BASIC

Print Transmission of BASIC

At issue in this section of our chapter on the transmission of BASIC in print is what print vehicles users disseminated to communicate the BASIC language, its uses, and its programs. In looking at the specifics of how BASIC was disseminated and traveled between and among different user communities, we will uncover interesting signs about the practices BASIC users developed, the habits they fell into, the culture that developed among them, and finally the trends they set and that now inflect the history of computing in more and less significant ways.

Kemeny & Kurtz designed BASIC for time-sharing systems in 1964 , when time-sharing computers were themselves still quite new. Time-sharing computers transformed computing in several important ways. On one hand time-sharing rendered computer time more efficient since idle time were dramatically reduced. One the other hand and of particular importance to us is the fact that time-sharing meant many simultaneous users could share computing power. The time-sharing model offered those who could not own a computer access to computing time that they could more easily afford. That BASIC should be designed for time-sharing computing is worth noting. It reflects the opportunity time-sharing computers opened for designing interactive development of new applications. The impulse of BASIC – Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code – was, after all, in part to provide easier access to the wonders of programming. The upshot, an easy-to-learn language on a system that made access more broadly available, marks a turning point in the history of computing. That this simplified and accessible model should claim space on college campuses first and then in schools thereafter is therefore hardly surprising.

[find out more about BASIC’s transmission in print before the mid-1970s]

From the mid-1970s through the early 1980s, the transmission of BASIC in print took several paths, two of which will be the focus of the rest of this section.

First of all, programs in BASIC were made available inexpensively in cheaply produced newsprint magazines of the sort one might buy today to do crossword puzzles or play ken-ken. Little can be said about these material objects and how they cast might on the transmission of BASIC, except to say that the fact of their impermanence reflects the way were seen, by publishers and/or users, it is difficult to say. One can surmise that they were, relatively speaking, inexpensive and readily available at counters and newsstands. Since these are not the types of items most libraries would have collected and conserved over the decades, they are very difficult to find.

By the 1970s, the practice of turning to electronics and computer magazines was common. Ziff-Davis’s Popular Electronics, launched in 1954, was perhaps the first broadly available computer magazine. It developed a strong following among computer specialists and hobbyists alike, and because of its success was only the first of Ziff-Davis’s magazines about computer technologies over the next five decades [Ziff-Davis filed for bankruptcy in 2008]. In the early 1970s the magazine’s format grew to letter-size (8.5 x 11in), and the magazine’s tagline "World's Largest Selling Electronics Magazine" would heretofore grace its cover. Many claim that the image of the new Altair computer on the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics triggered the age of home computing. Not even a decade later, in November 1982, Popular Electronics was renamed; under the name Computers & Electronics, the magazine reviewed hardware and software products.

During that same decade, spurred by the growth of home computing as well as nurturing it, many other computer magazines came and went. Several, however, are worth mentioning here because they trafficked in BASIC and catered to BASIC learners and aficionados – namely Byte, Commodore Magazine, Creative Computing, and Run, and Rainbow, Dr. DOBBS. These magazines, which alos changed over the years, offer a window into the range of BASIC users and programs as well as reviews and discussion of new hardware and software that would be of interest to BASIC-using communities.

CREATIVE COMPUTING was an early magazine in the world of micro-computing. Founded by David H. Ahl, it focused on publishing for the home hobbyist, and it survived from 1974 to 1985.

RUN was a monthly magazine published by IDG Communications that didn’t start publication until 1984 and devoted itself to all things Commodore. There was also a German edition on RUN.

RAINBOW Magazine was a monthly magazine for the TRS-80 Color Computer, and it was published from July 1981 to May 1993. Rainbow featured a Rainbow on Tape and Rainbow on Disk services to supplement the type-in programs the magazine offered. The magazines offered type-in programs, recipes, math games, etc.

BYTE was a monthly magazine with wide-ranging coverage that appeared first in September 1975 on the heels of the early personal computers manufactured and sold as kits. It survived under several owners until 1998.

• Dr. DOBBS

• Sinclair User (UK) – from April 1982 thru April 1993