Talk:BASIC
From Maze
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| + | Some suggestions (from Mark S.) for the last 1/4 of the BASIC chapter: | ||
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| + | * The amount of space we devote to the C64 and BASIC seems disproportionally small. The first three paragraphs of that section have a lot of points we can elaborate on. For example, the explanation of the geneology of BASIC on the CBM, PET, etc. seems a bit tangled. Further on, I think we should tease out the implications of Microsoft licensing BASIC to Commodore for a flat fee. Did this mean MS had no incentive to provide updates to Commodore? How was MS's relationship with Commodore different from its relationship with Apple and Atari? Did Commodore's deal with MS influence MS's later licensing practices? We may not be able to answer all of these, but I think these lingering questions are important to consider. Maybe some of them will come up in the C64 chapter (I've only started researching that, beginning with Bagnall's On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore). | ||
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| + | * The Circulating Programs in Print section needs some focus, I think. There's hints of an argument in there, but they get lost in the litany of books and magazines. I'm surprised there's no mention of the cassette tapes that many of the magazines would eventually come packaged with. | ||
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| + | * I like the impulse behind the BASIC Code in Human Memory piece, and I really appreciate the brief foray into literary interpretation with Doctorow's story, but this section doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the chapter. Mostly because it's not strictly about BASIC, I guess. I wonder if we can whittle this section and the previous section down, and combine them into one section, highlighting a kind of Ongion orality and literacy tension between the different ways code was transmitted in the seventies and eighties. I think tension provides a better framework for these two sections than what's there now. | ||
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| + | * The Remembering 10 Print sidebar is key -- so key, in fact, that maybe it shouldn't be a sidebar, but something different entirely? Modified somewhat, it would fit well in an introduction, and the anecdote can be used to set the stage for many of the chapters that follow. | ||
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| + | --[[User:MarkSample|MarkSample]] 18:01, 13 July 2011 (UTC) | ||
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A section on "NEWSPRINT" circulation of BASIC was cut. If anyone has evidence that there were checkout-counter BASIC programming books, please put that in (probably as a sentence under "BOOKS") to attest to the popularity of BASIC. -Nick | A section on "NEWSPRINT" circulation of BASIC was cut. If anyone has evidence that there were checkout-counter BASIC programming books, please put that in (probably as a sentence under "BOOKS") to attest to the popularity of BASIC. -Nick | ||
