Show 014 - The History of BASIC

Randy and Earl share the results of our listener survey on retro computer development, favorite languages, and more! News/Personal Projects AtariAge Forum post on CubeDot for Atari 8-bit systems - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/387935-cubedot-fuji-do-fuji-poo-dr-love-and-total-recall/  15th Edition of BASIC 10 Liner Contest for 8-bit computers has started. The Deadline for submissions is Sunday, March 22, 2026 - https://t.co/eeno5J8fak ABBUC (Atari Bit-Byter User Club) Game and Application Software Contests: ABBUC - https://www.abbuc.de  ABBUC Application Software Competition 2026 - deadline for submissions: March 1, 2026 - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/387745-abbuc-application-software-competition-2026-has-been-launched/  ABBUC Game Software Competition 2026 - deadline for submissions July 31, 2026 - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/387744-abbuc-software-competition-2026-has-been-launched/   Show Topic No links related to the main topic. Thanks to everyone who submitted responses for our survey - this show wouldn't have been possible without you! Other Links Join the NWF crew on Discord! https://discord.gg/XAWv7PAFH4

Randy and Earl discuss the various options for modern programming on Atari 8-bit systems, including the Atari 400/800 and their successors! News/Personal Projects RP2040 Geek - https://www.waveshare.com/rp2040-geek.htm z80pack on Waveshare RP2040-GEEK/RP2350-GEEK - https://github.com/udo-munk/RP2xxx-GEEK-80 Comp.Sys.Sinclair Crap Games Competition - https://csscgc2025.blogspot.com/ Article about the Crap Games competition on The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/jul/06/people-competing-to-make-the-worst-computer-games-possible Show Topic Action! programming language - https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Action FastBASIC programming language - https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=FastBasic ATR disk image for the Atari 8-bit computers and binaries of the cross-compiler for different platforms for FastBASIC - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/378307-fastbasic-47-is-here/ Visual Studio Code extension for FastBASIC - https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=EricCarr.fastbasic-debugger FastBASIC manual - https://github.com/dmsc/fastbasic/blob/master/manual.md Getting Altirra Running on macOS Sequoia 15.x (Andy Diller) - https://www.atariorbit.org/2024/12/26/altirra-arm-and-sequoia/ MADS Assembler and MADS Pascal - https://mads.atari8.info/ WUDSN IDE - https://www.wudsn.com/index.php/ide YouTube WUDSN tutorial with MADS and Atari 8-bit - https://www.wudsn.com/index.php/productions-atari800/tutorials Interview with Peter Dell, author of WUDSN - https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-27-the-atari-8-bit-podcast-peter-dell-wudsn  General information on 6502 - http://6502.org/ Various online books for Atari, including De Re Atari and others - https://www.atariarchives.org/ AtariAge 8-bit programming forum - https://forums.atariage.com/forum/51-atari-5200-8-bit-programming/ Lots of great info on Atari 8-bit, including reference cards - https://gury.atari8.info/index.php ca65 assembler - https://cc65.github.io/doc/ca65.html Virtual 6502 Assembler - https://www.masswerk.at/6502/assembler.html Milfork Assembler - https://github.com/KarolS/millfork Mac/65 Assembler - https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Mac65 Atasm Assembler - https://github.com/CycoPH/atasm  Xasm Assembler - https://github.com/pfusik/xasm Atmas-II Cross Assembler - https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Atmas%20II  Notepad++ - https://notepad-plus-plus.org/ UltraEdit - https://www.ultraedit.com/ 8BitWorkshop online IDE - https://8bitworkshop.com/ TurboBASIC XL - https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Turbo-BASIC%20XL  BASIC parser for TurboBASIC XL - https://github.com/dmsc/tbxl-parser Other Links Join the NWF crew on Discord! https://discord.gg/XAWv7PAFH4

Randy and Earl cover the history of the BASIC programming language, including its origins, and the wide adoption of BASIC on 8-bit systems in the 1970s and 1980s! News BASIC 10-Liner Contest - https://gkanold.wixsite.com/homeputerium Show Topic https://www.dartmouth.edu/basicfifty/  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxo9LVIgOiI  "Fire in the Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer" by Michael Swaine, Paul Freiberger (associate link) - https://amzn.to/3EzdPCp  Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC  "Sophistication & Simplicity: The Life and Times of the Apple II Computer" by Stephen Weyrich - https://amzn.to/4hFGkNy  "iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It" by Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith - https://amzn.to/42ZhBzc  "Commodore: A Company on the Edge" by Brian Bagnall - https://amzn.to/4gHvfdu  "101 Basic Computer Games" by David H. Ahl - https://amzn.to/3QitZTg or "101 BASIC Computer Games: Microcomputer Edition" - https://amzn.to/4hABxwT   "BASIC Session":The ACM SIGPLAN History of Programming Languages (HOPL) conference In Los Angeles, CA, June 1-3, 1978 - https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/800025.1198404  2006 Salon Article - Why Johnny Can't Code - https://www.salon.com/2006/09/14/basic_2/ Microsoft Small Basic - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Small_Basic Basic-256 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic-256 Quite Basic - https://www.quitebasic.com/ Dartmouth held a 50th anniversary celebration for BASIC on May 1st, 2014.  A short documentary film was produced for the event: Fifty Years of BASIC, the Programming Language That Made Computers Personal By Harry McCraken in Time magazine - http://time.com/69316/basic/ Other Links Join the NWF crew on Discord! https://discord.gg/XAWv7PAFH4

