🚀 go-pugleaf

J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> writes:
>On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:12:57 -0400, Andreas Kohlbach
><a...@spamfence.net> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:56:45 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>
>>> On 31/05/2018 17:37, Bob Eager wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I learned BASIC in 1971. Our textbook was the one by Kemeny and Kurtz.
>>>
>>> I did my 3rd year engineering assignments in 1972 in BASIC on
>>> the teletypes of the PDP10 at Essex Uni, when we were all expected
>>> to do it in FORTRAN as had been taught  :-)
>>
>>Am probably too young. I first came in contact with BASIC when I had the
>>Commodore 64 around 1983.
>
>It was available on the mainframe at UofF in 1973 when I had my first
>exposure to computers, but we also had APL, so BASIC kind of
>languished.

Basic (not an acronym) was also available in 1974 on the mainframe at UWEC.  We also
had ALGOL.

On 01/06/2018 14:14, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:12:57 -0400, Andreas Kohlbach
>> <a...@spamfence.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:56:45 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 31/05/2018 17:37, Bob Eager wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I learned BASIC in 1971. Our textbook was the one by Kemeny and Kurtz.
>>>>
>>>> I did my 3rd year engineering assignments in 1972 in BASIC on
>>>> the teletypes of the PDP10 at Essex Uni, when we were all expected
>>>> to do it in FORTRAN as had been taught  :-)
>>>
>>> Am probably too young. I first came in contact with BASIC when I had the
>>> Commodore 64 around 1983.
>>
>> It was available on the mainframe at UofF in 1973 when I had my first
>> exposure to computers, but we also had APL, so BASIC kind of
>> languished.
> 
> Basic (not an acronym) was also available in 1974 on the mainframe at UWEC.  We also
> had ALGOL.
> 

BASIC (an acronym) is Beginner's All Purpose Instruction Code

On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 7:33:18 AM UTC-6, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
> On 01/06/2018 14:14, Scott Lurndal wrote:

> > Basic (not an acronym) was also available in 1974 on the mainframe at UWEC.  We also
> > had ALGOL.
> > 
> 
> BASIC (an acronym) is Beginner's All Purpose
Symbolic
> Instruction Code

FTFY

John Savard

On 01/06/2018 14:58, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 7:33:18 AM UTC-6, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>> On 01/06/2018 14:14, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> 
>>> Basic (not an acronym) was also available in 1974 on the mainframe at UWEC.  We also
>>> had ALGOL.
>>>
>>
>> BASIC (an acronym) is Beginner's All Purpose
> Symbolic
>> Instruction Code
> 
> FTFY
> 
> John Savard
> 

I knew that, so what did I type?

On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 9:16:07 AM UTC-6, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:

> I knew that, so what did I type?

You left out the word "Symbolic", as I thought was clear as I quoted and 
attributed correctly: you wrote "Beginner's All Purpose Instruction Code".

Perhaps, too, it would be clearer as "Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction 
Code" so that "purpose" is neither a separate word nor capitalized.

John Savard

On 01/06/2018 16:22, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 9:16:07 AM UTC-6, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
> 
>> I knew that, so what did I type?
> 
> You left out the word "Symbolic", as I thought was clear as I quoted and
> attributed correctly: you wrote "Beginner's All Purpose Instruction Code".
> 
> Perhaps, too, it would be clearer as "Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction
> Code" so that "purpose" is neither a separate word nor capitalized.
> 
> John Savard
> 

OK, thanks. I don't keep posts and delete them once read.

On 31/05/2018 22:12, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
> On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:56:45 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>
>> On 31/05/2018 17:37, Bob Eager wrote:
>>>
>>> I learned BASIC in 1971. Our textbook was the one by Kemeny and Kurtz.
>>
>> I did my 3rd year engineering assignments in 1972 in BASIC on
>> the teletypes of the PDP10 at Essex Uni, when we were all expected
>> to do it in FORTRAN as had been taught  :-)
> 
> Am probably too young. I first came in contact with BASIC when I had the
> Commodore 64 around 1983.
> 

I met BASIC in 1975 on a 370/135 running the online operating system 
MUSIC. IBM had added many enhancements.

On a VAX I used DEC's BASIC to format printouts since it had advanced 
string handling facilities.

On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:12:57 -0400, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:

> On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:56:45 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>
>> On 31/05/2018 17:37, Bob Eager wrote:
>>>
>>> I learned BASIC in 1971. Our textbook was the one by Kemeny and Kurtz.
>>
>> I did my 3rd year engineering assignments in 1972 in BASIC on the
>> teletypes of the PDP10 at Essex Uni, when we were all expected to do it
>> in FORTRAN as had been taught  :-)
> 
> Am probably too young. I first came in contact with BASIC when I had the
> Commodore 64 around 1983.

