Born To RUN: Dartmouth Throwing BASIC a 50th B-Day Party

theodp writes: "Still hanging on to a dog-eared copy of BASIC Computer Games? Back issues of Creative Computing? Well then, Bunky, mark your calendar for April 30th, because Dartmouth College is throwing BASIC a 50th birthday party that you won't want to miss! From the 'invite' to BASIC at 50: 'At 4 a.m. on May 1, 1964, in the basement of College Hall, Professor John Kemeny and a student programmer simultaneously typed RUN on neighboring terminals. When they both got back correct answers to their simple programs, time-sharing and BASIC were born. Kemeny, who later became Dartmouth's 13th president, Professor Tom Kurtz, and a number of undergraduate students worked together to revolutionize computing with the introduction of time-sharing and the BASIC programming language. Their innovations made computing accessible to all Dartmouth students and faculty, and soon after, to people across the nation and the world [video — young Bill Gates cameo @2:18]. This year, Dartmouth is celebrating 50 years of BASIC with a day of events on Wednesday, April 30. Please join us as we recognize the enduring impact of BASIC, showcase innovation in computing at Dartmouth today, and imagine what the next 50 years may hold.' Be sure to check out the vintage photos on Flickr to see what real cloud computing looks like, kids!"

Comments

We've come a long way

[Chrisq]

We've come a long way from the original BASIC to VisualBasic.NET, which is basically C# with a BASIC type syntax.

Re:We've come a long way

[CastrTroy]

Yes very much so. And VB.Net still puts people off because of that long history. Even though it's pretty much exactly the same functionality as C#. Last I checked, it has some features C# didn't have, the biggest of which is better background compiling. You can add entire classes with actually compiling your project, and Intellisense will work. Maybe C# will do that now, but VB.Net has basically always had this feature.

Re:We've come a long way

[Chrisq]

Yes very much so. And VB.Net still puts people off because of that long history. Even though it's pretty much exactly the same functionality as C#. Last I checked, it has some features C# didn't have, the biggest of which is better background compiling. You can add entire classes with actually compiling your project, and Intellisense will work. Maybe C# will do that now, but VB.Net has basically always had this feature.

A developer who converted a lot of VB code from VB7 to .NET said that one difference with C# is that typing is more strictly enforced at compile time. After testing on a sample he discovered that porting to VB.NET was quicker, but converting to C# discovered some obscure bugs in the original code - some of which had work-arounds applied as they had ever been fully understood. We went for the port to C# with the result that the ported application was more stable than the original.

Re:We've come a long way

[luis_a_espinal]

Option Strict is your friend.

In addition to Option Explicit. Friends indeed. But to the OP's behalf, Option Explicit is relatively new (2005 I think). There is still a lot of VB code out there that predates that feature.

But even then I think one should not need to rely on such things.

I used to be a QuickBasic and VB programmer back in Pre-(Internet)-Cambian times (and, oh, the horrror, PickBasic with numeric goto statements). We guarded ourselves (or I least I did) by using strict coding conventions and Hungarian notation on variable names and function names indicating the return values.

To a similar degree I did the same when I shifted from VB to FoxBase/FoxPro/VFP (what a nice product it was for its time). Anyways, it was obviously impossible to guarantee a type-mixing mistake would not occur, but software written this way tended to be very reliable and sufficiently type-safe.

Done this way, type mistakes were easy to spot by just looking at the code. At the end of the day, as Joel Spolsky once wrote, it is about making wrong code look wrong.

Re:We've come a long way

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it would be more accurate to say that C# is Visual Basic with a C-like syntax so programmers no longer have to feel ashamed of using Basic.
Let's face it: no matter whether you're using Java, C#, Python or C++ with a modern toolkit, we're all programming in Visual Basic now.

Memories

[kria]

I remember as a child reading BASIC programs out of Compute Magazine for my dad to type in on our TI computer. That likely means I was reading code before I read my first real novel, which is amusing.

