That would be a popular class! On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 6:00 PM Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Jeff, That's great. IBM PC BASIC is different than CP/M BASIC used on a Zorba, there are many versions *(many)* of MS BASIC. That was their bread and butter program from 1975-1985, until MS DOS and Windows came about. The MS fortune was first made licensing BASIC to various hardware vendors and producing hardware-specific variants. I taught a class at a past VCF on this very subject and about how to manage BASIC per the hardware, etc. There are books out there that explain how to manage BASIC on various hardware platforms, with program code samples that show differences on the Apple, CBM, Atari, IBM BASIC, etc.
Here is my slide deck https://www.vintagecomputer.net/vcf9/Advanced_BASIC_VCFE9.pdf ..NOTE: It's just the slides not my talking points but it shows that there is a lot about MS BASIC in my talk. Maybe it would be worth repeating this class at a future VCF.
Bill
On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 4:42 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Saturday and Sunday a super high interest guy came. I think he was about late high school age and visiting from Georgia. He stayed Saturday for hours and was programming BASIC on the Zorba by himself. He asked to borrow a Microsoft BASIC manual so I gave him one from the IBM 5150 and off he went. I don't know what his end product was as I was busy with the repair workshop that day and couldn't stick around. Dennis can fill us in as he was docent that day.
On Sunday he came back again and was programming on the TRS-80. He used the TRS-80 Graphics Programming book as a reference and created an etch-a-sketch program.
It's quite rare for a visitor to stay for hours like that and sit down and program on these machines. From time to time I will get visitors that are patient enough to sit down, type in a short program and teach them the basics of BASIC programming. ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey@vcfed.org