A good point. I built my IMSAI in late 1977 and was running NorthStar BASIC with it by early 1978. The Altair ran BASIC before that thanks to Gates & Allen. There was a lot of other S-100 systems that ran BASIC prior to 1980. Regards, Jeff On Wed, Mar 25, 2026 at 6:17 AM Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
The author being an engineer, it is also very possible that he may have used an Altair, IMSAI or other S-100 system.
On Wed, Mar 25, 2026 at 9:12 AM Brian L via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Gregg,
On 3/25/2026 8:31 AM, Gregg Levine via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Hello! I own a book written by Lee Correy, whose actual name is G. Harry Stine. That book is "Star Driver". For the curious I can supply a synopsis.
In it they mention a microcomputer and they wrote a program in BASIC for handling a heck of a lot of complicated mathematical issues. One of the characters does own a classic programmable calculator for comparison. They were able to make both ideas work by the way for solving the problems in the theme of the book.
Now the question, the book is copyrighted 1980, which means the author was writing it over a three year period leading up to that point in time. Is there a list someplace that tells what systems were available then? ---- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8@gmail.com