I try not to admit at work that I've had to learn VBA for Excel for a tool we use.

Re:Memories

[postbigbang]

Maybe you should GOTO the event.

Re:Memories

[invictusvoyd]

And have spaghetti for breakfast

Re:Memories

[SigmundFloyd]

Maybe you should GOTO the event.

But then he can't RETURN...

Re:Memories

[Mr D from 63]

As a teen I remember writing a small game program in BASIC on a sheet of "programming pad'. Then calling my friend and reading it over the phone while he entered it on his TRS-80. The game was called Catch. A little man got fired out and you had to catch him with the curser before he hit the ground. It worked first time no flaws. I didn't get to see it for over a week. We played that game quite often.

Then it was on to FORTRAN punch cards.

NOT the good old days.

Re:Memories

[Virtucon]

POKE a hole in it, it's done.

I still program in BASIC. (Sometimes)

[MooseDontBounce]

My companies MRP is the (very) old CA-Maxcim written in BASIC. About every other year some change needs to be made to the code. I grab my old BASIC manual and CA-Maxcim API guide and go to work. We use SQL Server, C#, etc. for all new work and have a 3rd party product to access the CA-Maxcim files but it's funny to think of a $80 million+ company core application is written in BASIC. It just works with no problems.

BASIC is where M$ got its start

[tepples]

If you wonder why people abbreviate Microsoft as M$ in articles, consider that Microsoft got its start as a developer of BASIC for 8-bit home computers, including every Apple II computer from the Apple II Plus through the IIGS, IIc Plus, and Macintosh LC with IIe Card. The FAT file system also started with a Microsoft BASIC; Tim Paterson incorporated it into the 86-DOS that he would later sell to Microsoft. And in this early era, before DEFSTR and DIM ... AS, all string variable names ended with a $, just as names of scalar variables in Perl would later start with $. The following is a BASIC program:

10 LET M$ = "Microsoft"
20 PRINT M$;" introduces BASIC"
30 END

(That and the $ helps to distinguish Microsoft from multiple sclerosis.)

Re:BASIC is where M$ got its start

[gstoddart]

What you say is interesting, but I disagree.

People use M$ in the same way they use Di$ney ... to connote money grubbing corporations.

I have never understood that to have anything to do with variables in BASIC.

Though, for all I know, you could be correct. But I've never used it that way.

Re:BASIC is where M$ got its start

[GodfatherofSoul]

I assumed that it was a reference to their relentless pursuit of cash at all costs (including quality).

Re:Posts like these

[dcw3]

Funny. You care enough to post. Maybe, unlike many of us here, you didn't cut your teeth on it, and it's not of interest to you. But, unlike you, I had my first programming class in high school in the early 70s, and have fond memories of acoustic modems, hooked to teletypes, and punching out our programs on the paper tape unit attached to them. Maybe you'd consider those of us from that era to be dinosaurs. I have one thing to say to that...get the fuck off my lawn whippersnapper!

Command.com

[tepples]

But M$ gave us BAT files, which are terrible.

In principle, BAT files are shell scripts. But in practice, I agree that Command.com remained underpowered as a shell. In fact, it was so underpowered that the maker of Scotch tape bought the name to use it for adhesive hanging hooks. Cmd.exe in Windows NT family fixed this somewhat, but as I understand it, Microsoft's command prompt didn't fully meet the power of UNIX shells until PowerShell.

Re:Posts like these

[morgauxo]

Maybe you just don't have a very good grasp on who "most people here" are.

One of my earliest multiuser gaming experiences.

[Gondola]

Back in the day, I knew people that could provide me with magic phone numbers that would allow me to dial anywhere in the world, for free. Imagine that, right? I was only like 13. Statute of limitations and all that. This was in the 80s I guess.

Anyway, I remember we used to somehow dial into a Darthmouth mainframe and from there we could do a couple things. They had some kind of multiuser Zork (or Zork-ish) text adventure that you could play. I tried it a couple times but I couldn't get into it at the time, even though I loved Infocom games.

