Unstructured programming with
GOTO is the stuff of legend, as are calling subroutines by line number–
GOSUB 1000–and setting global variables as a mechanism for passing parameters.
The little language that fueled the home computer revolution has been long buried beneath an avalanche of derision, or at least disregarded as a relic from primitive times. That’s too bad, because while the language itself has serious shortcomings, the overall 8-bit BASIC experience has high points that are worth remembering.
It’s hard to separate the language and the computers it ran it on; flipping the power switch, even without a disk drive attached, resulted in a BASIC prompt. If nothing else, it could be treated as a calculator:
PRINT "seconds in a week: ",60*60*24*7
Notice how the cosine function is always available for use. No importing a library. No qualifying it with
Or take advantage of this being a full programming language:
T = 0
FOR I=1 TO 10:T=T+I*I:NEXT I