On Thu, 2008-04-03 at 06:59 +1030, Tim wrote:
On Wed, 2008-04-02 at 09:31 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> Microsoft's entry into the personal computer market was by supplying
> a version of BASIC that for several operating systems.
And wasn't it awful... I know BASIC's sneered upon, as there are plenty
of better things, but BASIC was a simple starting position for a lot of
people. It was also the only system available for a lot of home
personal computing, for a long time. Though, it typically was a very
feature limited interpreter. We had it on a Data General mainframe,
amongst other languages, and that went in the opposite direction - very
featured, and gave you very verbose and lengthy error reports about your
syntax errors.
Many years ago I can remember tinkering around with Microsoft's BASIC on
the Amiga, since it was the only programming language I had to play with
on it, at the time. And actually managing to make a small relational
database with it, even though it hardly has the features that you need
for something like that. It wasn't anything really complex though, just
interrelated databases of services, clients, quotes, and the ability to
turn a quote into an invoice.
cp/m had all kinda sort and list commands. I'm just not sure which would
have been better, to be under the evil domination of Digital or
Microsoft. <grins> cp/m ][ was pretty nice, though. It did pretty much
whatever I wanted it to do. Ric
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