The biggest appeal was getting into the chat system. There, we could chat with what I assume were Darthmouth college students. "JOIN XYZ" I think was the command from the main menu.

There was this cool VT display of who was in the chat, so you could tell how many people were there. I used to chat with these people all the time. It was great for a precocious 13 year old who couldn't talk with his peers because his vocabulary and worldview was greatly expanded from theirs. How unfortunate that my social skills were so backward at the same time.

The details are a bit foggy, but I'm sure with some conversation with some of the same folks who used to chat there, I could dredge up those memories. Anyone remember chatting on that system?

Re:Posts like these

[gstoddart]

Maybe you just don't have a very good grasp on who "most people here" are.

If "most people here" care neither about the 50th anniversary of BASIC nor of time-sharing on computers ... one might argue that "most people here" aren't actually the target audience for Slashdot.

That's like saying on an aviation forum nobody cares about the Wright Brothers's place in history.

Brings back memories of TASC

[swb]

The AppleSoft Compiler. It seemed like magic, programs ran so much faster than interpreted. I seem to remember a demo BASIC brickout game being basically unplayable compiled because it ran so fast.

Re:Brings back memories of TASC

[jockm]

Microsoft's TASC was also impressive because it was written in AppleSoft Basic and compiled with itself. No small feat, considering the Basic of the time. It was the first compiler I ever bought.

ewww

[DriveDog]

Familiarity, in this case, bred contempt. I've written far more code in all sorts of dialects of BASIC than anything else, and I avoid it now if at all possible. For 1964 or the limited hardware in the 70s (6502s, Z80s, etc.) I suppose it was OK. But this isn't 1964 or 1978. VB isn't Dartmouth BASIC, but it looks and feels like V'GER—all sorts of stuff agglomerated onto a simple-minded core to add capabilities. So I'll celebrate not having to use it. MS made gigabucks in spite of BASIC, not because of it. Too bad K&R didn't get to work a few years sooner so we would never have heard of it. Some older cities still have lead pipes. Doesn't mean it was ever a good idea, and they'd be better off had they never used lead in the first place.

Re:10 REM HAPPY BIRTHDAY

[NewWorldDan]

As memory serves, you would want semicolons after lines 60 and 70 so as not to cause a new line. The dangers of posting untested code to the web.

Anyway, I thought I'd share the greatest program I ever wrote: a chat-bot. I was 8 and taking a summer school BASIC class in 1984. Near the end of the summer, we had a group of seniors visiting, so I wrote a really simple chat program - just asked some questions and provided canned responses. When those seniors saw the computer talking about the weather they got up and backed away in fear and I had to explain that it said the same thing no matter what you typed, but they still wouldn't go near the computer again. Looking back, that was totally awesome.

Re:Mixed blessing

[Alioth]

There are some good versions of BASIC, even from years ago.

Consider BBC BASIC for the BBC Microcomputer (a very common computer in the 1980s in British education and schools). BBC BASIC supports named procedures and local variables so you can write BBC BASIC programs just as structured as pretty much any other language. It's one of the few BASICs where you can easily write recursive routines (since it has local variables).

Then there are BASICs that are just awful, like the excuse for a language interpreter that Commodore put on the C64.

Ahh, BASIC

[Overzeetop]

The last, and only, computer language in which I was ever fluent.

*sigh*

I see...NERDS

[spaceyhackerlady]

...and the world is all the better for it!

...laura

Re:Posts like these

[Anonymous Coward]

lead me to think that slashdot needs a moderation system for articles.

-1 (Nobody cares)

10 PRINT "MOD PARENT DOWN"
20 GOTO 10

BASIC

[mdsolar]

cause FOTRAN is hard --Barbie

Re:Mixed blessing

[slapout]

That's what the B in BASIC is for -- Beginners. You use it to learn about variables and loops and if statements and other such concepts. Then you move on to other languages (C, Python, etc.) where the concepts are the same but the languages are better structured.