B.a.s.i.c

[Retrogames]

Re: B.a.s.i.c

The one thing that used to annoy me was when you forgot to put in a single letter or number,or accidently typed in the wrong thing the program would not work.You would then spend the rest of the day tracking down this error.Once found and sorted you hit enter and then found the game to be not very good at all.Then again,those were the days,and they could be just as fun as frustrating.

There was an article in Retro Gamer about these listings, apparently the typesetters used to chop code around to fit the page, so even if you typed everything in correctly it wouldn't run as it was in the wrong order! I now remember one c64 prog I typed in working.

[battyrat]

Re: B.a.s.i.c

Computing studies was a new thing back in 1980/81 when I had to choose the subjects I wanted to continue over my last few years with the school.Like everybody else I jumped at it but failed to get a place in class so ended up doing lessons I really had no interest in instead.I left school in 1983 and went straight into a factory.By then I had an old ZX81.First thing I done was buy a spectrum 16K.There were certainly a few manuels with the thing.But in those early home computing days we could easily walk into any newsagents or bookstore and walk out with a book full of games you had to program into the computer yourself.Magazines even had programs to type in.It was quite natural to pick up bits of programming and to learn a bit as well.Spectrums had Sinclair basic and BIN.Bin was great for writing character graphics for games.

The one thing that used to annoy me was when you forgot to put in a single letter or number,or accidently typed in the wrong thing the program would not work.You would then spend the rest of the day tracking down this error.Once found and sorted you hit enter and then found the game to be not very good at all.Then again,those were the days,and they could be just as fun as frustrating.

[fatpizzaman]

Re: B.a.s.i.c

Myself and my siblings learned computer programming in BASIC with the SEGA SC-3000H we had from 1985 - 1989, and we used to create all these quirky little games.

I wouldn't know how to do it today, it's been aeons since I've done it. ;-)

[HG]

Re: B.a.s.i.c

I remember using BASIC at school for my Computer Studies CSE. Nothing complex, a few sounds and "pictures" to go with a quiz.

Watching Electric Dreams last night i was reminded of all the programming manuals that came with the early computers, you really were encouraged to try and learn it when you bought a computer.

[Richard1978]

Re: B.a.s.i.c

I remember writing a lot of programmes for my Acorn Electron with it, & doing QBasic on PCs in the mid 1990s.

I still have QBasic on my current PC but haven't used it much in recent years, as it's sometimes tricky to use with Windows XP.

[Kiop]

Beginners All-puropse Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC) - who learnt this in school only for it to become obsolete with the introduction of PC's and the world wide web?

Looking back now I think what a waste of time it was - schools certainly got it wrong about BASIC being useful for our careers (I left school in 1985).

However, at the time I was fascinated by it and wrote quite a few games for the commodore PET, VIC-20 and Commodore 64. They weren't advanced games, I never sold any (at least not commercialy) but I was miles ahead of what they were teaching in the computer room and ended up doing a lot of people's course work for the exam (for a small fee of course).

Do we have any other BASIC programmers here? What are your memories of it?

10 Poke36879, 15
20 Input "what is your age",a
30 If a =>40 then print "All down hill from here mate"
40 if a <40 then print "You're still in nappies mate"
50 End

Or something like that, LOL.