Basic back in favour

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Dippy

Moderator
Ah, tis a funny old world.
After all, there's BASIC and BASIC.
Many variations/options/efficienies depend on the compiler/IDE author.

And in the world of PICmicro there are a couple of BASICs which have the procedural structure and variable options (e.g. unions and handling) that would be recognised by C men. Both are capable of doing anything that can be done in C.
There is a really good one but I'm not paid to advertise. It's so good that a number of people translate C into it. (It has limitations though concerning PICs) which is the advantage of Mchip's C.
I quite like PASCAL (and variants) too. Geez, now there's a confession :)
 
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hippy

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
Two good points which come across - That the Basic language has evolved considerably since it was first invented nearly fifty years ago, and using only GOTO and IF-GOTO reveals a lot more about what goes on under the hood than block structured statements, DO-LOOP etc do.

Dijkstra was really arguing from one perspective; how to write code fluently, which was reliable, could be understood, debugged, maintained and improved by others. The perspective that a good "programmer" doesn't need to understand 'under the hood', only how to achieve what they want.

That's fine for most "software developers", and an ideal goal, but does have consequences on constrained systems like most microcontrollers are. Most developers don't understand what their code is only what their program does. Their solution to a program which "doesn't fit" is to add more memory, buy hardware that will run the program.

The "software engineer" and "embedded programmer" approach is usually to make the program fit what you have, and that often requires understanding what is happening under the hood.

In the Good Old Days (TM), and to some extent now, the teaching and learning approach was to understand the CPU and hardware, understand how CPU instructions worked and how Assembler programs achieved a task. Then to see how High Level Languages could be used which mapped onto that Assembler language. These days "software developers" often only have the experience of using a High Level Language. To some that's learning the "how" but not the "why".

There's no real right or wrong; an engineer may understand a Formula 1 car but not be a good driver of one, a good driver may not truly understand the car, but the best will arguably be a good driver who understands the car.

The PICAXE suits both "software developer" and "embedded programmer" in offering straight forward commands to interface with hardware and low level ( GOTO, IF-GOTO ) and high level ( IF-ELSE-ENDIF, DO-LOOP, SELECT-CASE ) control structures. PICAXE is usable by those who are beginning to learn programming and interfacing and have little prior experience and also by those with complicated algorithms and larger programs. They have limitations but so does everything eventually and that's often in itself a lesson which pure "software developers" only discover too late.
 
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inglewoodpete

Senior Member
I think there two kinds of BASIC programmer:

Those that programme in BASIC,

...and those that write code with GoTo....

Having said that,
Unfortunately, when you're deperately trying to cram too much code into an 08M, 14M etc, the GoTo-
(un)structured code produces the smallest image. ~sigh~
 
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Haku

Senior Member
I taught myself Basic on the ZX Spectrum & then BBC Micros back in the 80s at school so playing with Picaxes has been fun getting back into programming again after not doing much for quite a few years, last major programming I did was with AmosPro on Amigas, also done Turbo Pascal at college and some C but couldn't really get my head round C's 'void' stuff.

I keep having to remember to add notes to my programs now because when I come back to them a month or two later I have to try an re-learn what the hell I wrote and how it works so I can improve/modify it :D
 
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vttom

Senior Member
My $0.02...

My first programming language was BASIC on the C-64. Since then I've dabbled in MS-BASIC, QuickBASIC and Visual BASIC. I've also dabbled in Pascal, C, C++, Perl and Z80 microcode.

I now work at a semi-conductor company designing chip components using Verilog and VHDL (hard description languages).

I would say the 2 languages that have been of the most benefit to me were BASIC and my exposure to Z80 microcode.
 
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Dippy

Moderator
You lucky devils... my first dabbles were in Fortran and PDP Macro.
Gosh, those were the days. On me bike, with my Top Hat held on by leather straps...
 
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MartinM57

Moderator
ICL2970, FORTRAN, punched cards, 24 hour turnround, answers in your pigeon hole ("Error in Card 1"), operators in T-shirts and jeans that you had to get the right side of or else they would drop your 2000+ deck of cards blah blah blah....
 
fernando_g

fernando_g

Senior Member
For me, Fortran77 running on an IBM370 mainframe. All nighters punching cards while listening to Black Sabbath or Deep Purple. (Before "Smoke on the Water")

My first assembler experience was with RCA's COSMAC 1802. All CMOS static logic, 16 general purpose registers, simple addressing, wow! (The BeeGees and general late disco fever by then)
 
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BeanieBots

Moderator
and there I was, winding a coil on the wooden former of the relay logic board while I waited for the pentodes to warm up.......
 
