#basic programming language

[frakyeahbattlestargalactica]

Monty Jaggers McGraw:

I am writing new BASIC programs to demo at my VCF Southwest 2025 exhibit of my 1979 Tektronix 4054A color vector graphics computer.

One of the programs I am writing is a 1978-1979 Battlestar Galactica TV demo. That TV show had $500,000 of Tektronix vector graphics computers and test equipment and many screenshots of their green vector storage CRT displays - some stills - some animated. These computer graphics were generated on both 1975 4051 and 1976 4081 vector graphics computers - predecessors to my 4052 and 4054A computers (see first photo attached).

Miami Herald TV 1978 magazine interview with the Battlestar Galactica set designer indicated extras on the set stationed in front of the 4051 computers were playing games during filming to increase realism and were so absorbed they kept playing after the cut! (article page attached).

The 4051 and second generation 4052 were the same physical size and used the same CRT and same Display board, but the 4052 and 4054 computers replaced the 800KHz Motorola 6800 CPU with a custom four AMD2901 bit-slice CPU to create a 16-bit address and data bus ALU which emulated the 6800 opcodes and added hardware floating point opcodes to speed up these computers 10x over the Motorola 6800, doubled the BASIC ROM space to 64KB and doubled the RAM space to 64KB!

I created these vector bitmap graphics using a "3D CAD" picture I found on the web of the Battlestar Galactica (last attachment).

As far as I know - there was never any 4050 BASIC program to view bitmap pictures on any of the 4050 computers. The 1979 4014 vector graphics terminal had a grayscale bitmap mode in the Extended Graphics option board, but I have only found a couple of bitmap 4014 images on a single Tektronix demo tape cartridge.

My 4050 BASIC program to display bitmaps works on all 4050 series computers - with an optional Tektronix 4050R12 Fast Graphics/Graphics Enhancement ROM Pack. This ROM Pack speeds up displaying vector images (including vector dot images) 10x over using BASIC MOVE and DRAW commands.

The Battlestar Galactica bitmap image in R12 binary format is 332234 bytes - slightly larger than would fit on a DC300 quarter-inch tape cartridge in the internal tape drive of all three 4050 computers, but would have fit on a 3M DC600 tape cartridge with a capacity of 600KB - it would have been very slow to load.

I designed an Arduino board to emulate the Tektronix 4924 GPIB tape drive - with the help of my software developer. My GPIB Flash Drive board contains a MicroSD card with gigabytes of storage and the Flash Drive emulates a GPIB tape changer, storing all the files of a "tape" in a single directory. I have also attached to this post a photo of my GPIB Flash Drive.

I have recovered almost 100 Tektronix 4050 Tapes and posted the ones I think are the most interesting at this time on my github repository for Tektronix 4051/4052/4054 computers: https://github.com/mmcgraw74/Tektronix-4051-4052-4054-Program-Files I included Tektronix published MATH volumes 1, 2, and 3 and Electrical Engineering, but I don't think they have a lot of use today. I have in my collection but not recovered tapes on Project Management, Statistics, and over 100 more tapes from the very active user group, which Tektronix made collections and published abstracts in their newsletter and the newletter customer got the tape for free. Commercial software like CAD programs were likely encrypted to eliminate copying - since Tektronix 4050 BASIC included a SECRET command which would then encrypt the program file as it was recorded to tape and add a SECRET flag in the tape header that would signal to BASIC ROM when that file was accessed to decrypt the program when it was loaded into memory. One big limiter to the size of the program was RAM in the 4051 was limited to 32KB and the 4052 and 4054 were limited to 64KB of RAM, although Tek BASIC did include commands to allow program "chunks" to be overlayed as necessary. Tektronix used those commands in their 4050 System Tape which was shipped with every system and included a tutorial on many of their BASIC commands. The tutorial ran on the original 4051 with 8KB of memory, and if the program detected 16KB of memory it would APPEND larger program files to speed up the tutorial.

[frank-olivier]

The story of BASIC’s development began in 1963, when Kemeny and Kurtz, both mathematics professors at Dartmouth, recognized the need for a programming language that could be used by non-technical students. At the time, most programming languages were complex and required a strong background in mathematics and computer science. Kemeny and Kurtz wanted to create a language that would allow students from all disciplines to use computers, regardless of their technical expertise.

The development of BASIC was a collaborative effort between Kemeny, Kurtz, and a team of students, including Mary Kenneth Keller, John McGeachie, and others. The team worked tirelessly to design a language that was easy to learn and use, with a syntax that was simple and intuitive. They drew inspiration from existing programming languages, such as ALGOL and FORTRAN, but also introduced many innovative features that would become hallmarks of the BASIC language.

One of the key innovations of BASIC was its use of simple, English-like commands. Unlike other programming languages, which required users to learn complex syntax and notation, BASIC used commands such as “PRINT” and “INPUT” that were easy to understand and remember. This made it possible for non-technical users to write programs and interact with the computer, without needing to have a deep understanding of computer science.

