Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.misc > #4654

Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC

Show all headers | View raw

On 2014-09-02 10:57, Rich wrote:
> http://prog21.dadgum.com/198.html
> 
>    Unstructured programming with GOTO is the stuff of legend, as are
>    calling subroutines by line number--GOSUB 1000--and setting global
>    variables as a mechanism for passing parameters.
> 
>    The little language that fueled the home computer revolution has been
>    long buried beneath an avalanche of derision, or at least disregarded as
>    a relic from primitive times. That's too bad, because while the language
>    itself has serious shortcomings, the overall 8-bit BASIC experience has
>    high points that are worth remembering.
> 
>    It's hard to separate the language and the computers it ran it on;
>    flipping the power switch, even without a disk drive attached, resulted
>    in a BASIC prompt. If nothing else, it could be treated as a calculator:
>    PRINT "seconds in a week: ",60*60*24*7 or PRINT COS(2)/2 Notice how the
>    cosine function is always available for use. No importing a library. No
>    qualifying it with MATH.TRIG.
A basic function I wrote in 1988:

6000 DEFine FuNction atan2(si,co)
6010 LOCal s,c,t
6020 s=ABS(si) : c=ABS(co)
6030 IF s>c : t=PI/2-ATAN(c/s) : ELSE t=ATAN(s/c)
6040 IF co<0 : t=PI-t
6050 IF si<0 : t=-t
6060 RETurn t
6070 END DEFine atan2
6080 :

Back to comp.misc | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2014-09-02 09:57 +0000
  Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-09-02 12:25 +0100
  Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC Hils <hils@saynotospam.net> - 2014-09-02 19:19 +0100
  Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-09-02 18:21 +0000
    Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC Hils <hils@saynotospam.net> - 2014-09-02 20:51 +0100
      Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-09-02 22:58 +0300
        Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-09-02 22:20 +0200
        Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC Bruce Horrocks <07.013@scorecrow.com> - 2014-09-04 00:21 +0100
          Re: Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-09-04 08:44 +0300

csiph-web