Show 014 - The History of BASIC
Feb 24, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Episode description
Randy and Earl cover the history of the BASIC programming language, including its origins, and the wide adoption of BASIC on 8-bit systems in the 1970s and 1980s!
- News
- BASIC 10-Liner Contest - https://gkanold.wixsite.com/homeputerium
- Show Topic
- “Fire in the Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer” by Michael Swaine, Paul Freiberger (associate link) - https://amzn.to/3EzdPCp
- Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC
- “Sophistication & Simplicity: The Life and Times of the Apple II Computer” by Stephen Weyrich - https://amzn.to/4hFGkNy
- “iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It” by Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith - https://amzn.to/42ZhBzc
- “Commodore: A Company on the Edge” by Brian Bagnall - https://amzn.to/4gHvfdu
- "101 Basic Computer Games" by David H. Ahl - https://amzn.to/3QitZTg or “101 BASIC Computer Games: Microcomputer Edition” - https://amzn.to/4hABxwT
- “BASIC Session”:The ACM SIGPLAN History of Programming Languages (HOPL) conference In Los Angeles, CA, June 1-3, 1978 - https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/800025.1198404
- 2006 Salon Article - Why Johnny Can't Code - https://www.salon.com/2006/09/14/basic_2/
- Microsoft Small Basic - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Small_Basic
- Basic-256 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic-256
- Quite Basic - https://www.quitebasic.com/
- Dartmouth held a 50th anniversary celebration for BASIC on May 1st, 2014. A short documentary film was produced for the event:
- Fifty Years of BASIC, the Programming Language That Made Computers Personal By Harry McCraken in Time magazine - http://time.com/69316/basic/
- Other Links
- Join the NWF crew on Discord! https://discord.gg/XAWv7PAFH4
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