BASIC was first implemented on the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System, a pioneering computer system that allowed multiple users to interact with the computer simultaneously. The Time-Sharing System was a major innovation in itself, as it allowed users to share the computer’s resources and work on their own projects independently. With BASIC, users could write programs, run simulations, and analyze data, all from the comfort of their own terminals.

The impact of BASIC was immediate and profound. The language quickly gained popularity, not just at Dartmouth, but also at other universities and institutions around the world. It became the language of choice for many introductory programming courses, and its simplicity and ease of use made it an ideal language for beginners. As the personal computer revolution took hold in the 1970s and 1980s, BASIC became the language of choice for many hobbyists and enthusiasts, who used it to write games, utilities, and other applications.

Today, BASIC remains a popular language, with many variants and implementations available. While it may not be as widely used as it once was, its influence can still be seen in many modern programming languages, including Visual Basic, Python, and JavaScript. The development of BASIC was a major milestone in the history of computer science, as it democratized computing and made it accessible to a wider range of people.

The Birth of BASIC (Dartmouth College, August 2014)

Friday, April 25, 2025

[stormflute]

In Stars and Time Modern AU

[python-programming-language]

Post #83: Tumblr Opinion Poll by Python-Programming-Language, Question: Which programming resp. script language do you prefer?, 2023.

[basic-retro-programming]

Programmieren in Basic: Computergeschichte

Post #309: Heimcomputermuseum.de, Programmieren in Basic, Ein Streifzug durch die Computergeschichte, 2024.

[monaddecepticon]

The keywords for BASIC were the first words I learned in English. My father taught me on his ZX Spectrum. We did a Yahtzee-like game. It was a transformative experience.

RIP Dr. Thomas Kurtz - inventor of the BASIC programming language that became widely used in the 1970s and 80s for programming minicomputer and home computer systems.

BASIC made computer programming accessible to a wide audience that included students, scientists and businesses due to its easy to understand syntax, immediately runnable code, and widespread availability. My earliest explorations of the software world involved writing BASIC programs, and I'm very grateful for Dr. Kurtz's contributions to the world of computing.

[pigeonstab]

Surprendre! Bird hugs!!

(The owl kicked me out for getting too many things wrong so that one's from google lol I couldn't find how you say "Surprise!" like you're jumping out at somebody so maybe that's not a thing over there)

Anyway hello!! How are you? I hope you're doing okay and your food from last night was good (>^-^|^-^<)

Haha we do have it. 'surprendre' is the infinitive of the verb you just yelled 'the act of surprising!!' though I guess you guys don't have verb infinitives do you? You just say 'to surprise'.

Anyway to yell surprise in french just say 'surprise!' ;] it's a transparent word when it's an interjection. (Which is like 'Oh' 'ah!' or even 'fuck!' but those are in both languages. Would be pretty stale if we didn't have those lol) Now then!

Birs hugs!!!! Yippeeeee!!! I love the gifs you find ^^ I'm alright! Got what I needed to get done today so I can go to work on my art shtuff lol. The croque monsieurs were very very good. I wish I'd taken a picture now. I might just make more now.

Ps. (You do find infinitives in some cases like 'je me suis fait surprendre' but in English you'd translate that 'I was surprised [by something]' that's really weird don't really know the rule for when to use the infinitive. I guess you guys can't make sentences like that, it's understandable that you had issues with it. I'll look it up for you.)

[12neonlit-stage]

I go by no pronouns but not as in my name, more so like my pronouns are an undefined variable in shell coding

[michaelmyersfutacock]

oh man I really wanna learn J rn

[zandyland]

Say, for the sake of argument, you want to make a bad programming language. Why would you do this?

Well, for instance, you might get your hands on a book of scripts to generate ephemera for celestial events, only to find out it was written for Microsoft QuickBasic for Macintosh System 7. You quickly discover that this particular flavor of BASIC has no modern interpreter, and the best you can do is an emulator for System 7 where you have to mount 8 virtual floppy disks into your virtual system.

You could simply port all the scripts to another BASIC, but at that point you might as well just port them to another langauge entirely, a modern language.

Except QuickBasic had some funky data types. And the scripts assume a 16-bit integer, taking advantage of the foibles of bitfutzery before converting numbers into decimal format. BASIC is very particular -- as many old languages are -- about whitespace.

In addition to all this, BASIC programs are not structured as modern programs. It's structured to be written in ed, one line at a time, typing in a numbered index followed by the command. There are no scopes. There are no lifetimes. It's just a loose collection of lines that are hopefully in a logical order.

So sure, I could port all these programs. But I'm sure to make mistakes.

Wouldn't it just be easier, some basal part of my brain says, to write your own language that some some modern ameneties, that you compile for your own laptop, that kind of acts like BASIC? A language where you just have to translate particular grammar, and not the whole structure of the program?

Of course it's not easier. But I'm already too far in to quit now.

Memory

Who doesn't love manual memory layout?

In QuickBasic, memory is "kind of" manual. The DEFINT and DEFDBL keywords let you magically instantiate types based on their first letter. I don't know how you deallocate things, because all the scripts in this book finish quickly and don't hang around to leak a lot.

