Comment by bartread | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bartread | Hacker News Reader

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Came here to say this. Commodore BASIC (which was really by Microsoft, as you've pointed out) was by far my least favourite of the 8-bit BASICs I used.

It was even worse than Sinclair BASIC due to the lack of drawing commands (yes, I know you could get these as extensions on a cartridge - I didn't have that). The main issues with Sinclair BASIC were limited functions and the fact you had to use key combinations to enter most keywords.

I also remember it as being slow as all hell when compared to other BASICs, although that might just be the opposite of whatever rose-tinted nostalgia is.

I loved the Commodore 64 but its BASIC sucked. Commodore continued to royally eff up with Amiga BASIC which, if memory serves, was also basically[1] by Microsoft. I immediately switched over to AMOS by Francois Lionet, which was great, although with hindsight wish I'd given Blitz a go too.

[1] Pun also intended, even though dreadful.

To be fair to Microsoft, the C64 BASIC was notoriously outdated when the C64 shipped. Jack Tramiel managed to buy an unlimited-use license to Microsoft's BASIC in 1977, and was determined to get his money's worth. On the bright side, the C64 BASIC was great at motivating new programmers to learn assembly programming so they could avoid it, and in the process finding out how computers really work. :)

This. I remember the C64 BASIC mostly as a glorified loader for the machine code. I even typed in a monitor published in some magazine just so I could push the machine nearer its limits.

Cut my teeth on Oric Atmos BASIC, and I can verify that my eyes still scan magazine listings intuitively looking for the DATA statements that indicate fast BLIT code ..

it motivated me to learn C.

M. Lionet has resurfaced in recent years and is busy working on a new BASIC. Given that he wrote both STOS and AMOS back in the day I'm looking forward to seeing how the new project turns out.

https://www.aoz.studio/the-aoz-story

Interestingly enough, Microsoft's BASIC was the fastest of all the early home computer BASICs sold in the US. Much faster than Timex Sinclair, Atari, and TI/99 BASIC. And it achieved those speeds with decent precision in FP.

Apple, Commodore, and the IBM PC all used Microsoft BASIC and were the fastest standard BASICs.

Across the pond the BBC Micro had a faster BASIC, and by the mid-80s there were lots of faster BASICs you could buy from 3rd parties.

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