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Rickharris

Senior Member
A bit like Dorian Grey I have a BBC micro in the attic - I also now have a sparkly new win 7 6 bit PC in the office.

Difference - I turn the PC on and it takes 45 seconds to boot up so I can use it.

I turn the BBC on and it is instant!. (alas like the picture of me in my youth, also useless)
 
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Dave E

Senior Member
WOW

Ah, Fortran, punch cards and an IBM main frame.............good times........good times...........

Soon after that the computer science and physics departments got a few Apple 2e "desk top computers" ..... and the world changed.

Dave E
 
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Goeytex

Senior Member
You guys are a hoot. Buncha old Geezers here . :D

I learned Basic programming on a TI994A back in the late 70s. Then Upgraded to a trash 80 Model 4. Then in the mid 80s BBS learned structured programming with Telix's "SALT" scripting language which is quite powerful and very much like C. So I wrote a few com shareware/freeware programs for Telix way back when.

Then nada for the next 25 years almost.

So I got this Picaxe 28X1 thingy a few weeks ago and now have to blunder my way through BASIC again and learn it all over. The syntax is killing me.

Now ... what's a Gosub ?
 
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westaust55

Moderator
Ah time to reminisce: :D


First learnt BASIC back in 1972 when I had access to a PDP11 (size of a domestic refridgerator) where first step was to load the bootstrap program with switches on the front and then load the BASIC interpreter from paper tape, followed by the BASIC program on taper tape.

Also learnt Fortran 4 at around the same time on a main frame with punchcards.
I even figured out how to set up some special punch cards at the start of the pack and access the mainframe at the UWA (in Perth) to run their SPICE simulator for electronic circuit simulation back then (and no-one found out, he he :D )

Using machine code (hand encoded) my first microprocessor was a NS SC/MP around 1974/5 ? Only stayed with the SC/MP for a short time.
Moved onto 6800 and 6502’s thereafter. A lot of hand coding in M/C and later an assembler made life easier.

Biggest own design/ home built machine I had was 6800 based with 4k of 2708 EPROM, 8k RAM, EPROM burner, Hex terminal, ASCII keyboard (from a Honeywell kit) and video board was designed ostensibly for text/character generation onto a TV but worked well with a high bandwith ex-TV station 8inch green screen monitor. Even purchased 4kbyte integer only BASIC around 1978/9.

Thereafter for many years it was a succession of commercial built computers each in turn heavily modified. Line I remember from a computer club mate around 1982 was:
“Westy, the only thing original about your computer is the case and even that has extra holes in it!”

Then 2 years and 1 week ago I discovered PICAXE ! :)
 
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Dippy

Moderator
Blimey, after reading Westy's CV I realise we are in the presence of a very modest genius!
Must be a millionaire. I must check Forbes.

2 years? Is that all? And so many posts... :)
 
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BeanieBots

Moderator
Hmm, yes was it really all that long ago that we eagerly awaited the 08M and structures such as if/then/else?

Oh how spoilt the PICAXE community is these days;)
 
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inglewoodpete

Senior Member
Just had a thought.

Lets get rid of the GoTo command. Now that would pull the troups into line!

But some would say "its just not BASIC without the GoTo"
 
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boriz

Senior Member
My father, who was an excellent engineer*, was in college (Texas) at the very beginning of the computer revolution. He told me a story about how he failed his computer engineering course...

The details escape me, but somehow his, or a fellows, punch cards were stored on a windowsill overnight. Unknown to my father, they had swelled a little. The next day he fed the stack of cards into the card reader and they got chewed up and jammed the mechanism. Can you imagine the mess!

You have to realise, this was one of the few VERY expensive such machines in the whole country at the time. His tutor, responsible for the machine, was of course livid (And probably afraid for their job). My father was made to dismantle the machine and meticulously clean it out. The machine worked again, but he failed the course.


*(Just one story. There are several). Many many years later, when I was a child, I expressed frustration about not having a propeller in my box of Meccano parts. The next day (it must have taken him hours), I found a perfectly carved propeller. Carved from a single piece of wood, with no apparent centre hole or dent, only the remains of pencil marks. The hub was about the size and shape of a wine cork, and the perfectly carved blades were about six inches total diameter, about one inch chord. They looked a bit like tongue depressors forced into a cork. The pitch was about 45 degrees and as far as I could tell it was very well balanced. He carved it from a solid piece of wood using only a pen-knife, a straight edge and a pencil. Now that’s engineering!

