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Re:Most(LY Dead) Influential Programming Languages (2020) by forinti on Sunday December 18, 2022 @02:22PM (#34041724)
BASIC was very practical for 8 bit machines. You didn't even need an editor, because you could just retype a line. It was also very straightforward for a complete novice (as most people were with those machines).

In any another environment, it really doesn't make sense.

Re:Most(LY Dead) Influential Programming Languages (2020) by alwillis on Sunday December 18, 2022 @08:07PM (#34046822)
True. One feature that was missed about BASIC on those early computers: you’d turn on the Apple ][ and you were greeted by the BASIC prompt and you could just start typing your program.

This was before floppy disks… you could load a program from cassette tape.

Re:Most(LY Dead) Influential Programming Languages (2020) by timbit42 on Wednesday December 21, 2022 @10:03PM (#34089234)
In Atari BASIC and Commodore BASIC, you didn't even need to retype a line. You could cursor up and edit it right on the screen. This saved a ton of typing.