Gareth obviously failed to master FORTRAN.

Two years after him, I did my Master's on the same teletypes. We had to 
learn POP-2, Lisp, BCPL and some others. I used BCPL and FORTRAN for my 
dissertation, and learned/used PDP-10 assembler in my spare time!



-- 
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
 http://www.mirrorservice.org

On 1 Jun 2018 15:52:00 GMT, Bob Eager <news...@eager.cx> wrote:

>On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:12:57 -0400, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:56:45 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>
>>> On 31/05/2018 17:37, Bob Eager wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I learned BASIC in 1971. Our textbook was the one by Kemeny and Kurtz.
>>>
>>> I did my 3rd year engineering assignments in 1972 in BASIC on the
>>> teletypes of the PDP10 at Essex Uni, when we were all expected to do it
>>> in FORTRAN as had been taught  :-)
>> 
>> Am probably too young. I first came in contact with BASIC when I had the
>> Commodore 64 around 1983.
>
>Gareth obviously failed to master FORTRAN.
>
>Two years after him, I did my Master's on the same teletypes. We had to 
>learn POP-2, Lisp, BCPL and some others. I used BCPL and FORTRAN for my 
>dissertation, and learned/used PDP-10 assembler in my spare time!

My first use of BASIC was tokenized on a Sinclair ZX-81 with 1
kilobyte of memory in 1984. I later got the 16Kb ram pack and used it.

Next instance of BASIC was AmigaBASIC, and then AppleDOS BASIC. Along
with Apple Fortran v1.0. About 1986. Apple Fortran v1.0 had a problem
in that an attempt to take a negative root of a number didn't give a
math error. It said, "Program Interrupted by User.' The professor
called Apple, who denied it, and then called back the next day,
apologized, and said they got the same error. I presume they fixed it,
but I was only at that community college for a short time. Transferred
over to a 4-year university campus where they had a VAX 11/730.

Only programing language I used on a DEX VAX 11/730 was PASCAL. I
don't remember the version. This would have been in 1988. One class
did try to run ADA on that machine... its was so slow that the
professor could start a complie, him and the entire class go to lunch,
and the first messages would come up on the VT102 terminal screen
about 45 minutes later, as they got back. Not enough Long Word memory,
IIRC, the complaint from the professor.

Early 1970s I was in the US Navy. I didn't work with computers. None
aboard that I knew about. Well, the guns may have been still using
electrical-analog aiming devices, but I had no access to those.

On 1 Jun 2018, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote
(in article <perhut$3v0$2...@dont-email.me>):

> On 01/06/2018 14:14, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> > J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> writes:
> > > On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:12:57 -0400, Andreas Kohlbach
> > > <a...@spamfence.net>  wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:56:45 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > On 31/05/2018 17:37, Bob Eager wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I learned BASIC in 1971. Our textbook was the one by Kemeny and Kurtz.
> > > > >
> > > > > I did my 3rd year engineering assignments in 1972 in BASIC on
> > > > > the teletypes of the PDP10 at Essex Uni, when we were all expected
> > > > > to do it in FORTRAN as had been taught :-)
> > > >
> > > > Am probably too young. I first came in contact with BASIC when I had the
> > > > Commodore 64 around 1983.
> > >
> > > It was available on the mainframe at UofF in 1973 when I had my first
> > > exposure to computers, but we also had APL, so BASIC kind of
> > > languished.
> >
> > Basic (not an acronym) was also available in 1974 on the mainframe at UWEC.
> > We also
> > had ALGOL.
>
> BASIC (an acronym) is Beginner's All Purpose Instruction Code

Bodgers' And SImpletons' Incomprehensible Crap

-- 
Bill Findlay

On 01/06/2018 16:48, Andrew Swallow wrote:
> On 31/05/2018 22:12, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>> On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:56:45 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>
>>> On 31/05/2018 17:37, Bob Eager wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I learned BASIC in 1971. Our textbook was the one by Kemeny and Kurtz.
>>>
>>> I did my 3rd year engineering assignments in 1972 in BASIC on
>>> the teletypes of the PDP10 at Essex Uni, when we were all expected
>>> to do it in FORTRAN as had been taught  :-)
>>
>> Am probably too young. I first came in contact with BASIC when I had the
>> Commodore 64 around 1983.
>>
> 
> I met BASIC in 1975 on a 370/135 running the online operating system 
> MUSIC. IBM had added many enhancements.
> 
> On a VAX I used DEC's BASIC to format printouts since it had advanced 
> string handling facilities.