He’s dead now. But I can’t help thinking that if he were alive, he could teach me plenty about engineering. I miss him.
 
lbenson

lbenson

Senior Member
And then there were the plug boards for programming punch card sorters by re-arranging the wires. And Dippy thinks some breadboards are hairy.

I made an error once in a $100 program run--an unimaginable sum--a week's pay at student wages. Happily my boss never said a word.

-- Another Fortran IV vet, circa 1970
 
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D n T

Senior Member
Best post this year, you all remind me of my dad, an engineer

He would say:
I had to get to school uphill both ways through the snow, hungry because there had been no rain for years and all the crops died.

I introduced a couple of ideas to my students :
B. E. Before Eftpos, they wanted to know how we survived.
BWWW and the dewey decimal system, freaky I know but thats how we found out stuff.

I'm sure "old school" people think differently, more logically (no pun) than the new ones.
Even in schools the curriculum doesn't seem to put any importance on the most basic skills any more, I've got students who think they are going to graduate high school this year that don't know what the little marks between the centimetres are and they certainly can't convert from millimetres to metres.
These are the people who are going to be looking after me when teaching sends me around the twist and all my logic circuits fry.
I is got to learn me to walk out in front of a bus as a redundancy in case my main processor fails
Long live the old school
 
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Dippy

Moderator
Yes, I thought that too, but , for once, controlled myself.

And I know I'm getting old; if I was in the class and teacher said to me:-
"B. E. Before Eftpos, they wanted to know how we survived.
BWWW and the dewey decimal system, freaky I know but thats how we found out stuff."
I'd say, "Please sir, what are you talking about?" :)
 
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BeanieBots

Moderator
and a phrase like:-
I is got to learn me to walk out in front of a bus as a redundancy in case my main processor fails
would have resulted in severe pain...
 
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Rickharris

Senior Member
Sadly the inability to comprehend the metric system (where centimetres don't exist in engineering or science - we have had this discussion before) is all too common across the world.

Maths unfortunately does talk centimetres making the world a very confusing place for the young folk -

Never mind 20 shillings to the pound, 12 penny's to the shilling - Sixpences, threepenny bits and farthings!!!

As for pounds and stones!!

Funny my father walked up hill both ways to school as well :)

As someone said - When I was 16 I thought my Father knew nothing, by the time I was 21 I was surprised how much he had learned.

Environmental pressure, hard life, no resources all IMHO add to the spur for those who are willing to work hard to get on to do so.
You may well be able to add - No social life, few friends, No money and no personal or public transport to talk about. (it was hard when we grew up!)

Seeing a mainframe programmed with Punch cards in the late 1960's at the local steel works (school visit) - spurred an interest in this future technology.
Added to which I was an avid reader of Sci-Fi - I bet many here of that era were! -:)

In 1979/80 getting my hands on an actual working computer, (Acorn Atom), meant I had to create the programmes my self or copy reams of BASIC code from magazines if I wanted it to do anything. This suited me for all the reasons above AND no-one else I knew was doing it (made me special in my eyes.) Actually no-one else understood why I would want to do it anyway.

When I think about it the RAF had centimetre band RADARS as well - BUT that was in the good old days of imperial measurements so it was foreign and OK.
 
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vttom

Senior Member
There is hope...

My wife got me this T-shirt for Father's Day last year. The other day I wore it to the grocery store and, after going through the check-out, a couple of teenage boys asked me "What does 68-65-68 mean?". I was very impressed they'd done the binary to decimal conversion in their heads. A few moments after I pointed out that 65 is ASCII "A", they got it.
 
slimplynth

slimplynth

Senior Member
Rickharris said:

Environmental pressure, hard life, no resources all IMHO add to the spur for those who are willing to work hard to get on to do so.
You may well be able to add - No social life, few friends, No money and no personal or public transport to talk about. (it was hard when we grew up!)
Click to expand...
Sounds like life in Blackburn, except now there's a basic (pun intended) Fiat Seicento outside - Good Times! :)
 
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moxhamj

New Member
vttom - that is a great t-shirt. Sounds like it was too easy for the teenage boys. How about doing it in hex?
 
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