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Has anyone got a BASIC handy?

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Casey Ransberger-2

Has anyone got a BASIC handy?

Found myself waxing romantic over this…

http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/index.php

First thought was "I'll just throw something together" but I wondered if anyone had done a BASIC for Squeak?

TIA,

Casey

P.S.

Google didn't help me with this one. It seemed to think I meant "basic squeak" no matter how I typed it in.

ccrraaiigg

re: Has anyone got a BASIC handy?

> Found myself waxing romantic over this…
>
> http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/index.php
>
> First thought was "I'll just throw something together" but I wondered
> if anyone had done a BASIC for Squeak?

Maybe Carl Gundel has thoughts about it? Pre-Squeak, he wrote
Liberty BASIC in Smalltalk. I'm sure you came across it in your
Googling, but just in case...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_BASIC

-C

--
Craig Latta
netjam.org
+31 6 2757 7177 (SMS ok)
+ 1 415 287 3547 (no SMS)

blake watson

Re: Has anyone got a BASIC handy?

In reply to this post by Casey Ransberger-2

Heh. Those books are the "well" I go back to when learning new languages. (I have both in print and learned to program using them.)

That said:

The code in those books is truly, truly awful, by necessity, due to the limitations of the Basic interpreters of the time. It's easier to reverse-engineer the code based on the limited printouts than to figure out what's going on with the one-character variable names and GOTOs being the primary means of branching.

And with THAT said:

Something LIKE those books could be incredibly useful. The one thing they had that most environments today don't is that you could start really simple, get a product, and build really easily on it. The Transcript isn't quite up to the task, and it's a big leap from the transcript to a GUI.

Rambling aside, when you think about it, it's a pretty small language you could build a DSL for: Variable assignment, basic math, IF-THEN, GOTO and RND....it's all on one page: http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=i12

Just have the PRINT go to a 80x25 scrolling grid. Heh. Fun!

Karl Ramberg

Re: Has anyone got a BASIC handy?

In reply to this post by Casey Ransberger-2

http://web.archive.org/web/20090809145959/http://www.zeek-it.com.ar/retrobjects

Karl

On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 6:40 PM, Casey Ransberger <[hidden email]> wrote:

Found myself waxing romantic over this…

http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/index.php

First thought was "I'll just throw something together" but I wondered if anyone had done a BASIC for Squeak?

TIA,

Casey

P.S.

Google didn't help me with this one. It seemed to think I meant "basic squeak" no matter how I typed it in.

timrowledge

re: Has anyone got a BASIC handy?

In reply to this post by ccrraaiigg

On 01-10-2014, at 10:36 AM, Craig Latta <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
>> Found myself waxing romantic over this…
>>
>> http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/index.php
>>
>> First thought was "I'll just throw something together" but I wondered
>> if anyone had done a BASIC for Squeak?
>
> Maybe Carl Gundel has thoughts about it? Pre-Squeak, he wrote
> Liberty BASIC in Smalltalk. I'm sure you came across it in your
> Googling, but just in case...
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_BASIC

Actually I though he did ( or re-did) that in Squeak? And let’s not forget that that some older version(s) of Squeak had an alternate syntax capability that let you write and see code in a rather BASIC like form. Personally I thought it a Horror From Beyond The Pit but it sure was clever code.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Strange OpCodes: YOGA: Exit Finite-State Mode

Casey Ransberger-2

re: Has anyone got a BASIC handy?

In reply to this post by ccrraaiigg

Thanks, Craig. No, as I said, my GOOG-fu failed me. I think they recently changed how quoted strings are interpreted, so Google really wanted to think I meant "basic squeak" now matter how I worded it, and gave me Squeak tutorials.

I'll check this out:)

> On Oct 1, 2014, at 10:36 AM, Craig Latta <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>
>> Found myself waxing romantic over this…
>>
>> http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/index.php
>>
>> First thought was "I'll just throw something together" but I wondered
>> if anyone had done a BASIC for Squeak?
>
> Maybe Carl Gundel has thoughts about it? Pre-Squeak, he wrote
> Liberty BASIC in Smalltalk. I'm sure you came across it in your
> Googling, but just in case...
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_BASIC
>
>
> -C
>
> --
> Craig Latta
> netjam.org
> +31 6 2757 7177 (SMS ok)
> + 1 415 287 3547 (no SMS)
>
>

Casey Ransberger-2

Re: Has anyone got a BASIC handy?

