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BASIC at 50

dartmouth.edu

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Re: BASIC at 50

#61

Post by NKCSS »

vivin wrote: post #16
astral303 wrote: post #2

When I was little, back in post-Soviet Russia (circa early 1990's), the prevailing progression of a developer was "learn BASIC, learn Pascal, then learn C". And, if you were extra badass, you'd learn assembly. BASIC was the first step, simple and easily accessible on most computers of the day (ZX Spectrum, MSX, Atari, GWBasic/QBasic on MS-DOS). Best of all, being an interpreted language meant that you often had the s…

> "learn BASIC, learn Pascal, then learn C" So much of this! I remember the older kids talking about Pascal (they were using TurboPascal at the time) and to me it was some mystical, highly-advanced form of magic, a sort of "more complex" BASIC. However, I never actually learned Pascal or used it, because I jumped directly from BASIC to C (actually ended up doing both for a while). The reason I even found out about C,…

For me it was QBASIC -> VB6 -> VB.NET, a path that a lot of people I know took as well.

Re: BASIC at 50

#62

Post by protomyth »

DerekL wrote: post #49
cmang wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android tablets? They are cheaper than the 8-bit micros of the 70s and 80s, outselling everything, and come with Javascript. The only problem is they don't usually come with much of a proper keyboard + text editor for editing code. So, a kid still has to take some initiative to get a bit of software before being able to actually code something. (Kind of lame, I hope that changes - it was nice being a kid when compute…

You know what's also cheaper than an 8-bit in the 80s? Full computers today. The cheapest Windows machines, desktop or laptop, are about $300–400, from Dell, for example. In 1984, a Commodore 64 was about $200, or $450 if you include one disk drive. But with inflation, that's $451 and $1016 respectively in today's dollars. But you could get a ZX81 for only $25, which is $56 in today's dollars. But that's about the pr…

I don't buy the inflation argument because low income parent aren't going to spend the $400 where $100 was doable. Plus, we've spent decades telling everyone computers get cheaper every year which is bull.

I could get a ZX81 and Atari 400 in retail stores, the average non-tech parent has no hope of ordering a Raspberry Pi.

Re: BASIC at 50

#63

Post by GFischer »

protomyth wrote: post #62
DerekL wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what's also cheaper than an 8-bit in the 80s? Full computers today. The cheapest Windows machines, desktop or laptop, are about $300–400, from Dell, for example. In 1984, a Commodore 64 was about $200, or $450 if you include one disk drive. But with inflation, that's $451 and $1016 respectively in today's dollars. But you could get a ZX81 for only $25, which is $56 in today's dollars. But that's about the pr…

I don't buy the inflation argument because low income parent aren't going to spend the $400 where $100 was doable. Plus, we've spent decades telling everyone computers get cheaper every year which is bull. I could get a ZX81 and Atari 400 in retail stores, the average non-tech parent has no hope of ordering a Raspberry Pi.

"we've spent decades telling everyone computers get cheaper every year which is bull."

What? The above post just discredited that. Remember, you have to factor in inflation and equivalent purchasing power.

The fact about ordering a Raspberry Pi is more about distribution than price.

If you want to look at ZX81 equivalents, you have extremely cheap Android-powered devices. In my country (3rd world) you can get an awful Android tablet for U$ 50 (your ZX81 equivalent). Not to mention EVERY school-age child in my country owns a computer (because we bought into OLPC).

I agree that it's harder to learn programming on a tablet than on a ZX81 (which cheated by not including a display).

If you count a computer with no displa as an equivalent, you can buy a refurbished tower with no monitor for U$ 50 (and they are sold in stores here).

Re: BASIC at 50

#64

Post by protomyth »

GFischer wrote: post #63
protomyth wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy the inflation argument because low income parent aren't going to spend the $400 where $100 was doable. Plus, we've spent decades telling everyone computers get cheaper every year which is bull. I could get a ZX81 and Atari 400 in retail stores, the average non-tech parent has no hope of ordering a Raspberry Pi.

"we've spent decades telling everyone computers get cheaper every year which is bull." What? The above post just discredited that. Remember, you have to factor in inflation and equivalent purchasing power. The fact about ordering a Raspberry Pi is more about distribution than price. If you want to look at ZX81 equivalents, you have extremely cheap Android-powered devices. In my country (3rd world) you can get an awfu…

"Remember, you have to factor in inflation and equivalent purchasing power."

When people talk about computers getting cheaper, particularly the car comparison that Bill Gates made, they don't factor in either. Low income families in 80s could come up with $100 easier than they can come up with $600 now. Non-techincal parent don't buy their kids refurbished and have no hope of getting a Raspberry Pi in a condition that their kids can learn to program on. OLPC is a government partnership program that has not been generally available in the US except as a 2 for 1.

Re: BASIC at 50

#65

Post by gamegoblin »

vanderZwan wrote: post #55
gamegoblin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am 21, and when I was 12 I started coding with TI-BASIC, which is a (terrible, terrible) flavor of BASIC that comes on most TI graphing calculators. Most kids still have these calculators, so I imagine there are several learning on it.

OTOH, thanks to those graphical calculators a number of those kids will jump straight to Z80 assembly to unlock the true power of their hardware. I still think this is one of the best programming tutorials I've ever read, since it managed to make assembly look easy : http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/268/26877.html I had no trouble understanding pointers when I had a go at learning C++ later (although I'm…

Indeed. A friend of mine, calc84maniac (Brendan Fletcher) even made an on-calc assembler so you didn't need a computer to write assembly.

The folks over at http://cemetech.net/ are working on a new version of that tutorial you linked, IIRC.

Re: BASIC at 50

#66

Post by mathattack »

astral303 wrote: post #2

When I was little, back in post-Soviet Russia (circa early 1990's), the prevailing progression of a developer was "learn BASIC, learn Pascal, then learn C". And, if you were extra badass, you'd learn assembly. BASIC was the first step, simple and easily accessible on most computers of the day (ZX Spectrum, MSX, Atari, GWBasic/QBasic on MS-DOS). Best of all, being an interpreted language meant that you often had the s…

Same, though lots of us wanted to skip Pascal and C. :-)

It's a strange language to celebrate in retrospect in that it lacks the street cred of both academics and hard core engineers. To your point, in a sense it's like remembering your first bike.

Of course the first mechanic of that first bike made his way to the Dartmouth presidency.

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