So you think you know BASIC?
I can't tell you how much of my misspent youth was spent typing in BASIC programs from magazines.
See, computer magazines of today aren't like they were in the 8-bit days. They weren't all stuff for gamer d00dz or, as APC puts it, "IT professionals and power-users". Always offbeat and funny, they catered to the pimply-faced hobbyists (that would be me) who actually wanted to do stuff. It's only with the advent of blogs that this kind of DIY became possible again.
The best Australian magazine was Your Computer, published by the brilliant Les Bell.
Of all of the computer magazines, though, the best was Creative Computing. It was full of cartoons, recreational maths, programs, news and puzzles. After the jump is a challenge from some time around 1976. If you had a micro in the 80s, see how much you remember...
So you think you know BASIC?
List the seventeen fundamental statements in the BASIC language.
A. If there were a decree that said you had to use fewer statements, draw a line through the 5 statements you could easily do without. Are there 5 others that you could get along without?
B. Circle the four that really do the most for you and which you would hold on to until the very end.
Look back over your list and your decisions and consider:
C. After getting rid of all 10 statements asked for in A., is there anything you really cannot do? If there is, you ought to think about changing some of your decisions.
D. Which statements are necessary, and which just make programming easier? What value do you place on these latter statements?
The original challenge then suggested you do the same with your posessions. Let's not bother with that, though. The purpose of this challenge is to see how much BASIC you actually remember.
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