The original paper tape BASIC lacked RIGHT$, LEFT$ and MID$   :-(

On 01/06/2018 17:41, JimP wrote:
> On 1 Jun 2018 15:52:00 GMT, Bob Eager <news...@eager.cx> wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:12:57 -0400, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:56:45 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 31/05/2018 17:37, Bob Eager wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I learned BASIC in 1971. Our textbook was the one by Kemeny and Kurtz.
>>>>
>>>> I did my 3rd year engineering assignments in 1972 in BASIC on the
>>>> teletypes of the PDP10 at Essex Uni, when we were all expected to do it
>>>> in FORTRAN as had been taught  :-)
>>>
>>> Am probably too young. I first came in contact with BASIC when I had the
>>> Commodore 64 around 1983.
>>
>> Gareth obviously failed to master FORTRAN.
>>
>> Two years after him, I did my Master's on the same teletypes. We had to
>> learn POP-2, Lisp, BCPL and some others. I used BCPL and FORTRAN for my
>> dissertation, and learned/used PDP-10 assembler in my spare time!
> 
> My first use of BASIC was tokenized on a Sinclair ZX-81 with 1
> kilobyte of memory in 1984. I later got the 16Kb ram pack and used it.
> 

Together with the de rigeur strong elastic band to hold the ram pack
firmly onto its contacts ?    :-)

On 01/06/2018 17:51, Bill Findlay wrote:
>> BASIC (an acronym) is Beginner's All Purpose Instruction Code
> 
> Bodgers' And SImpletons' Incomprehensible Crap

Unfortunately true for it is possible to write spaghetti
code in that style in any language, even C++

Who has not regretted setting someone on who claims 10 year's
experience only to find that it was 1 week's experience
repeated 519 times?  :-(

My first exposure to BASIC was back in 1975 too.  It was on a Wang 2200 that the middle school would borrow for a week or two at a time.  We'd all huddle around it and get as much time and use as we could out of it.

On Fri, 1 Jun 2018 14:33:09 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>
> BASIC (an acronym) is Beginner's All Purpose Instruction Code

Interestingly the first versions of MS BASIC were also an "operating
system" on the MITS Altair. When loaded it did also I/O for mass media
devices like floppy disk and possibly punched cards.
-- 
Andreas

My random toughts and comments
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/

scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) Wrote in message:
> 
> Basic (not an acronym) 
> 

Beginners All Purpose Simplified Instruction Code. A still showing
 the cover of the original manual appears in the film that started
 this thread.

Sarr

-- 


----Android NewsGroup Reader----
http://usenet.sinaapp.com/

On 2018-06-01, JimP <solo...@gmail.com> wrote:

> did try to run ADA on that machine... its was so slow that the

Give it a break.  The members of the Americans with Disabilities
Association have enough trouble as it is.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  Fight low-contrast text in web pages!  http://contrastrebellion.com

On Fri, 1 Jun 2018 11:06:54 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>On Thursday, May 31, 2018 at 7:25:24 PM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> It was available on the mainframe at UofF in 1973 when I had my first
>> exposure to computers, but we also had APL, so BASIC kind of
>> languished.
>
>BASIC timesharing was an excellent language, especially as HP and
>others expanded it in the 1970s, but it was still looked down
>upon by serious programmers.  "Real programmers" were supposed
>to use Fortran or assembler in that era.  APL was credible, too.

At the time APL was like BASIC on steroids.  Easy to learn,
interactive, immensely capable, but could take the rest of your life
to completely master.

>In the business world, away from academia, COBOL was popular.
>For the newly developed IBM System/3, RPG II was popular.
>
>

On 6/1/2018 10:48 AM, Andrew Swallow wrote:
> On 31/05/2018 22:12, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>> On Thu, 31 May 2018 17:56:45 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>
>>> On 31/05/2018 17:37, Bob Eager wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I learned BASIC in 1971. Our textbook was the one by Kemeny and Kurtz.
>>>
>>> I did my 3rd year engineering assignments in 1972 in BASIC on
>>> the teletypes of the PDP10 at Essex Uni, when we were all expected
>>> to do it in FORTRAN as had been taught  :-)
>>
>> Am probably too young. I first came in contact with BASIC when I had the
>> Commodore 64 around 1983.
>>
> 
> I met BASIC in 1975 on a 370/135 running the online operating system 
> MUSIC. IBM had added many enhancements.
> 
> On a VAX I used DEC's BASIC to format printouts since it had advanced 
> string handling facilities.

On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain BASIC.  I 
never used it much, but some I knew at university did fairly complex 
projects using this BASIC.

-- 
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

On 6/1/2018 10:22 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 9:16:07 AM UTC-6, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
> 
>> I knew that, so what did I type?
> 
> You left out the word "Symbolic", as I thought was clear as I quoted and
> attributed correctly: you wrote "Beginner's All Purpose Instruction Code".
> 
> Perhaps, too, it would be clearer as "Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction
> Code" so that "purpose" is neither a separate word nor capitalized.
> 

ISTM that the word "BASIC" was a backronym...  meaning that they started 
with the word BASIC and then figured out the phrase it stood for later on.