In QuickBasic, this looks like

I guess that the second statement just overrides the first.

There is no stack in a BASIC program, so there will be no stack in my language. Instead you just give names to locations.

creates a symbol named age and makes it refer to 0x1F. The pointer operator should be obvious, and the walrus means we're defining a symbol (to be replaced like a macro), not doing a value assignment during the execution of the program. Now we can assign a value.

Atoms infer types. age knows it's an int.

You cannot assign a new type to an atom.

However, you can cast between types by creating two atoms at the same address, typed differently.

The language does not convert these, it simply interprets the bits as the type demands.

Larger types

Not all types are a single word. Therefore, you can use the range operator .. to refer to a range of addresses.

Note that strings are stored with an extra byte for its length, instead of null-terminating it. Assignment of a string that is too long will result in a compilation error.

Next and Auto

There are also two keywords to make the layout of memory easier. The first is :next which will place the span in the next available contiguous location that is large enough to hold the size required. The second is :auto. For all :auto instances, the compiler will collect all these and attempt to place them in an intelligent free location. :auto prefers to align large structs with 64-word blocks, and fills in smaller blocks near other variables that are used in the same code blocks.

String Allocation

Strings come with a macro to help automatically build out the space required:

This is equivalent to:

That is, a string with capacity 5, a current size of 0, and zeroes (null char) in all spots. This helps avoid memory reuse attacks. ZBASIC is not a secure language, but this is still good practice.

There is also another macro that is similar to a "string literal".

Verbose and annoying! Just like BASIC.

Array Allocation

Likewise, arrays have a similar macro:

Which expands in a similar way as strings, with a capacity word and size word. The difference here is that the type given may change the actual size of the allocation. Giving a type that is larger than a single word will result in a larger array. For instance, f64 takes up two words some systems, so array::empty!(5, f64) will allocate 10 words in that case (5 * 2). Larger structs will likewise take up even more space. Again, all this memory will be zeroed out.

Allocation order

As an overview, this is the order that memory is assigned during compilation:

Manual Locations -> Next -> Auto

Manual locations are disqualified from eligibility for the Next and Auto phases, so a manual location will never accidentally reference any data allocated through :next or :auto.

Here is an example:

This produces the initial layout:

Which, after the code is run, results in the memory values:

Note that types are not preserved at runtime. They are displayed in the table as they are for convenience. When you use commands like "print" that operate differently on different types, they will be replaced with one of several instructions that interpret that memory as the type it was at compile-time.

Truly awful, isn't it?

[small-basic-programming]

Programming Languages For Youths And Adults ...

Programming Languages:

The best ways to learn programming are Snap!, Small Basic, Python, Small Visual Basic, Scratch and TigerJython.

Java

Ruby

C#

PHP

C++

Snap!

Small Basic

Python

Perl

TigerJython

Go

Scratch

C

JavaScript

Visual Basic

Post #234: Programming Languages For Youths And Adults, 2024.

[ponyatowski]

so ive been to london for the (kindof) very first time as a conscious human being and man it is like. i can’t articulate all the feelings ive been having but its making me REALLY emo because Wow heres a city that seemingly works!

[orcelito]

Oh yeah yesterday I went to my C programming professor's office hours to ask about what's being covered in class tomorrow. Since I can't go bc of my PT appointment overlapping with it & I'm apparently the kind of student that cares about attending every single class now.

While I was there, I ended up chatting with him about a few things, including my current standing in the class. He asked what I got on the midterm exam, & I answered it was an 87, and he told me I was one of the top 5 or 6 scores in the Whole Class (this being a like. Maybe 70 or so person class). Top score was a 92 or 93 (idr lol) & the class average was a 72. Apparently there were a few of us in the upper 80s/lower 90s, but most people got 70s or lower. And once he does the curve on the exam, he said I'd probably end up with a 97 or so on the exam. So yay!!!

And then he told me how he's noticed how I come to class every day and am really active with taking notes and answering questions. Bc I also sit up front all the time lmao. Hadn't even realized how much of a damned teacher's pet I've been being, but I've been Trying to be a good student this year. But he said I was the type of student that if I got an 88% or smth in the class, he'd likely bump me up to a 90% so I'd get an A lol. But he also said so long as I keep up with how I have been, I could possibly get a 100% in the class by the end (bc I've been there for all the extra credit questions in class and whatever).

And just. I went there bc I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything important in class on Wednesday, and I ended up having my ego stroked for Real. Felt good to have my efforts be recognized.

[yume-fanfare]

it's at times like these (5 minutes after solving a problem) that i get the devil speaking in my ear abt studying something related to computer science (i only know basic math and even worse coding)

[basic-retro-programming]

My 800 days streak on SoloLearn ...

Today C is also a retro programming language, but the syntax is quite different to BASIC.

Learning the basics of C is quite interesting and you can compare the pros and cons with BASIC. C is one of the prehistoric rocks of all programming languages.

Post #347: SoloLearn, 🔥 My 800 days streak 🔥, 2025.