[sdiy] OT Re: Basic was not an acronym

[John L Marshall]

Your right.

My old memory is getting wirthless.

John


----- Original Message -----
From: Magnus Danielson <cfmd at swipnet.se>
To: <john.l.marshall at gte.net>
Cc: <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2001 4:07 PM
Subject: Re: [sdiy] OT Re: Basic was not an acronym


> From: "John L Marshall" <john.l.marshall at gte.net>
> Subject: [sdiy] OT Re: Basic was not an acronym
> Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 17:47:50 -0800
>
> > >BASIC is an acronym.
> >
> > I knew that I would suck someone in on that one.
> >
> > John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz introduced the language in 1964 at
Dartmouth
> > College. Much later, technical writers had a compelling need to create
an
> > acronym out of the word Basic. Many other computer language names are
> > acronyms or abbreviations; APL, ALGOL, FORTRAN, JOVIAL, LISP, PL/1,
TRAC,
> > and so on. Therefore, BASIC must stand for something too. It doesn't,
..er
> > didn't. Pascal and Ada are not acronyms either. But, when BASIC was
> > introduced it was just plain old BASIC.
>
> I am however upset that you do not mention the wonderfull languague
> Intercal in here. Intercal has many usefull functions like that of
> SELECT and MINGLE.
>
> > The RSTS/E (PDP-11's) operating system had BASIC built-in. Yes, imbedded
> > into the operating system. RSTS/E is a multi-user, multi-tasking
operating
> > system. Strange to have a *beginner* language available at the command
> > prompt to computer system administrators.
>
> How shocking it may seem, a decade later Microsoft tried the same
> concept. Have anyone heard of Microsoft? They started out making BASIC
> inteprenters and then big nasty IBM forced them to deliver some sort
> of OS. The relabling of the Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS)
> into MSDOS (actual PCDOS as sold by IBM) is legendary ;O)
>
> > It's purpose was for quick useful programming as well as for
instruction.
> > Pascal was created by Knuth, at ETH, Zuerich, for instruction. It was
used
> > commercially. At one time, all programming at Microsoft was done in
Pascal.
> > But then, programming in Pascal is much like living under the Taliban.
>
> Nononono... Pascal was created by Niklaus Wirth:
>
> http://www.cs.inf.ethz.ch/~wirth/
>
> see his ACM A.M. Turing Award:
>
> http://www.acm.org/awards/taward.html
> http://www.acm.org/awards/turing_citations/wirth.html
>
> Donald E. Knuth is indeed a top-notch guy in this field and he
> received HIS ACM A.M. Turing award in 1974, ten years before
> Prof. Wirth.
>
> http://www.acm.org/awards/turing_citations/knuth.html
>
> It was allready then well deserved, but he accumulated alot of good
> work since too.
>
> > Acronyms get renamed for no apparent (ignorant?) reason. Today's
literature
> > refers to RAID as Redundant Array of Independent Disks. When originally
> > conceived RAID stood for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.
Independent
> > hardly applies. Some hardware RAID 3 systems use an electronic spindle
lock
> > feature on the disk drives. Hardly *Independent*.
>
> Right. Also, the concept had been fully described thoroghly before
> some people dubbed it RAID in their research paper which people look
> at. Such is life. Fame and glory does not allways fall on those that
> did the actual work. Good that Knuth, Wirth and Moog got tokens of
> apprechiation.
>
> Cheers,
> Magnus
>