Why all 80's Computers had BASIC

[luwal]

https://www.syntaxbomb.com/8-bit-16-bit-...g347065074

A very interesting discussion.

[johnno56]

Well.. That brought back a lot of memories... Of course, while I was at school - primary, secondary and tertiary - we never saw a computer of any kind... a slide rule was my method of calculating back then... lol

I built my first two computers from kits - soldering iron, circuit boards, components - heaps of fun. The second machine had 16K of ram, 40 columns x 25 rows of text - no graphics - Microsoft Basic... As the presenter in the video said that he was "hooked", so was I and have been using Basic ever since. Not the best language; not the fastest but definitely one of the easiest... Over the last 10 years I have actually gotten used to Basic "without" line numbers! At last!

My introduction to Basic got me hooked on computers... Eventually it would lead me to a 15 year career as a Senior Mainframe Computer Operator... Best job ever! I am retired now but I still use Basic. QB64; RCBasic and Naalaa (not Basic but it is so much like it)