-- 
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

On 6/1/2018 1:02 PM, David Jones wrote:
> My first exposure to BASIC was back in 1975 too.  It was on a Wang 2200 that the middle school would borrow for a week or two at a time.  We'd all huddle around it and get as much time and use as we could out of it.
> 
> 

ISTM that the Wang 2200 could support up to 16 terminals, each of which 
could be used to program in BASIC.  IMO this was a machine developed ay 
Wang because they wanted the education market...  schools and colleges 
would buy the system much more often than businesses.

-- 
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

On 2018-06-02, Charles Richmond <nume...@aquaporin4.com> wrote:
> On 6/1/2018 10:22 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Friday, June 1, 2018 at 9:16:07 AM UTC-6, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>> 
>>> I knew that, so what did I type?
>> 
>> You left out the word "Symbolic", as I thought was clear as I quoted and
>> attributed correctly: you wrote "Beginner's All Purpose Instruction Code".
>> 
>> Perhaps, too, it would be clearer as "Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction
>> Code" so that "purpose" is neither a separate word nor capitalized.
>> 
>
> ISTM that the word "BASIC" was a backronym...  meaning that they started 
> with the word BASIC and then figured out the phrase it stood for later on.
>
>
>

As I unnderstand it, too.

-- 
greymaus.ireland.ie
Will Rant for Food

On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
> 
> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain BASIC.  I 
> never used it much, but some I knew at university did fairly complex 
> projects using this BASIC.
> 

Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
language is irrelevant.

Gareth's Downstairs Computer
<headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>> 
>> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain BASIC.  I 
>> never used it much, but some I knew at university did fairly complex 
>> projects using this BASIC.
>> 
> 
> Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
> storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
> language is irrelevant.
> 

Not really. For example the PL/M compiler was originally written in
FORTRAN, but that's not the language most would choose today, nor COBOL.

-- 
Pete

On 02/06/2018 12:55, Peter Flass wrote:
> Gareth's Downstairs Computer
> <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>>
>>> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain BASIC.  I
>>> never used it much, but some I knew at university did fairly complex
>>> projects using this BASIC.
>>>
>>
>> Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
>> storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
>> language is irrelevant.
>>
> 
> Not really. For example the PL/M compiler was originally written in
> FORTRAN, but that's not the language most would choose today, nor COBOL.
> 

The language chosen does not dissipate its irrelevance.

On 02/06/2018 12:27, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
> On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>
>> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain BASIC.  
>> I never used it much, but some I knew at university did fairly complex 
>> projects using this BASIC.
>>
> 
> Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
> storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
> language is irrelevant.
> 
> 
If the computer language cannot handle character you soon hit problems.

On 02/06/2018 06:59, Charles Richmond wrote:
> 
> ISTM that the word "BASIC" was a backronym...  meaning that they started 
> with the word BASIC and then figured out the phrase it stood for later on.
> 
> 
Theses things are normally a feed back process. When STARTER and LEARNER 
failed try BASIC

On 02/06/2018 17:26, Andrew Swallow wrote:
> On 02/06/2018 12:27, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>> On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>>
>>> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain BASIC. 
>>> I never used it much, but some I knew at university did fairly 
>>> complex projects using this BASIC.
>>>
>>
>> Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
>> storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
>> language is irrelevant.
>>
>>
> If the computer language cannot handle character you soon hit problems.


All the languages with which I've been involved from the very lowest
to PASCAL and FORTRAN, had an inalienable capability to deal with
all forms of data having binary representations.

You don't hit a problem if you need a couple of hours' work to turn in
string handling capabilities; after all, the C language has no string
handling facilities, and relies on a string library, and, usually, a
CHAR data type defined in terms of its binary size and signing.

On 02/06/2018 18:32, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
> On 02/06/2018 17:26, Andrew Swallow wrote:
>> On 02/06/2018 12:27, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>> On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain 
>>>> BASIC. I never used it much, but some I knew at university did 
>>>> fairly complex projects using this BASIC.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
>>> storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
>>> language is irrelevant.
>>>
>>>
>> If the computer language cannot handle character you soon hit problems.
> 
> 
> All the languages with which I've been involved from the very lowest
> to PASCAL and FORTRAN, had an inalienable capability to deal with
> all forms of data having binary representations.
> 
> You don't hit a problem if you need a couple of hours' work to turn in
> string handling capabilities; after all, the C language has no string
> handling facilities, and relies on a string library, and, usually, a
> CHAR data type defined in terms of its binary size and signing.
> 

The ICL 1900 read characters into integers in A1 format. IF statements 
compared by subtracting which resulted in overflow.

