The basics of BASIC, the programming language of the 1980s.

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In this episode, 4 vintage computer enthusiasts take a look at BASIC, the language of the 1980s.

[max-fastwalker]

I am a kid from 90-th. I was born in Ukraine, where I lived in a village. No one even had computers there. Somehow I get passionate about computers, don't remember exactly why. I found some old soviet books about programming in our local library. They were mostly about some specific soviet models that also ran Basic. There were long texts of programs written in Basic, the descriptions claimed those were games. It was a kinda hobby to read those programs and imagening how they would run. I used to dream about getting one of those machines. Several years later, when I became 14 yo, my parents bought me a PC. I was really frustrated when I found out that the PC ran Windows XP, and my knowledge about computers was extremely outdated. I even cried because I did not understand how everything worked there. My dream about becoming a programmer seemed unreachable as everything looked so complicated. Nevertheless, that knowledge about BASIC programming really helped me in my career later, and now I am a C++ programmer. I miss those times when computers were much simpler even though I did not witness that, but only read books. Thank you for the video!

[lojian]

I was self-taught BASIC language using a manual, in rest room. I was sudden realized my computer could do this, I started to love it!! Now I am a software engineer :-)

[jincyquones]

I was born in '91, but BASIC still ended up being one of my first exposures to programming, thanks to the TI-83 we used in 7th grade Algebra. I figured out, on my own, how to write a simple text based program. I showed my teacher, and she printed out for me a four page program and let me take one of the school's TIs home over the weekend so I could type it in. 15 years later, I'm a software engineer.

[SuppaflyZSM]

8-Bit Guy: I'm not going to teach you how to code in BASIC in this episode...

Everyone: :(

[LGR]

Excellent stuff, sir! Thanks for having me on-board.

[sjh]

When I was a kid (10 years old) I wrote a Roulette game, and entered it in a programming contest. My program ended up in that book, and they didn't even give me credit. They knew they were doing something wrong because they changed it just a little. If I used the variable a, they used aa, etc.

[UncleRuckuss]

A friend had a ZX Spectrum clone and a Basic programming book that also contained various video games. He would write the code every time he wanted to play, he only found out after a year that you could actually connect a tape recorder and save it, his mind was simply blown away when he learned this...

[Robin_Nixon]

I used to work on computer magazines in the 80s and after receiving piles of complain letters every month that our listings didn't work, we started implementing checksum routines which would tell readers immediately when and where they had entered any typos.

[leavingjupiter]

IN the early 80's, I used to read the program out loud, and record it on a cassette player. Then I would play the tape while I typed, much easier.

[telix]

The content here is great and he does it with such a friendly attitude and non condescending demeanor. There really is no limit to what old stuff he can cover and it's good to see he's been able to make this a full time gig.

[alanhusby]

Fun to see -- I was a kid 10 years earlier, so my experience was with time shares, punch-roll paper readers, etc. No screens. The only way to "save" your program was to have the teletype create a roll of narrow paper with holes punched in it. I had a little bag full of paper rolls. Such a valuable education, though -- BASIC really was basic logic!

[brbailey]

In 10th grade in 1980, my buddy threw me a BASIC manual in the "Microcomputer Lab" and I was hooked. At dinner that night, I wouldn't shut up talking about how you could enter code and it would run. It was immediately addicting. But so were my parents. We had heard that Mattel Intellivision would soon be out with a home computer, but it was so delayed, we ended up getting an Apple ][+ for Christmas in 1981. Our whole family was hooked. I went to college for computer science, my mom who had taught 5th grade for decades moved out of the classroom and became her school's computer teacher, and my dad computerized the video production department where he worked.

We loved getting the latest issue of Nibble magazine. My mom would call out each line, while my dad typed it in. It would take hours! Then going through it again to debug for typos/syntax errors. Finally when you ran it, a blocky "cow" would walk across the screen.

Microsoft Decathalon (I wish I had bought stock), Adventure, Sublogic Flight Simulator, Ultima ][, etc.

[mistervoice]

My first experience with BASIC was with a book called "Teach yourself BASIC". I bought it a a local book store after seeing BASIC running an texted based RPG on my friend's TRS-80. I didn't have a computer of my own when I bought the book, but my parents saw that I had such a great interest in it, they gave me a Timex Sinclair for Christmas, Had lots of fun with it and it helped increase my knowledge of BASIC programming and my interest in computers greatly, A good example was that I took a computer accounting class in my senior year in high school, and the software (written in BASIC) was so buggy, I offered to debug and fix it. My accounting teacher was so impressed, she gave me an A just for doing so, I never had to do any actual accounting work to pass the class. Been in the computer tech support field now for 26 years now, and to owe it all to teaching myself BASIC.

[adamwishneusky]

This is like a basic documentary and I love it

[alainlareau]

While serving in Germany (US Army), I had Commodore 64 with FOUR floppy drives, 8, 9, 10, 11 AND the 256K expander pack. Back then, that was smokin' .. pixel wise the color monitor was top notch for the day as well.

[Verbalaesthet]

I once coded a text adventure as a kid using Turbo Pascal :'D It was actually pretty good.

[jippalippa]

By the way David; don't worry about making slightly longer videos.
Fans will surely love them and the extended length will give you better revenue :)

[neddyl]

This brings back memories. I learned basic on the VIC-20 from the manual that came with it. Once learned, it was easy to make your own games.

[jerrytouchton]

I was a math teacher when these computer came into schools. I taught myself to program in BASIC and started a company to write educational software in basic. Gradually ROM BASIC disappeared and the new compiled languages grew more structured and the seat-of-the-pants excitement disappeared. The last version of BASIC that was any fun was Microsoft QuickBASIC.

[JustWastedHoursHere]

A very smart friend of mine wrote a BASIC compiler - in BASIC - on his Commodore 64 and (here's the genius part) once he had it finished, he compiled...the compiler USING the compiler! Then the compiler itself was compiled! I think he sold it to one of the 8-bit computer magazines for a couple hundred bucks.