Tuesday, April 17, 2007

BASIC Contributed to Success of Industry

It seems to me that BASIC was one of the reasons for the success of the early microcomputer business. I get so many emails from people who:
  • bought a computer twenty or thirty years ago
  • learned BASIC and did fun and productive things
  • migrated to Microsoft Windows when it became the defacto standard OS
  • found Windows programming languages to be too hard
  • stopped programming for a LONG time
  • stumbled across Liberty BASIC http://www.libertybasic.com
  • started programming again in earnest!

The remarkable thing to me is that Liberty BASIC isn't as simple as the original BASIC interpreters were, but it is still so much easier than VB or Java that it serves as an acceptable gateway back into computing for so many people.

3 comments:

Tom Nally said...

Carlsters, your post describes exactly what happened to me.

I found LB and LBW sometime in 2002 (if I recall correctly) and I've been an unrelenting nuisance ever since, as I recently explained to the Empress of LB.

---Tom in New Orleans

Noble Bell said...

I must agree with Tom, though I have not been out of the programming field for any length of time. I love LB with a passion and there are folks like you Carl and Tom, and the unforgettable Empress that make LB that much more exciting to me.

Unknown said...

Hello Carl
Foi exactamente o que me aconteceu. Desde os extraordinários Sharp, Casio, Spectrum que com os seus Basic me permitiram elaborar centenas de miniprogramas de engenharia civil que muito me ajudaram no exercício da profissão. O Windows veio retirar toda a flexibilidade e simplicidade na programação. Acabo por sentir uma certa frustração. Aqui há uns anos descobri os Lbasic, Power Basic, etc, masnão fiquei convencido. Vou tentar recomeçar com O Lbasic. Abraço