On 02/06/2018 18:37, Andrew Swallow wrote:
> On 02/06/2018 18:32, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>> On 02/06/2018 17:26, Andrew Swallow wrote:
>>> On 02/06/2018 12:27, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>> On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain 
>>>>> BASIC. I never used it much, but some I knew at university did 
>>>>> fairly complex projects using this BASIC.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
>>>> storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
>>>> language is irrelevant.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> If the computer language cannot handle character you soon hit problems.
>>
>>
>> All the languages with which I've been involved from the very lowest
>> to PASCAL and FORTRAN, had an inalienable capability to deal with
>> all forms of data having binary representations.
>>
>> You don't hit a problem if you need a couple of hours' work to turn in
>> string handling capabilities; after all, the C language has no string
>> handling facilities, and relies on a string library, and, usually, a
>> CHAR data type defined in terms of its binary size and signing.
>>
> 
> The ICL 1900 read characters into integers in A1 format. IF statements 
> compared by subtracting which resulted in overflow.

I know not what is A1 format, but awareness of such a problem makes it 
seem to be a simple matter to adjust values or else to translate to
an internal format.

Gareth's Downstairs Computer
<headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 02/06/2018 18:37, Andrew Swallow wrote:
>> On 02/06/2018 18:32, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>> On 02/06/2018 17:26, Andrew Swallow wrote:
>>>> On 02/06/2018 12:27, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>>> On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain 
>>>>>> BASIC. I never used it much, but some I knew at university did 
>>>>>> fairly complex projects using this BASIC.
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
>>>>> storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
>>>>> language is irrelevant.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> If the computer language cannot handle character you soon hit problems.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> All the languages with which I've been involved from the very lowest
>>> to PASCAL and FORTRAN, had an inalienable capability to deal with
>>> all forms of data having binary representations.
>>> 
>>> You don't hit a problem if you need a couple of hours' work to turn in
>>> string handling capabilities; after all, the C language has no string
>>> handling facilities, and relies on a string library, and, usually, a
>>> CHAR data type defined in terms of its binary size and signing.
>>> 
>> 
>> The ICL 1900 read characters into integers in A1 format. IF statements 
>> compared by subtracting which resulted in overflow.
> 
> I know not what is A1 format, but awareness of such a problem makes it 
> seem to be a simple matter to adjust values or else to translate to
> an internal format.
> 
> 

A1 stores input one character per word, so you lose somewhere between 75% 
and 84% of your memory, in return for having something that is a bit easier
to handle. Otherwise you have to shift and mask to manipulate characters.

-- 
Pete

On 02/06/2018 22:19, Peter Flass wrote:
> Gareth's Downstairs Computer
> <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On 02/06/2018 18:37, Andrew Swallow wrote:
>>> On 02/06/2018 18:32, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>> On 02/06/2018 17:26, Andrew Swallow wrote:
>>>>> On 02/06/2018 12:27, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>>>> On 02/06/2018 06:44, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On the DEC-20, BASIC Plus 2 had a lot of enhancements to plain
>>>>>>> BASIC. I never used it much, but some I knew at university did
>>>>>>> fairly complex projects using this BASIC.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, but save from some contextual limitations (execution speed,
>>>>>> storage space, etc) to a well designed project, the implementation
>>>>>> language is irrelevant.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> If the computer language cannot handle character you soon hit problems.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> All the languages with which I've been involved from the very lowest
>>>> to PASCAL and FORTRAN, had an inalienable capability to deal with
>>>> all forms of data having binary representations.
>>>>
>>>> You don't hit a problem if you need a couple of hours' work to turn in
>>>> string handling capabilities; after all, the C language has no string
>>>> handling facilities, and relies on a string library, and, usually, a
>>>> CHAR data type defined in terms of its binary size and signing.
>>>>
>>>
>>> The ICL 1900 read characters into integers in A1 format. IF statements
>>> compared by subtracting which resulted in overflow.
>>
>> I know not what is A1 format, but awareness of such a problem makes it
>> seem to be a simple matter to adjust values or else to translate to
>> an internal format.
>>
>>
> 
> A1 stores input one character per word, so you lose somewhere between 75%
> and 84% of your memory, in return for having something that is a bit easier
> to handle. Otherwise you have to shift and mask to manipulate characters.
> 
Also Fortran did not support shifting and masking. The programmer would 
have to use division.

J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> writes:

> On Fri, 1 Jun 2018 11:06:54 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>
>>On Thursday, May 31, 2018 at 7:25:24 PM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:
>>
>>> It was available on the mainframe at UofF in 1973 when I had my first
>>> exposure to computers, but we also had APL, so BASIC kind of
>>> languished.
>>
>>BASIC timesharing was an excellent language, especially as HP and
>>others expanded it in the 1970s, but it was still looked down
>>upon by serious programmers.  "Real programmers" were supposed
>>to use Fortran or assembler in that era.  APL was credible, too.
>
> At the time APL was like BASIC on steroids.  Easy to learn,
> interactive, immensely capable, but could take the rest of your life
> to completely master.

