Timeline for Which BASICs used a backslash, \, as a statement separator?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 18, 2022 at 22:06 | comment | added | Raffzahn | @MauryMarkowitz Sorry. Wasn't intended. | |
| Nov 18, 2022 at 17:14 | comment | added | Maury Markowitz | @Raffzahn - "As so often Wikipedia is of less help" - well sure, but that's because I wrote it! I'll be correcting that at some point. | |
| Nov 11, 2022 at 18:16 | comment | added | Maury Markowitz | @another-dave - I'm not sure we can read too much into that manual, it's the first revision of "Level 68 BASIC", but I can't imagine it's much different than the earlier versions on the pre-68 platforms. I think we'd have to find a manual for the 6080 to know for sure, but this game pre-dates the Level 68, and it's definitely Honeywell, so it happened some time before then. | |
| Nov 11, 2022 at 17:49 | comment | added | dave | @MauryMarkowitz - but that sentiment had clearly vanished by 1970, as the (userspace) design of RSTS-11 shows. BASIC was the (userspace) programming language and the UI. | |
| Nov 11, 2022 at 13:16 | comment | added | Maury Markowitz | @another-dave - DEC definitely was pushing FOCAL and would not do a BASIC. I assume this was due to their involvement with JOSS on the PDP-6 combined with NIH. David Ahl personally hired someone to do BASIC for the PDP-8 and that's what got the ball rolling. I think it's safe to say it would have taken much longer otherwise. | |
| Nov 11, 2022 at 11:23 | comment | added | Raffzahn | @another-dave Beside the fact that DEC was trying to catch up with time sharing, which best is done by looking at what leaders do, take it and improve upon. The BASIC PLUS implementation is clearly the more capable implementation - like the whole BASIC PLUS does improve noticeable over other early implementations. So yeah, my bet still sticks on Multics being first with a baclslash (and DEC being better). | |
| Nov 11, 2022 at 1:24 | comment | added | Raffzahn | @another-dave Be asured, that I, the /370 fellow I am, do not look down on DEC - not more than on Mulics or any other puny little non-/370 system:)) Also, you might want to reas the paragraph again, as I just found the BASIC PLUS manual for RSTS-11 which did not feature a backslash, but a colon as statement separator. So that replacement must have happened somewhen between 1972 and 1975 and RSTS-11 and RSTS/E. Why change it? Multics as successful TSS might have been the example tor the newcomer DEC. Or do you have a better reasoning for the switch away from a perfect good separator? | |
| Nov 11, 2022 at 1:18 | history | edited | Raffzahn | CC BY-SA 4.0 | added 263 characters in body |
| Nov 11, 2022 at 1:12 | comment | added | dave | RSTS-11, the first PDP-11 timesharing system, was born as a BASIC-(PLUS)-only system, so I'm not sure I'd agree with that. Sure, us programmers on the other dozen-or-so PDP-11 operating systems looked down our noses at it, a little, at least until BP2 gave us object modules we could feed to the RSX task builder. | |
| Nov 11, 2022 at 0:48 | comment | added | Raffzahn | @another-dave Well, not so sure. DEC wasn't really fond of BASIC for quite some time, sales were rather forced on them by customers throwing money. So no real need to be innovative. But let's see if other sources come up. | |
| Nov 11, 2022 at 0:46 | comment | added | dave | I'd bet on DEC before Multics. The linked manual for Multics BASIC has a date of 1981 and claims to be the first revision, whereas this RSTS/E V6 BASIC-PLUS manual from 1975 shows the backslash form (section 2-3). | |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 19:30 | comment | added | Raffzahn | @MauryMarkowitz the spaces as well. remember that some BASIC add spaces around (some) keywords. they were what put me on the lead here. The NH was just the final proof. | |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 19:25 | comment | added | Maury Markowitz | Ahh, and the RUNNH appears to be a giveaway in this case! Well spotted. | |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 19:24 | vote | accept | Maury Markowitz | ||
| Nov 10, 2022 at 16:10 | history | edited | Raffzahn | CC BY-SA 4.0 | added 32 characters in body |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 14:41 | history | edited | Raffzahn | CC BY-SA 4.0 | added 447 characters in body |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 14:26 | history | edited | Raffzahn | CC BY-SA 4.0 | added 245 characters in body |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 14:21 | history | answered | Raffzahn | CC BY-SA 4.0 |