[Coco] a désigne document about BASIC for the 8080 & 6800- Microsoft

[Salvador Garcia]

Theodore, I agree with you, as I said, "...once the needed resources were available." I just used 1975 as a reference because that is when the paper was written. The three main resources that come to mind are CPU, RAM and (secondary) storage, so most early computers, including the IBM PC, as you point out, were not good candidates for compilers. Regards, Salvador
***************************************************************************

***************************************************************************

***************************************************************************





-----Original Message-----
From: Theodore (Alex) Evans <alxevans at concentric.net>
To: coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Tue, Jan 26, 2016 12:41 pm
Subject: Re: [Coco] a désigne document about BASIC for the 8080 & 6800- Microsoft

On 01/26/2016 09:52 AM, Salvador Garcia wrote:>  Maybe in 1975 an interpreter made sense, but the technology should> have returned to compilers once the needed resources were> available. I believe that one aspect that doomed BASIC was that it> was considered a toy language because it was interpreted. Still,> this is a very interesting document. Thanks for sharing! SalvadorI think that even in 1980 an interpreter made sense.  Consider that myfirst computer was a Sinclair ZX-81 with 1k RAM and 8k ROM.  Assumingthat a compiler for as useful and friendly a language as the BASICthat was built in could be fit in the 8k along with a library toeffectively reduce the size of the object code, you still would havebeen left with a much smaller program space given that you need tohave the source and object code in memory at the same time. Especiallywhen you are talking about a cassette based system.  A base CoCo 1with 4k RAM and 8k ROM (Color BASIC) has the same issue, though it isnot as severe.  Even the base IBM PC released in 1981 and costing$1565 only had 16k RAM and relied on a cassette for storage.By 1985, when the resources aren't so constrained, the newer computersrely on library routines in ROM and a system that you boot into.Yes, by the time you have a 64k machine with a floppy drive a compileris a better choice, but that wasn't the base configuration formachines until well after the introduction of the CoCo.-- Coco mailing listCoco at maltedmedia.comhttps://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco