This was good, because compiling a program takes a lot of RAM and storage, neither of which were plentiful in microcomputers. The advantage of having BASIC integrated into these systems was obvious: not only were most people who bought such a home computer already familiar with BASIC, it allows programs to be run without first being compiled. When the 1970s saw the arrival of microcomputers, small and cheap enough to be bought by anyone and used at home, it seemed only natural that they too would run BASIC.
Taking its cues from popular 1960s languages like FORTRAN and ALGOL, it saw widespread use on time-sharing systems at schools, with even IBM joining the party in 1973 with VS-BASIC. Fortunately most of these licensed or were derived from the most popular microcomputer implementation of BASIC: Microsoft BASIC.īASIC has its roots in academics, where it was intended to be an easy to use programming language for every student, even those outside the traditional STEM fields. This wasn’t necessarily always the exact same BASIC the commands and syntax differed between whatever BASIC dialect came with any given model of home computer (Commodore, Atari, Texas Instruments, Sinclair or any of the countless others). There was a time, not even that long ago, when the lingua franca of the home computer world was BASIC.
In addition to inspiring a large part of home computing today, BASIC is still very much alive today, even outside of retro computing.
Surely BASIC is properly obsolete by now, right? Perhaps not.
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