Introduction to BASIC
P. E. Gosling · 1982
So far you have been introduced to the way in which you can use programs written for your computer by other people and saved on the program library stored on the backing store discs. However, often the library programs fail to do quite what is wanted for the solution of a particular problem and so eventually ‘homegrown’ programs are required. To be able to write your own programs you must learn how to express yourself in a language which is understandable by the computer. The computer language we use is one which is available on the majority of time-sharing computer systems, of the type described in the preceding chapters, and is known as BASIC. These initials stand for Beginners’ Allpurpose Symbolic Instruction Code, but do not be misled into thinking that BASIC is a trivial ‘baby’ language. It is a very powerful and versatile language which can be used for both scientific calculations and business data-processing applications.