14 thoughts on “Learning BASIC like it’s 1983

  1. I think primary school kids should have 8-bit systems.
    Secondary 16/32-bit, Tertiary all the other systems.

    Why do we give the most modern [ confusing ] systems to students and then wonder why there is a massive gap is engineering knowledge…

  2. I did it in 1982 o/ <3
    Hundreds of hex code lines with a For Loop reading & Poking them in Ram …
    Loading programs from a 300 baud tape…
    Managing [A-Z][A-Z0-9]? variable names…
    Having no RENUM command…
    Writing GOTO target in Hex (GOTO #1234) because it's faster to execute…

  3. Thomas Mueller There was no low-level language, and virtually no software. We programmed in machine language “by hand” by calculating ourselves jumping offsets.
    I would have paid a lot to get an ASM.

  4. Serge GODEC my memory might be sketchy, but I seem to remember a macro assembler for the C64. Also there were quite a few other programming languages like UCSD Pascal, various BASIC enhancements (Simon’s BASIC?), FORTH and more.

  5. I had to code my Bros poots for my first 5 years , then I was spoiled.

    A500 [ 1MB mod ] A590 + 2mb + 20Mb Connor drive and Lattice ‘C’, BASIC was for children in my mind 2 years before C89.

    I want a BASIC pocket computer now!!!

  6. I never had a Commodore, but my dad bought a Memotech MTX512 with the dual floppy drive and the CP/M card, so I did a lot of Z80 assembler. I still have the machine stored at my dad’s place. I started with Basic, but my dad bought Turbo Pascal for CP/M, and I was hooked.

  7. Later I had an Atari 1024 with Lattice C on protected 3″½ floppies that were noisier than a plane :))
    I coded lot of GFA Basic too, no line#, control structs ( repeat, while, … ) subs with parameters aso …

  8. [ pulls out his massive retro todger ]
    I have a working copy of SAS ‘C’ on an A600 with source from ’92-93 that amazingly ported to Ubuntu when I changed all the KnR style procedure defs from “proc_name ( var_name_list ) var defs” to “proc_name ( var-defs )”

    I’m so bored with ‘modern’ tech. [ more to do with having no remit and being retired at 48! ]

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