Re: BASIC
"Bheise" Wrote in message:
Brian,
> Ok...Im no programmer....BAck many years ago when I was in
> High school (88-91) I can recall times in class when I would go
> through a whole period or two of doing nothing but writing a
> BASIC program in my notebook while the teacher rambled on
> about Algebra, English, etc....but since then (91) , I cant say Ive
> done much with it....I can however, in my heart believe, that
> BASIC lasted longer than most other "OS's" and is was used in
> its different forms among various platforms more than current
> Win verisons ever were...
> Of course, this rambling has no vital proof as I am not a
> programmer and may be proven wrong, but I believe it to be an
> almost vital OS for most users, wheter they were IBM lovers,
> Apple, etc...
You must also remember that BASIC was just about available for
every microcomputer too. I don't think of it much of a big deal
that Microsoft brought out their own BASIC in 1975 (or whenever),
in fact some people might argue as to where there BASIC came
from, so maybe there was a connection with the BASIC written
in 1964 to the one in 1975?!
CP/M is more significant for me because as some will say was
partly responcable for DOS & CP/M has plenty of BASICs for it.
But Turbo Pascal just seems to have a lot more going for it.
Naturally, I talking from having a little experience with a BASIC
myself, I wouldn't expect anyone to perhaps play with Turbo
Pascal from stratch (although it might be possible).
In my view BASIC really got bogged down, there are also too
many variations of the language (for example Pascal has had
a form of standardizing which doesn't include Turbo Pascal
naturally), but BASIC hasn't! :-(
BASIC went on for longer, because more people were learning
this, unfortunately the problems began when people didn't want
to learn anything else but BASIC. Unfortunately BASIC has it's
limits, but so does Turbo Pascal, but the interesting thing about
TP is very few exploited those limits in CP/M in general. Which
is why so much CP/M software is the way it is. The other
downside to CP/M is people visioned CP/M as some kinda
business orientated operating system, it's really capable of
doing more. It could be like DOS & have decent graphical
games, not text adventures! :-(
Regards.