BASIC

From Maze

BASIC is the foremost whipping boy among programming languages. Inextricably associated with Microsoft and that bane of structured programmers, GOTO, it is said to encourage the writing of spaghetti code, to be unbearably slow, and to be suitable only for children and amateurs. Yet many programmers in the early 21st century remember BASIC fondly -- and they should. It was a popular success, fostering many sorts of creative computing innovation by home computer users and students.

Outline

• History of BASIC
  • Place within the history of high-level programming languages
  • Dartmouth BASIC
  • Microsoft, BASIC for the Altair (their first product), and Microsoft BASICs
  • C64 BASIC
  • Variation in BASIC dialects on contemporaneous machines
  • The role of BASIC today

• BASIC technical topics introduced through their inclusion in the program of study
  • Line numbers
    • Flow control
      • BASIC not a structured programming language (no blocks, etc.)
      • Many of BASIC's control flow concepts are taken directly from machine language
      • GOTO
        • Dijkstra's arguments against GOTO.
      • FOR NEXT
        • Demonstrate GOTOless version of program
      • GOSUB
      • IF THEN
  • PRINT
    • Originally used for output to print terminals
    • text fields
    • semicolon
  • CHR$
    • Strings and numbers
    • The representation of strings in BASIC
  • RND
    • Brief description of the RND function
  • Background on the functions in BASIC. Why are the particular functions in BASIC present?
  • Peek and poke - BASIC's "back door". Provides access to a level of machine control usually reserved for assembly language programs.

• Locating BASIC in contemporaneous computer culture
  • The circulation of code in print (magazines and books)
  • BASIC in memory and culture (memorization of one liners)
  • Teaching of BASIC in schools
  • Uses of BASIC in commercial programs
  • BASIC's legacy