Thread: Anyone ever use this?

When I was first learning how to program, I used BASIC on the
old Acorn Computers (they barely had 250MB of RAM back then.
There were hardly any IDE's, C was around and C++ of course, but
it was not really mainstream for beginners back in the late 1980's
early 1990's. Anyway, did anyone use the BASIC language that
looked like this:

"F12" - begins BASIC
Type Auto for line numbers

10 REM=============
20 REM My first ever computer program
30 REM Written by Ada Skyla Rose
40 REM Prints hello
50 PRINT "Hello"
60 ENDPROC
70 END
80 RUN

If I remember correctly, REM stood for "remark" which was the
old term for a comment. I loved this language - and although it was
as 'basic' as could be, it was great just seeing something I created
come to life. Just though I would share

Wishes Ada xx

Great insight Greg thanks for sharing

Yeah I remember the Vic-20 and the C64 too - amazing machines for the decade they
were around too. Reminds me of when I later moved to the Amiga (also a creation of
Commodore) - think it was the version 500, one of the first models they produced.

I began learning a game language called Amiga Basic - it was quite complex from what
I was used to - but considering the power of the hardware (and who could forget the
AMAZING Sound Chip of the Amiga - some fantastic video games were created by some
pretty awesome (but now defunct) companies: Psygnosis, Ocean, Rainbow Arts to name but
a few. Miss those days - I know you can get Amiga Emulators to access the ROM's but
it's not quite the same.

Wishes Ada xx

Great story and a really interesting read.

You are one of few people I know of who have done more than
peeked at the FORTAN language (if that is what FORTH is). Great
language - used for huge mathematical projects nowadays if I
recall. Lua and C++ seem to go very well as a tight niche' in
video game development - a few AAA games require both for
the engine/psychics.

Having an extensive background is always useful. I used to
know the ADA language quite well too - very complicated but
at the same time very useful. Before I started learning Java I
spent 4 years learning C myself. Not quite mastered it but I
can probably write a fair bit of code without looking at a book.

I hope to get that comfortable with Java eventually Also,
it seems from one angle that managed languages seem to be
the trend for desktop and applet applications too - so knowing
Java and C# is always going to be a benefit.

Wishes Ada xx

Originally Posted by jdv

Forth is different sort of beast often found in situations where there is no OS and/or for embedded devices.

Interesting. Thanks for the link too, much appreciated. It's also quite a scary
prospect that a logical error in a program would cause a rocket to have to be
destroyed. I do hope they got it right the next time - or use a debugger.

Wishes Ada xx

Ahh yes basic. Wrote my first program when I was 9 in basic. A little menu system to run my games because I kept forgetting the commands. Had user input validation and funny messages to boot. I think I spent longer tinkering with it than I did playing wolf3d and space quest. Good times.

Messed around with the early versions of VisualBasic and Java but really fell in love with programming with ADA when I was about 16. Really wish there was still career opportunities with ADA because it's a great language.

As for old school stuff I've done a bit of assembly with PIC microcontrollers and notch's abandoned 0x10c computer the DCPU. PLC ladder logic is also pretty nifty but it's a strange beast; you essentially draw your programs rather than write them.

Originally Posted by ChristopherLowe

Messed around with the early versions of VisualBasic and Java but really fell in love with programming with ADA when I was about 16. Really wish there was still career opportunities with ADA because it's a great language.

I 100% agree with that statement. Finding a use for ADA is very
tough - as these days it is used in railroad systems, medical systems
and security and data-basing. Although it is OOP (1995 revision) it is
very difficult to learn - and a couple of C programmers I know and went
to college with, could not handle the "bizzare" syntax

I still have my ADA tutorial papers that I printed out - it's fun to read over
it and make sense of it all, these years after I stopped learning it.

Wishes Ada xx

Surprisingly, I found BASIC quite difficult and C easier. One of the reasons was I hated all
the GOTO statements and jumping around BASIC. Yes - it did teach me the principles of
what a program looked like, but when I dipped my toes into C, using functions and how
to properly 'leap' around code without GOTO labels was much nicer to look at.

Wishes Ada xx