SemiOT: Mourning for Classic Computing

From: Douglas Quebbeman <dhquebbeman_at_theestopinalgroup.com>
Date: Thu Aug 16 06:58:13 2001

> But then is Pascal that bad?

Bad? Bad at what? bad *for* what?

> Whenever I think of BASIC, and I don't think this applies only to me, I
think
> of a cosy 40-column TV screen on a micro with 64 k of addressable memory.
> Other languages just don't seem as cosy. Must be because of the environment.
> If the eight-bitters had booted into Pascal, perhaps things would have
looked
> differently?

Most likely you're correct, but then I associate BASIC with a full compiler
that could generate 132-column headered listings complete with symbol table
and assembly language output for each statement.

Some 8-bitters *did* boot directly into Pascal... at least I never saw
a copy of UCSD Pascal that was anything other than language environment
*AND* operating system combined...

And as for booting directly into a language environment, any old FORTH
programmers here? At one time, I thought FORTH would rule the world.
Received on Thu Aug 16 2001 - 06:58:13 BST