at least in the examples you mention. (also TRS80 and some
models of Commodore)
However, to be fair, there did exist something called "Microsoft
Stand-Alone BASIC", used in the Coco, some models of NEC 8801 (and 9801?)
That was a Microsoft BASIC that had rudimentary disk operations built in,
to serve the needed functions of an OS.
The disk directory structure of Microsoft Stand-Alone BASIC, with
directory entris pointing into a linked list allocation table,was the
inspiration for Tim Paterson to use as the directory structure for
PC-DOS/MS-DOS/86-DOS/QDOS ("Quick and Dirty Operating System" (a
placeholder to use during hardware development while waiting for the
overdue CP/M-86)) .
More details to research, . . .
GWBASIC was a version of BASICA of the 5150/PC, but run from MS-DOS, and
not requiring the ROMS. That was so that OEMs of MS-DOS could supply
BASIC closely matching that of the PC. Some even renamed GWBASIC into
"BASICA", topreserve compatability for batch files that called BASIC.
Q: What did "GWBASIC" stand for?
at the time, some Microsoft people said that it stood for "Gee Whiz
BASIC". But more recently, Microsoft denies any memory of what it was,
and billg speculated that it stood for "Greg Whitten BASIC".
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
