My first BASIC compiler

I started my programming "career" on a Dragon 32 microcomputer in 6th grade. It had 32K of RAM, although once you turned the computer on it would launch a Microsoft BASIC interpreter which left 24K for your own programs. I spent countless hours on that computer in 1984, 85 and 86, writing a lot of BASIC code. It's fun to have looped around in my career and to suddenly be working with BASIC again - in the Semplice project. If you missed it, my coworker Herbert was interviewed on the Java Posse. In addition to talking about supporting BASIC on the Java platform, he talks about supporting other VM languages in general. It's a good, meaty technical talk. Anyway, back to BASICs. I have moved recently, and as part of the large cleanup, I had to decide what to keep. I found a stack of old computer magazines that I had held onto. These were British computer magazines I subscribed to - and were largely responsible for teaching me English. Understanding the articles in those magazines were a lot more inspiring than the stories we were encouraged to read in English class! I realized I can't drag these magazines with me forever, so I decided to thumb through them one last time before throwing them in the recycling bin. And in one of the magazines I noticed a part of a page had been cut out. Major flashback! This was the advertisement for the first piece of software I ever purchased! The missing piece was the order form I had cut out and mailed in. And what was this product? A BASIC compiler! (I've scanned in a portion of the ad on the right.) Yep, I was programming BASIC, but performance was slow, and I realized (from all those computer magazines) machine code was where I wanted to be. I thought a compiler would do the trick - so I bought it. My programs did execute faster - but I didn't end up learning assembly code until I got a Commodore 128, and later a Commodore Amiga. Ah the memories. The advertisement has a picture of the tape cover (I didn't have a floppy drive until the Amiga), just the way I remember it.

Date: August 01, 2006
Category: Developers

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