The History of BASIC

[deep]

BASIC, now known for it's simplicity, was written in 1964 at Dartmouth College by John G. Kemeney and Thomas E. Kurtz. BASIC is an acronym for Beginners All-puprose Symbolic Instruction Code.

 

BASIC was originally meant to be a "stepping stone" for other languages such as FORTRAN (created from 1954-1957) and ALGOL (ALGOrithmic Language, created in the late 1950s).

 

The first BASIC considered to be a full language implemented on a microprocessor was Li Chen Wang's "Tiny Basic", which appeared in Dr. Dobbs.

 

BASIC was the first product sold by the Microsoft corporation, and also the first major case of software piracy. It was copied widely even before Microsoft made it available because Bill Gates lost track of a copy on paper tape during a computer show (how ironic).

 

The evolution of BASIC:

 

(1964) - Dartmouth BASIC by J.G Kemeney & T. E. Kurtz @ Dartmouth College

(1969) - Dartmouth BASIC fifth version by J.G Kemeney & T. E. Kurtz @ Dartmouth College

(1970) - BASIC-E by G. Eubanks

(1971) - BASIC the Sixth by J.G Kemeney & T. E. Kurtz @ Dartmouth College

(1975) - TinyBASIC by B. Albrecht & D. Allison

(1975) - Altair BASIC by B. Gates & P. Allen

(1983) - True BASIC by J.G Kemeney & T. E. Kurtz @ TrueBASIC Inc.

(1984) - Basic compiler by Microsoft

(August, 1985) - QuickBASIC 1.00 by Microsoft

(January, 1986) - QuickBASIC 1.01 by Microsoft

(June, 1986) - QuickBASIC 1.02 by Microsoft

(August 1986) - QuickBASIC 2.00 by Microsoft

(Febuary, 1987) - QuickBASIC 2.01 by Microsoft

(April, 1987) - QuickBASIC 3.00 by Microsoft

(October, 1987)- QuickBASIC 4.00 by Microsoft

(Febuary, 1988) - QuickBASIC 4.00a by Microsoft

(June, 1988) - QuickBASIC 4.00b by Microsoft

(October, 1988) - QuickBASIC 4.50 by Microsoft

(1991 - Febuary, 2002) - Visual Basic 1.0 - .NET by Microsoft

 

The list could go on forever, considering just about everyone has attempted to create their own language using the BASIC language. Just a little brush up on the BASIC languages. Please, read more here and here. Both websites were used to post this thread.

[fafalone]

So, I guess it's Microsoft's own fault they started the age-old tradition of pirating their apps.

[deep]

Bill Gates is a smart man, but he's still average enough to screw up something as important as that.

[blike]

Ahh. I was under the impression that Bill Gates wrote BASIC.

 

I think I even heard that from a documentary on his life.

 

Microsoft liars

[Guest Syntax]

Gates is lucky, not smart. fucking LUCKY

[Scorpio]

Bill Gates is not lucky. He is simply a good businessman. He started a company and it made billions due to his oversight. It has nothing to do with luck. You don't become one of the richest men in the world because of luck. He has a skill which helped him create his empire.

[Adrian]

Its all about marketing and strategy. If it wasnt for Steve Ballmer's expertise, Microsoft would of been in the dumps. Gate's ambition and hard word payed off.

[Guest Syntax]

To clear things up, the BASIC language has been around long before MS, the only thing MS did was write a BASIC program that was smaller, and compadible with the x86 systems. Just like DOS, another stole program in which M$ takes alot of credit for.

[aman]

I took a year of basic in college. It worked real well on the early Apples. A couple of days and you had some pretty decent custom software for the times. There really wasn't a whole lot of stuff to buy then. That was fun.

Just aman

[Guest Syntax]

Apple's used to have this one language, that you'd program thousands of lines of code, and all it did was print a picture on the screen, I forget what it's called, if you went to college and they had Macs you probably know what I'm talking about.

[aman]

My schooling was way pre computer. I learned with slide rules. As Mac's came on the market I used the basic I knew until I figured out their books and wrote the easier way but I don't remeber what they called it either. God it was slow. I even worked at Rockwell back in the days of the Commodore. We got some of the first ones.

Just aman

[apollo2011]

Yes, QBASIC is from way back when Bill Gates and Paul Allen actually wrote the shit themselves. Somethings never change.