Also, could take you the rest of your life to figure out the code you
wrote last week...

On Sun, 03 Jun 2018 20:50:59 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer
<pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:

>J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Fri, 1 Jun 2018 11:06:54 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>
>>>On Thursday, May 31, 2018 at 7:25:24 PM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:
>>>
>>>> It was available on the mainframe at UofF in 1973 when I had my first
>>>> exposure to computers, but we also had APL, so BASIC kind of
>>>> languished.
>>>
>>>BASIC timesharing was an excellent language, especially as HP and
>>>others expanded it in the 1970s, but it was still looked down
>>>upon by serious programmers.  "Real programmers" were supposed
>>>to use Fortran or assembler in that era.  APL was credible, too.
>>
>> At the time APL was like BASIC on steroids.  Easy to learn,
>> interactive, immensely capable, but could take the rest of your life
>> to completely master.
>
>Also, could take you the rest of your life to figure out the code you
>wrote last week...

It's not really that bad.  I get paid these days to figure out APL
code that somebody else wrote 20 years ago, and it's actually not as
hard as it's made out to be.

Admittely, sometimes I have to go a symbol at a time and rewrite
whatever it does in Python then run the Python to make sure that my
understanding is correct . . .

On 04/06/2018 11:28, Peter Flass wrote:
> Gareth's Downstairs Computer
> <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On 03/06/2018 22:40, Peter Flass wrote:
>>>
>>> Some problems are easily solved by recursion that are significantly more
>>> complicated otherwise.
>>
>> I would be interested to know some examples, please?
>>
>>
> 
> Depth-first search of a binary tree. Top-down parsing.
> 
> Anything that requires retracing a path thru a data structure. Without
> recursion you have to maintain a table to keep track of where you've been
> and where you're going. Recursion just handles it naturally.
> 

Looks like computer scientism and not real-life programming.

Andreas Kohlbach <a...@spamfence.net> writes:
>On Fri, 1 Jun 2018 14:33:09 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>
>> BASIC (an acronym) is Beginner's All Purpose Instruction Code
>
>Interestingly the first versions of MS BASIC were also an "operating
>system" on the MITS Altair. When loaded it did also I/O for mass media
>devices like floppy disk and possibly punched cards.

FWIW, The oxford dictionaries claim BASIC is a backronym, not an acronym.

Sarr Blumson <sarr.blumson@alum.dartmouth.orgq> writes:
>scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) Wrote in message:
>> 
>> Basic (not an acronym) 
>> 
>
>Beginners All Purpose Simplified Instruction Code. A still showing
> the cover of the original manual appears in the film that started
> this thread.

It's a backronym, not an acronym.

On Sunday, June 3, 2018 at 10:02:43 AM UTC-4, Andrew Swallow wrote:
> On 02/06/2018 20:11, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> > On Saturday, June 2, 2018 at 12:19:34 PM UTC-4, Andrew Swallow wrote:
> > 
> >> The writers of BASIC obviously knew FORTRAN. They chose GOTOs over blocks.
> > 
> > BASIC had GOSUB.  Some BASIC's had CHAIN.
> > 
> 
> GOSUB is a CALL statement without parameters. Although GOSUB is 
> recursive. However having to implement variables as arrays shows how 
> inelegant actually recursion is.

The earlier simpler versions of BASIC allowed only a branch in an
IF statement, e.g. IF A=B THEN {go to branch}.  Later versions
allowed an imperative statement after the THEN as well as some
logical arrangement, such as ELSE.  M/S QuickBasic allowed SELECT CASE.

My point is that even back circa 1970, programmers were making
their programs modular, even in BASIC.  While it might not have
been "pure" structured programming, it was a step forward.  By
then, programmers realized that in complicated programs spaghetti
code was bad and endeavored to avoid it.

As someone else mentioned, just having a "structured" program without
GOTO's did not eliminate the risk of creating confusing spaghetti code.

On 04/06/2018 12:29, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
> On 04/06/2018 11:28, Peter Flass wrote:
>> Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>> <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> On 03/06/2018 22:40, Peter Flass wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Some problems are easily solved by recursion that are significantly 
>>>> more
>>>> complicated otherwise.
>>>
>>> I would be interested to know some examples, please?
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Depth-first search of a binary tree. Top-down parsing.
>>
>> Anything that requires retracing a path thru a data structure. Without
>> recursion you have to maintain a table to keep track of where you've been
>> and where you're going. Recursion just handles it naturally.
>>
> 
> Looks like computer scientism and not real-life programming.

