Talk:BASIC

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Some suggestions (from Mark S.) for the last 1/4 of the BASIC chapter:

  • 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).
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

--MarkSample 18:01, 13 July 2011 (UTC)


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

TOPICS TO COVER

(Used to be "proposed outline," but we have a different outline now. We should still discuss all of these topics unless we decide otherwise.)

  • Programming and high-level programming languages
  • Dartmouth BASIC
    • Line numbers, starting with 10
    • Flow control and GOTO
      • BASIC not a structured programming language (no blocks, etc.)
      • Many of BASIC's control flow concepts are taken directly from machine language
      • Dijkstra's arguments against GOTO
      • Vs. FOR NEXT, GOSUB, IF THEN
    • PRINT
    • "READY"
      • Originally used for output to print terminals
      • semicolon
    • Educational use, teaching of BASIC in schools more generally
    • Background on the functions in BASIC. Why are the particular functions in BASIC present?
  • Open access to BASIC, development of BASIC dialects on minicomputers
  • Microsoft, BASIC for the Altair (their first product), and Microsoft BASICs
    • PEEK, POKE
  • C64 BASIC
  • The circulation of code in print (magazines and books)
  • BASIC in memory and culture (memorization of one liners)
  • Uses of BASIC in commercial programs
  • BASIC's legacy

EARLY DRAFT

Chapter 11 of Steven Levy's Hackers tells the tale of Altair BASIC from the point of view of the Homebrew club. A good read.

NOTES: [taken 2/15/2011, mostly for context for myself (patsy), but some of these details may help in other sections; numbers in parens = page numbers]

The following information was gleaned "Early Developments of the Personal Computer Software Industry, 1975-1983” (Chapter 7 of Martin Campbell-Kelley From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog. A History of the Software Industry (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 2003)

Since the micro-processor developed in the electronics industry, the computer industry didn’t see it as a threat (201)

The 1st microprocessor-based computer = Altair 8800 (made by MITS = Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems) – “sold in kit for assembly by computer hobbyists” (202).

The Altair 8800 appeared on the cover of Popular Electronics (January 1975). “The cover reads ‘Exclusive! Altair 8800. The most powerful minicomputer project ever presented can be built for under $400.’” (202) – an event in computer lore history.

Apple II hits the market in April 1977 (202), and followed by “many imitators from entrepreneurial start-ups” and by “machines from two major electronics manufacturers: the Commodore PET and the TRS-80” (202-203)

PET was a product of Commodore Business Machines (known better for its calculators) (203)

The Apple II was “initially targeted” at the “hobbyist, domestic, and education markets, the Commodore PET at the engineering, calculator, and education markets, the TRS-80 at the home and videogame users.” (203)

Another huge event in the history in the PC world: the appearance of VisiCalc in the fall of 1979, which “transformed the perception of the personal computer as a business machine” (203)

Bill Gates was an “accomplished programmer” in BASIC (204)

Payment in royalties was “endemic to the videogame and personal computer industry” (204).

“By the end of 1983 there were estimated to be 35,000 different personal computer software products from about 3,000 vendors, an increase of 50 percent from the previous year.” (208)

“By1977 there were 24 ComputerLands in operation. The number nearly doubled each year, and by 1983 there were about 500.” (209)

The Program Store opened its first outlet in 1979. By 1983, it as a 20-store chain. (209)

Mail order: “One industry source estimated that up to 25 percent of software sales were being made by mail order in the early 1980s” -- e.g. 800-SOFTWARE. (209)

The “biggest” distributor (SotfSel)”published a catalog of about 3,000 packages from 200 suppliers, and the SoftSel ‘hot-list’ became the industry’s ‘hit parade’.” (209)

Systems like Apple II, TRS-80, and Commodore machines were “quite primitive”: came with screens that were 40 characters wide (217). By 1979 80-character screens were available, which changed the world of word-processing especially. (217)

‘The home software market was divided into three sectors: entertainment, home management, and education. The total market was estimated to be worth $200 million by retail value in 1982. This was less than half the value of the market for business software, but then the unit price of home software were much lower (typically $30-$50); the number of units was much greater—at least 5 million in 1982.” (225)

[END of software industry context notes]


Patsy's Edit Notes

1."Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine by Louis Menebrea" needs a footnote.

2. Fuegi & Francis page number needed in text.

3. "an algorithm delineated in mathematical notation" = ""an algorithm expressed as mathematical notation"???

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