On 04/02/2008 04:29:27 PM, Tim wrote: > On Wed, 2008-04-02 at 09:31 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: > > Microsoft's entry into the personal computer market was by > supplying > > > a version of BASIC that for several operating systems. > > And wasn't it awful... I know BASIC's sneered upon, as there are > plenty > of better things, but BASIC was a simple starting position for a lot > of > people. It was also the only system available for a lot of home > personal computing, for a long time. Though, it typically was a very > feature limited interpreter. We had it on a Data General mainframe, > amongst other languages, and that went in the opposite direction - > very > featured, and gave you very verbose and lengthy error reports about > your > syntax errors. > > Many years ago I can remember tinkering around with Microsoft's BASIC > on > the Amiga, since it was the only programming language I had to play > with > on it, at the time. And actually managing to make a small relational > database with it, even though it hardly has the features that you > need > for something like that. It wasn't anything really complex though, > just > interrelated databases of services, clients, quotes, and the ability > to > turn a quote into an invoice. Ugliest BASIC _I_ can vaguely remember was on a Varian instrument. Memory say it was from U of British Columbia or some such. It was a Unix BASIC, which I ran into about 1983. Best part was Varian shipped it on the instrument, but there was no lead to _any_ documentation anywhere.
