BASIC

AtariBASIC, a variation of BASIC found in Atari's 8-bit computers

BASIC is one of the first programming languages ever to be created. It was first used as a programming language on minicomputers in the late 1960s. Later, most home computers shipped with BASIC in ROM. The name is an acronym (a word made from other words) that spells Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.

A MAX BASIC cartridge, used in the Commodore MAX Machine

History

It was designed by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz in 1963. It was based in part on Fortran and made to follow these eight principles:

  1. Be easy for beginners to use
  2. Be a general-purpose programming language
  3. Allow extra features to be added for experienced programmers.
  4. Be interactive
  5. Provide clear and friendly error messages
  6. A Dick Smith VZ200 connected to a TV, and with it's memory expansion plugged in, it is running a variation of Microsoft BASIC, Microsoft's variation of BASIC
    Fast results for small programs
  7. Does not require knowledge about computer hardware
  8. Stop the user from editing the operating system

The creators made the compiler free of charge to make programmers interested in using the language. Since the creation, many other compilers and interpreters have been made so users can make their programs.

Code example

10 LET N=10
20 FOR I=1 TO N
30 PRINT "Hello, World!"
40 NEXT I

This puts Hello, World! on the screen 10 times.