60 Years of BASIC

One-minute read
basic • debian • linux • programming

The BASIC programming language is 60 years old today!

I'm only a little older than that. I think my first experience programming was in BASIC on a DEC machine.

./dec-basic.jpg

That was on a mini-computer, but you still had to go to a computer room to do it.

One way to enjoy BASIC on your own machine these days is by installing Bywater BASIC. You probably also want to wrap it in readline. Then start the interpreter and type in some BASIC instructions!

❯ sudo apt install bwbasic rlwrap
...

❯ rlwrap bwbasic
Bywater BASIC Interpreter/Shell, version 2.20 patch level 2
Copyright (c) 1993, Ted A. Campbell
Copyright (c) 1995-1997, Jon B. Volkoff
 
bwBASIC: 10 for x = 1 to 10
bwBASIC: 20 print "Hello, World!"
bwBASIC: 30 next x
bwBASIC: run
Hello, World!
Hello, World!
Hello, World!
Hello, World!
Hello, World!
Hello, World!
Hello, World!
Hello, World!
Hello, World!
Hello, World!
bwBASIC: 20 print "Happy birthday, BASIC!"
bwBASIC: run
Happy birthday, BASIC!
Happy birthday, BASIC!
Happy birthday, BASIC!
Happy birthday, BASIC!
Happy birthday, BASIC!
Happy birthday, BASIC!
Happy birthday, BASIC!
Happy birthday, BASIC!
Happy birthday, BASIC!
Happy birthday, BASIC!
bwBASIC: quit

You can also load a program you've already written from a file.