Nope. Definitely real-life coding. I have used recursion for data 
analysis and path finding, sneak circuit analysis and building and 
solving mazes in game programming.
Even as far back as a game in BBC Basic in the 80s that used recursion 
to handle the effects of a cell exploding in a board games called 
'Hexplosion'. The game was a diamond shaped board made up of hexagons, 
players took it in turn to click in a cell. Each cell could hold a 
number on dots as large as the number of direct neighbour cells. Once 
that limit was exceeded the cell explode sending a dot into all 
neighbouring cells and changing it to their own colour. If any cell was 
at the limit then it would explode... etc.

Recursion handles the explosions more efficiently than scanning the 
underlying tables ever could. Nice little game.


Recursion is niche but a genuine real-life programming although you have 
to be very careful not to eat up all the memory.

Andy

On Tue, 5 Jun 2018 08:04:23 +0100
AndyW <An...@nojunqmail.com> wrote:

> Even as far back as a game in BBC Basic in the 80s that used recursion 
> to handle the effects of a cell exploding in a board games called 
> 'Hexplosion'. The game was a diamond shaped board made up of hexagons, 

	Hexplode when I saw it - A friend of mine wrote it for the Spectrum,
I'm not sure if he originated it or came across the game elsewhere, it was
the first time I saw it.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

On Tue, 05 Jun 2018 08:26:10 GMT, Ahem A Rivet's Shot
<ste...@eircom.net> wrote: 

> On Tue, 5 Jun 2018 08:04:23 +0100
> AndyW <An...@nojunqmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Even as far back as a game in BBC Basic in the 80s that used
>> recursion to handle the effects of a cell exploding in a board games
>> called 'Hexplosion'. The game was a diamond shaped board made up of
>> hexagons, 
> 
>      Hexplode when I saw it - A friend of mine wrote it for the
>      Spectrum, 
> I'm not sure if he originated it or came across the game elsewhere, it
> was the first time I saw it.
> 

An interesting game I'd not come across before: there's a DOS version 
here:
https://archive.org/details/HEXPLODE
"Creator Ray Jensen"

-- 
Bah, and indeed, Humbug.

On Tue, 5 Jun 2018 11:51:47 -0000 (UTC)
"Kerr-Mudd,John" <nots...@invalid.org> wrote:

> On Tue, 05 Jun 2018 08:26:10 GMT, Ahem A Rivet's Shot
> <ste...@eircom.net> wrote: 
> 
> > On Tue, 5 Jun 2018 08:04:23 +0100
> > AndyW <An...@nojunqmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> Even as far back as a game in BBC Basic in the 80s that used
> >> recursion to handle the effects of a cell exploding in a board games
> >> called 'Hexplosion'. The game was a diamond shaped board made up of
> >> hexagons, 
> > 
> >      Hexplode when I saw it - A friend of mine wrote it for the
> >      Spectrum, 
> > I'm not sure if he originated it or came across the game elsewhere, it
> > was the first time I saw it.
> > 
> 
> An interesting game I'd not come across before: there's a DOS version 
> here:
> https://archive.org/details/HEXPLODE
> "Creator Ray Jensen"

	Thanks, that seems to settle it.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote in
news:fnn0...@mid.individual.net: 

> On 2018-06-05, AndyW <An...@nojunqmail.com> wrote:
>> On 04/06/2018 12:29, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
> 
> [19 lines snipped]
> 
>>> Looks like computer scientism and not real-life programming.
> 
> [Not sure why I'm responding to a topic started by a troll]
> 
>> Nope. Definitely real-life coding. 
> 
> Absolutely. I've worked on two database systems (MUMPS and one on Data
> General whose name I cannot remember) which used tree structures.
> Recursion was a standard and everyday technique for walking those
> trees. 

INFOS?  Must be forgettable, because I couldn't remember and had to poke 
through my archives to find that name.  They had another one with lots of 
glossy promo material but it was uselessly slow and I can't remember its 
name either.

On 05/06/2018 09:26, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Jun 2018 08:04:23 +0100
> AndyW <An...@nojunqmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Even as far back as a game in BBC Basic in the 80s that used recursion
>> to handle the effects of a cell exploding in a board games called
>> 'Hexplosion'. The game was a diamond shaped board made up of hexagons,
> 
> 	Hexplode when I saw it - A friend of mine wrote it for the Spectrum,
> I'm not sure if he originated it or came across the game elsewhere, it was
> the first time I saw it.

Hexplode. That's the name! I think that the original was the BBC version 
in PC Magazing in the early 80s, it was so simple to type in but so fun 
to play that it spawned ports on lots of platforms.

Really enjoyable little game, I didn't have a BBC at the time (and my 
little Acorn Atom could not handle it) but I had a Speccy Pascal 
compiler and wrote a version for that. I also had White Lightning Forth 
but I never managed to get it to run properly on that. It was the first 
time I had ever seen recursion used for real and it made the code quite 
simple.

