Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code -- known better by its acronym BASIC -- was devised back in the 1960s for use on the Dartmouth time-sharing system by students. It rapidly became a popular language for educational computing on mainframes; and, when microcomputers came along in the mid 1970's, BASIC was the language included with just about all computers (or at least those which were more advanced than the early hobbyist kits where the owners would toggle in programs in binary using switches on the front panel).
Since then, BASIC has been attacked mercilessly by programming purists for what they consider its encouragement of non-structured, messy programming style. Pascal is generally preferred for educational use -- though, as a compiled language, it doesn't have the "instant gratification" of interpreted BASIC, which lets you type in a command and see it executed right away. There are others who are advocates of COMAL, a language with Pascal-like syntax but BASIC-like immediacy; this language is standard in the schools in some European countries, but has never caught on in the United States.
But, like it or not, BASIC is still the most widely-available language for micros; and it is the language most novices who wish to begin programming their PC's must learn. BASIC compilers, such as Microsoft QuickBASIC, bring BASIC into the realm of professional programming -- although at the cost of sacrificing the immediacy of the BASIC interpreter. (ZBASIC combines some elements of both; the immediacy of an interpreter and the speed of a compiler.)
This quiz tests your knowledge of BASIC. In particular, it centers on BASICA (or GW-BASIC), the form of BASIC used on IBM PC's and compatibles. This is a Microsoft BASIC, the descendant of the original Altair BASIC that gave Bill Gates his start in the software field in 1975, when he was still a college student. The first Microsoft BASIC spawned later versions for: CP/M; the Apple II (Applesoft); the Commodore Pet, 64, and 128; and the Macintosh. However, the IBM-and-clone version proved the most popular, riding on the coattails of another successful Microsoft product, MS-DOS.
Try BASIC Quiz to see if you're a PC BASIC wizard, or if you can stand to learn a few things from more grizzled "hackers."
This nice introduction is taken from Scott Miller's IBM BASIC Quiz (1988); I found it at Home of the Underdogs. Actually, BASIC is even older than the 60s. It goes back to 1957. The only programming language older than that is FORTRAN, on which BASIC is based.
It was the native language on the home micros from the late 70s on, it was active part of MS-DOS up to version 6.22 - at least the editor and the help function relied on it - and was still included in the Windows distributions at least up to 98, though hidden in a folder called oldmsdos somewhere on the CD.
It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. (Edsger W. Dijkstra: Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective)
One of the problems of Basic was that every micro had its own dialect, and they were all incompatible; this is not so relevant any more, since all the other systems are gone and solely the PC remains. Unfortunately, there are two versions of Basic here, too, the old GWBasic (used until 1987) and the newer QBasic.
On the other hand, the great advantage of Basic is that its interpreter is so small. Not only does it fit on a floppy, it fits on a floppy with lots of scripts and with DOS itself, if necessary. qbasic.exe is less than 200kB, GWBasic less than 80. For comparison, Perl weighs 5-6 megs.
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Last modified 2004-09-07
