Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Geek Speak => Topic started by: Eric A. Taylor on 28/07/2010 01:43:03
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When I was a kid my parents got a PC. It was a TelaVideo computer and used 5.5 inch floppies and operated with DOS. I could play games and do other stuff using BASIC (there was a very fun game based on Star Trek. You could get the games on disk or from books then write the program in by hand. In fact I still have a book with a BASIC program for finding the Schwarzschild radius of a given mass.
The computer I'm using now still uses DOS with Windows running over the DOS. Can modern computers still use BASIC? If so how is it done?
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There are programmes for your modern computer which emulate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator) ye-olde computers, some of which use BASIC.
also see ... http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=27548.msg291811#msg291811
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'Modern' computers can use any language for which there is either a compiler or an interpreter for the particular OS that's being used.
BASIC is primarily an interpreted language, although compilers do exist for some BASICs.
Have a read of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpreter_(computing) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpreter_(computing)) to learn about interpreters, or have a read of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiler) to learn about compilers.
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I remember in the fifties one of the magazines giving instructions how to build Little boxes with GPO relays inside to emulate logic gates that could be coupled together to form a simple computer.
The first computer I encountered was in the London science museum during the 1951 exhibition year built by GEC with 200 valves that played a simple noughts and crosses type game (I lost !).
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...BASIC is primarily an interpreted language, although compilers do exist for some BASICs....
About it! It was designed for X86 and various single chip, now they are dual and quad set, and its if something updates its support for the processor.
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...BASIC is primarily an interpreted language, although compilers do exist for some BASICs....
About it! It was designed for X86 and various single chip, now they are dual and quad set, and its if something updates its support for the processor.
Huh?
And BASIC first appeared in 1964, long before x86 chips were even dreamed of.
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When I was a kid my parents got a PC. It was a TelaVideo computer and used 5.5 inch floppies and operated with DOS. I could play games and do other stuff using BASIC (there was a very fun game based on Star Trek. You could get the games on disk or from books then write the program in by hand. In fact I still have a book with a BASIC program for finding the Schwarzschild radius of a given mass.
The computer I'm using now still uses DOS with Windows running over the DOS. Can modern computers still use BASIC? If so how is it done?
Can this help?
http://microsoft-visual-basic.software.informer.com/wiki/
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Actually, probably.
What you want for the platform and processor you have is alike a VM(virtual machine) for running old games. Gamers often keep old games and either build these or get them for their new box.
It's called an "EMULATOR".
http://fms.komkon.org/EMUL8/HOWTO.html (http://fms.komkon.org/EMUL8/HOWTO.html)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator)
Huh?
And BASIC first appeared in 1964, long before x86 chips were even dreamed of.
In context of usage as above in this post when referring to X86. The gamers use it.
I remember the most advertised computer before PC's seriously took of in Australia was the commodore64 in around 1975.
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That is interesting. As a kid I have used BASIC so much. Would install the emulator now. Thanks for this thread
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That is interesting. As a kid I have used BASIC so much. Would install the emulator now. Thanks for this thread
Indeed!
Some of the games from the 80's were great, but I don't think I'd bother going back to programming in BASIC of the time.
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If so how is it done?
To cut a long story short to throw away redundancy for the new and better.
At the base of all computers management of DATA and INSTRUCTIONS,
computer language can be divided roughly into three levels.
LOW: Machine Language(the lowest of them all) written 1's and 0's into CPU ARCHITECTURE byte NUMBER for the "instruction circuit" for the instruction memory "stack" and sequences of bytes coresponding each instruction step.
INTERMEDIATE: Assembley language and Operating System VM (OSVM's Operating System Virtual Machines) Levels. These use a compiler to have their code produced for the CPU Architecture they are written for, but when writing the code the instruction byte numbers for the stack are replaced with a written word and subsequent data associated the step. Its like seeing no more than three simple words at most on each line in the editor. While these are assessed at "compile time" they do tend to only be replacing the "machine byte instruction number for the CPU architecture" with a simple word, and mix "machine files" or "byte numbers"(data or instruction) to write the program.
HIGH: All "compiled" or "scripted languages" that use syntax semantics that are assessed at "compile time" but the language and data is almost never directly referred to in the context of the machine instruction number sequences, meaning one word in the program can mean a huge number of instruction sequences are replaced by that one word. Languages such as... e.g C,C++,Java2,C#,FORTRAN,COBOL or "runtime interpretor" PHP,PERL,Python,Javascript,VBscript,Ruby e.t.c.
If you want to write games, learn Java2, Why? you don't use pointers.
There are imaging libraries and memory management libraries for "double buffering" offscreen images...
java.awt
java.awt.event
javax.swing
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I used to writer BASIC programs on my Commodore 64 all the time when I was a kid. It's the main thing that stopped me handing in my homework on time [::)]
I still use a C64 emulator today for the same thing. For some reason I never got bored of it.
One thing I didn't like about typing in BASIC was when a computer magazine had some games written out in code, and you'd spend hours typing it in, only to find that it doesn't work. [xx(]
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You sound like a man after my own heart, Pete, though in my case it was an Acorn BBC "B"...
Chris
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I used to writer BASIC programs on my Commodore 64 all the time when I was a kid. It's the main thing that stopped me handing in my homework on time [::)]
I still use a C64 emulator today for the same thing. For some reason I never got bored of it.
One thing I didn't like about typing in BASIC was when a computer magazine had some games written out in code, and you'd spend hours typing it in, only to find that it doesn't work. [xx(]
Just one tiny typo can cause it to fail.
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Visual Basic and Quick Basic are similar to the old Apple & Commodore Basic, but don't require line numbers on every line, and have some advanced controls built in such as procedures and functions.
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http://www.basic256.org/index_en
instead of basic you might try javascript
http://www.w3schools.com/js/tryit.asp?filename=tryjs_intro