Andy

On 05/06/2018 12:51, Kerr-Mudd,John wrote:
> On Tue, 05 Jun 2018 08:26:10 GMT, Ahem A Rivet's Shot
> <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, 5 Jun 2018 08:04:23 +0100
>> AndyW <An...@nojunqmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Even as far back as a game in BBC Basic in the 80s that used
>>> recursion to handle the effects of a cell exploding in a board games
>>> called 'Hexplosion'. The game was a diamond shaped board made up of
>>> hexagons,
>>
>>       Hexplode when I saw it - A friend of mine wrote it for the
>>       Spectrum,
>> I'm not sure if he originated it or came across the game elsewhere, it
>> was the first time I saw it.
>>
> 
> An interesting game I'd not come across before: there's a DOS version
> here:
> https://archive.org/details/HEXPLODE
> "Creator Ray Jensen"

Without exaggeration this game changed the way I thought about 
programming. I was a standard procedural BASIC / assembler programmer 
and programming this my way would have taken a lot of work and a lot of 
code.
Once I had worked out what was happening it was a light bulb moment for me.


Andy

On 08/06/2018 13:27, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Jun 2018 17:19:04 -0400
> Richard Thiebaud <thieba...@aol.com> wrote:
> 
>> They are computer scientists, not computer engineers. They are not
>> supposed to be developing practical applications.
> 
> 	s/supposed to be/safe/
> 

And they're not scientists either, for they are not discovering anything
about the computers that was not known about by the designers.

Mathematical dream world hobbyists might be a better description?

On Fri, 08 Jun 2018 16:39:11 GMT
scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote:

> Richard Thiebaud <thieba...@aol.com> writes:
> >On 06/08/2018 08:27 AM, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> >> On Thu, 7 Jun 2018 17:19:04 -0400
> >> Richard Thiebaud <thieba...@aol.com> wrote:
> >> 
> >>> They are computer scientists, not computer engineers. They are not
> >>> supposed to be developing practical applications.
> >> 
> >> 	s/supposed to be/safe/
> >> 
> >Change back to "supposed to be".
> 
> I don't understand this despite of computer scientists.

	Nothing against them at all, so long as they stick to writing
papers and books exploring data structures, algorithms, language paradigms
and all that other fundamental stuff that eventually leads to useful tools
or helps us pick the right tool for a job because someone took the time to
analyse it in detail.

	Get one writing code for a project with a deadline that has to be
maintained by trained monkeys for the next decade and they're a real
liability.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

On 06/09/2018 08:24 AM, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Fri, 08 Jun 2018 16:39:11 GMT
> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote:
> 
>> Richard Thiebaud <thieba...@aol.com> writes:
>>> On 06/08/2018 08:27 AM, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 7 Jun 2018 17:19:04 -0400
>>>> Richard Thiebaud <thieba...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> They are computer scientists, not computer engineers. They are not
>>>>> supposed to be developing practical applications.
>>>>
>>>> 	s/supposed to be/safe/
>>>>
>>> Change back to "supposed to be".
>>
>> I don't understand this despite of computer scientists.
> 
> 	Nothing against them at all, so long as they stick to writing
> papers and books exploring data structures, algorithms, language paradigms
> and all that other fundamental stuff that eventually leads to useful tools
> or helps us pick the right tool for a job because someone took the time to
> analyse it in detail.
> 
> 	Get one writing code for a project with a deadline that has to be
> maintained by trained monkeys for the next decade and they're a real
> liability.
> 
Yes, that's the difference between a scientist and an engineer.

On Sat, 2018-06-09, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:

[computer scientists]

> 	Nothing against them at all, so long as they stick to writing
> papers and books exploring data structures, algorithms, language paradigms
> and all that other fundamental stuff that eventually leads to useful tools
> or helps us pick the right tool for a job because someone took the time to
> analyse it in detail.
>
> 	Get one writing code for a project with a deadline that has to be
> maintained by trained monkeys for the next decade and they're a real
> liability.

Donald Knuth always claimed he's a "programmer".

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .     .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

On 13 Jun 2018 20:11:11 GMT
Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:

> On Sat, 2018-06-09, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> 
> [computer scientists]
> 
> > 	Nothing against them at all, so long as they stick to writing
> > papers and books exploring data structures, algorithms, language
> > paradigms and all that other fundamental stuff that eventually leads to
> > useful tools or helps us pick the right tool for a job because someone
> > took the time to analyse it in detail.
> >
> > 	Get one writing code for a project with a deadline that has to
> > be maintained by trained monkeys for the next decade and they're a real
> > liability.
> 
> Donald Knuth always claimed he's a "programmer".

	Very justifiably too TeX is a magnificent piece of work, but wrt.
deadlines TAOCP Volume 4 seems a trifle late.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/