Randy and Earl talk about ugBASIC, and Randy interviews the author/creator! News BASIC 60th birthday!: https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/basic_60th_birthday_releases/ AMSCII-Compo:  https://logiker.com/AMSCII-Compo (Amstrad CPC AMSCII) Show Topic ugBASIC main site: https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/ ugBASIC IDE: https://spotlessmind1975.itch.io/ugbasic-ide ugBASIC keywords: https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/#collapseKeywords ugBASIC examples: https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/target/to8#examples ugBASIC forum: https://forum.ugbasic.iwashere.eu/viewforum.php?f=8 Soko64 - fun puzzle game written in ugBASIC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwuryS6pvKU Other Links 101 BASIC PROGRAMS FOR MICROCOMPUTERS: https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/ Floppy Days Podcast: https://www.floppydays.com  ANTIC Podcast: https://www.ataripodcast.com  

Randy and Earl explore programming of the CHIP-8 family of interpreters! News! No news this episode! Z88DK, C compiler and assembler for 8080, Z80, 8085 https://z88dk.org/site/ CHIP-8 Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIP-8 Joseph Weisbecker: http://www.cosmacelf.com/history/joseph-weisbecker.html Joseph Weisbecker's introduction of CHIP-8 in Byte Magazine, Dec. 1978 https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1978-12/page/n109/mode/1up  CHIP-8 Technical Reference: https://github.com/mattmikolay/chip-8/wiki/CHIP%E2%80%908-Technical-Reference IDE for creating CHIP-8 programs: https://johnearnest.github.io/Octo/ Writing programs for CHIP-8 using Octo IDE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-G6Dm5AX3I Awesome CHIP-8 - list of CHIP-8 resources https://chip-8.github.io/links/  CHIP-8 program archive https://github.com/JohnEarnest/chip8Archive  CHIP-8 Computer https://chip-8.com/  CHIP-8 Extensions and Compatibility https://chip-8.github.io/extensions/#a-note-on-modern-implementations  EZ-Pack: Convert large images into CHIP-8 Sprites https://beyondloom.com/tools/ezpack.html EZ-Writer: Compose text strings to fit a CHIP-8 or SCHIP display, with a variety of fonts https://beyondloom.com/tools/ezwriter.html EZ-Bake Animator: Pre-generate Octo-compatible graphics programmatically https://beyondloom.com/tools/ezbake.html C-Octo: Develop Octo programs from the command line https://github.com/JohnEarnest/c-octo For MacOS and Windows - Dorito https://github.com/lesharris/dorito?tab=readme-ov-file For Windows - CHIP-8 emulator on Github https://github.com/massung/CHIP-8/releases Octojam https://itch.io/jam/octojam-10 https://beyondloom.com/blog/octojam.html Emma 02 emulator https://www.emma02.hobby-site.com/index.html Can use RCA tab, COSMIC VIP option, for original CHIP-8 emulation

News! Atari BASIC AI training - https://discord.gg/WnEcxSvtS Nabu computer - https://nabu.ca/ More Contests! Amiga Jam - https://itch.io/jam/amigatooljam VisionBASIC Game Contest - http://visionbasic.fun/ AMSTRAD ASCII Compo - http://logiker.com/AMSCII-Compo BASIC implementations for iOS (iphone/iPad): BBC BASIC by Richard Russell - free - https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/bbcbasic/id6444498023 Commodore BASIC - Hand BASIC - CBM flavor by Ahmad Hawwash - free - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hand-basic-cbm-flavor/id394924289 Hotpaw BASIC (iPad) - $4.99 - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hotpaw-basic/id295464266 See: http://www.hotpaw.com/rhn/basic/iphone/  for a more complete description of the Basic language syntax Smart BASIC (iOS/Mac) by Nikolay Denislamov $11.99 - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/basic-programming-language/id1540244170 BASIC implementations for Android "BASIC Programming Compiler" - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.krazeapps.basicprogrammingcompiler BASIC implementations for MacOS: PC-BASIC - (Windows/Mac/Linux/Python) -  https://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/ BBC BASIC by Richard Russell - https://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/bbcbasic.html PureBASIC - also Linux, Windows, RPi, AmigaOS 4 - https://www.purebasic.com/ Chipmunk BASIC - https://www.nicholson.com/rhn/basic/ BASIC implementations for Windows: Vintage BASIC - http://www.vintage-basic.net/download.html SpecBAS - https://github.com/ZXDunny/SpecBAS https://hackaday.com/2021/05/10/sinclair-basic-for-today/ SmallBASIC - https://smallbasic-publicwebsite.azurewebsites.net/ QB64 - https://qb64.com/ - Windows, Linux, MacOS FreeBASIC - https://www.freebasic.net/ BASIC implementations for Linux: Matrix Brandy BASIC VI - http://brandy.matrixnetwork.co.uk/ Also check out this BBC BASIC reference -  http://www.riscos.com/support/developers/bbcbasic/index.html BASIC implementations for Web Browser: SPIDERBASIC - https://www.spiderbasic.com/ (Web/desktop) Applesoft BASIC in Javascript - https://inexorabletash.github.io/jsbasic/ Quite BASIC - http://www.quitebasic.com/prj/games/hangman/ Applesoft BASIC Editor CyanIIDE - https://paleotronic.com/applesoft/ wwwBASIC - https://github.com/google/wwwbasic https://hackaday.com/2018/09/17/its-the-web-basically/

Randy and Earl continue the discussion of Assembly Language in this second episode of a two-parter. If you missed it, check out Show 009 for Part I!

In part I of this discussion on assembly language, Randy and Earl discuss what assembly language is, who invented it, how it works (generally), and why one might have chosen to use it back in the classic days of computing.  

Randy interviews Michal Taszycki, owner of 64 Bites! And, we talk about some more contests.

Earl and Randy talk about various retro computer programming contests, where participants can show off their creations for platforms from back in the day!