In reply to this post by blake watson

Hi Blake. I can concur with some of your "rambling." In fact I do intend to do a rough translation of one of the games in the book.

What's great about printed BASIC listings of games is that they tend to be relatively short, so they're fun to reimplement. That said, before doing an implementation of something, it helps to understand the original program very well. Arguably, the best way to understand a small program is to type it in, and deal with whatever bugs crop up right?

I'd ideally be doing this in Squeak from the start, but I'm already into using an Apple IIGS emulator to get started.

On Oct 1, 2014, at 11:09 AM, blake <[hidden email]> wrote:

Heh. Those books are the "well" I go back to when learning new languages. (I have both in print and learned to program using them.)

That said:

The code in those books is truly, truly awful, by necessity, due to the limitations of the Basic interpreters of the time. It's easier to reverse-engineer the code based on the limited printouts than to figure out what's going on with the one-character variable names and GOTOs being the primary means of branching.

And with THAT said:

Something LIKE those books could be incredibly useful. The one thing they had that most environments today don't is that you could start really simple, get a product, and build really easily on it. The Transcript isn't quite up to the task, and it's a big leap from the transcript to a GUI.

Rambling aside, when you think about it, it's a pretty small language you could build a DSL for: Variable assignment, basic math, IF-THEN, GOTO and RND....it's all on one page: http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=i12

Just have the PRINT go to a 80x25 scrolling grid. Heh. Fun!

Casey Ransberger-2

re: Has anyone got a BASIC handy?

In reply to this post by timrowledge

Below

> On Oct 1, 2014, at 11:22 AM, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>
>> On 01-10-2014, at 10:36 AM, Craig Latta <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Found myself waxing romantic over this…
>>>
>>> http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/index.php
>>>
>>> First thought was "I'll just throw something together" but I wondered
>>> if anyone had done a BASIC for Squeak?
>>
>> Maybe Carl Gundel has thoughts about it? Pre-Squeak, he wrote
>> Liberty BASIC in Smalltalk. I'm sure you came across it in your
>> Googling, but just in case...
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_BASIC
>
> Actually I though he did ( or re-did) that in Squeak? And let’s not forget that that some older version(s) of Squeak had an alternate syntax capability that let you write and see code in a rather BASIC like form. Personally I thought it a Horror From Beyond The Pit but it sure was clever code.
>
> tim
> --
> tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> Strange OpCodes: YOGA: Exit Finite-State Mode

Tim: yes, it's rather like taking legs off of a dog. But could be useful if you have an old basic program to remediate and would prefer to replace all of those GOTOs with gradual as opposed to catastrophic evolution.

--Casey

blake watson

Re: Has anyone got a BASIC handy?

In reply to this post by Casey Ransberger-2

Which game are you doing?

On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 10:28 PM, Casey Ransberger <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Blake. I can concur with some of your "rambling." In fact I do intend to do a rough translation of one of the games in the book.

What's great about printed BASIC listings of games is that they tend to be relatively short, so they're fun to reimplement. That said, before doing an implementation of something, it helps to understand the original program very well. Arguably, the best way to understand a small program is to type it in, and deal with whatever bugs crop up right?

I'd ideally be doing this in Squeak from the start, but I'm already into using an Apple IIGS emulator to get started.

On Oct 1, 2014, at 11:09 AM, blake <[hidden email]> wrote:

Heh. Those books are the "well" I go back to when learning new languages. (I have both in print and learned to program using them.)

That said:

The code in those books is truly, truly awful, by necessity, due to the limitations of the Basic interpreters of the time. It's easier to reverse-engineer the code based on the limited printouts than to figure out what's going on with the one-character variable names and GOTOs being the primary means of branching.

And with THAT said:

Something LIKE those books could be incredibly useful. The one thing they had that most environments today don't is that you could start really simple, get a product, and build really easily on it. The Transcript isn't quite up to the task, and it's a big leap from the transcript to a GUI.

Rambling aside, when you think about it, it's a pretty small language you could build a DSL for: Variable assignment, basic math, IF-THEN, GOTO and RND....it's all on one page: http://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=i12

Just have the PRINT go to a 80x25 scrolling grid. Heh. Fun!