[Year 12 Its] Re: Naming Conventions

[Con Zymaris]

On Fri, May 13, 2005 at 05:49:22PM +1000, Robert Timmer-Arends wrote:
> 
> >
> > And before GW-BASIC there was MS-BASIC.
> >
> > And before MS-BASIC there was, well, let's see here...
> >
> There was Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, or BASIC, created

Eventually, yes.

But well before MS-BASIC, there were a plethora of other BASICs. Thus 
providing Bill Gates with the source code listings he needed to start a 
company.

> in 1964 to teach uni/college students programming, and derived from FORTRAN.
> It was originally an interpretted language and I don't think much
> application outside of teaching institutions until micros came along and
> someone decided it was the ideal language for them

It was simple enough to fit into 4K EPROMS, which is what early Micros 
had. 

Only FORTH could compete in terms of compact interpreter size. And FORTH,
unlike C, really is high-level assembler, thus not appropriate for mortal
coding minds.

Cheers,
 
Con Zymaris, Convenor
Open Source Victoria
http://www.osv.org.au/
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