This is great! But it makes me think that Microsoft need to add a BASIC compiler as standard in all Windows distributions. They did that Small Basic thing a while back, but it was too encumbered in .NET-isms, a kind of Visual Basic .NET lite. It would be great if there was just a easy to understand BASIC that you could hack away with that could produce interesting programs without the .NET cruft or the barrier that i…
It's too bad Microsoft QuickBASIC isn't a thing anymore. Who didn't love GORILLAS.BAS?
From a comment in the source > ORIGINALLY WRITTEN ON THE PDP-10 FROM FEBRUARY 9 TO APRIL 9 1975 Wow! I did not realize that it was written so quickly. Two months that literally changed the PC landscape forever.
It's funny how stuff that got put together quickly like GW-BASIC and JavaScript got so much success because of luck and popular appeal. It's like music. The best music has never been in the top of the charts. The best movies have never won Oscars.
Oh, interesting. I wonder what implications this will have for the MS Basic disassembly project: https://github.com/mist64/msbasic
Roughly none, I would guess. I can't imagine there are any patents expressed in the actual MS code, and the MIT and 2 clause BSD licenses are virtually identical.
Oh, I didn't mean from a legal perspective! I meant in terms of what historical insights the newly available GW-BASIC source can provide.
GWBasic was good resource to get into programming world during my teenage. Now I want to teach coding to my 10 years old son. Will you still recommend GWBASIC/Quick basic or Python or other languages for kids?
This is great! But it makes me think that Microsoft need to add a BASIC compiler as standard in all Windows distributions. They did that Small Basic thing a while back, but it was too encumbered in .NET-isms, a kind of Visual Basic .NET lite. It would be great if there was just a easy to understand BASIC that you could hack away with that could produce interesting programs without the .NET cruft or the barrier that i…
It's too bad Microsoft QuickBASIC isn't a thing anymore. Who didn't love GORILLAS.BAS?
Wow, what a blast from the past. I learned to program with BASICA.EXE and GW-BASIC as a kid in the late 80's. I just noticed that microsoft has also released the source to MS-DOS 2.0: https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS I don't think I ever imagined that I'd be able to "look behind the curtain" like this, let alone that Microsoft would come to embrace open source. From there I moved on to Turbo Pascal 3.0, and then B…
You and I both - first time I ever touched an IBM PC XT (in my Dad's office), I immediately fired up BASIC and went to town (had already been programming BASIC for 18 months by that time). It was the first time I ever saw him just stare in awe at me like I was an alien's child! :)
And me! (and a few hundred/thousand people in this great forum)!!
Oh I still remember that Amstrad PC1512!!! What a carefree age that was...
This is great! But it makes me think that Microsoft need to add a BASIC compiler as standard in all Windows distributions. They did that Small Basic thing a while back, but it was too encumbered in .NET-isms, a kind of Visual Basic .NET lite. It would be great if there was just a easy to understand BASIC that you could hack away with that could produce interesting programs without the .NET cruft or the barrier that i…
It's too bad Microsoft QuickBASIC isn't a thing anymore. Who didn't love GORILLAS.BAS?
Yes! QuickBasic 4.5 was my jam! I used to churn out apps with that left and right.
From a comment in the source > ORIGINALLY WRITTEN ON THE PDP-10 FROM FEBRUARY 9 TO APRIL 9 1975 Wow! I did not realize that it was written so quickly. Two months that literally changed the PC landscape forever.
Well...remember it is 'just' a BASIC interpreter.
Woz wrote Apple integer BASIC in the evenings while working at HP in just a few months. Guys were writing crazy stuff at the time. The original version of DOS that Microsoft bought to license to IBM for the PC was written in 6 weeks.
GWBasic was good resource to get into programming world during my teenage. Now I want to teach coding to my 10 years old son. Will you still recommend GWBASIC/Quick basic or Python or other languages for kids?
I don't know Python, but I saw online (amazon and the likes) that there are plenty of books on Python for kids (search for that and many similar titles will come up). I was thinking of Python because it's a language that is useful to learn and make it more fun by learnyht it together.
This is great! But it makes me think that Microsoft need to add a BASIC compiler as standard in all Windows distributions. They did that Small Basic thing a while back, but it was too encumbered in .NET-isms, a kind of Visual Basic .NET lite. It would be great if there was just a easy to understand BASIC that you could hack away with that could produce interesting programs without the .NET cruft or the barrier that i…
It's a shame it disappeared before educators became serious about teaching kids to code as well. All my math text books from the late 80's and 90's came with code samples written in basic that teachers ignored and now kids have dedicated coding classes where the snap together if statements in a useless visual programming thing on their iPads. We missed the opportunity to teach programming in a way that was both immediately useful (took away the repetitive work) and integrated way with other classes. I wish I could go back in time and show my younger self what to do with those basic code samples while I was wasting time plotting some function on a piece of graph paper.