RIP Thomas Kurtz, cocreator of BASIC.
https://computerhistory.org/blog/in-memoriam-thomas-e-kurtz-1928-2024/
I just learned via @Sempf that Thomas E. Kurtz, co-creator of the BASIC programming language with John Kemeny (1926–1992), has died:
https://computerhistory.org/blog/in-memoriam-thomas-e-kurtz-1928-2024/
BASIC isn’t just of historical interest to me. It’s an part of everyday artistic practice: I write programs in Commodore 64 BASIC v2, Applesoft BASIC, and yabasic as often as I can. The language (which became a family of languages for microcomputers) was the lingua franca of popular computing and is still the standard for such.
Here’s a Heltec V3 in a deli container with a 1w solar panel and an 18650! Setting up #meshtastic in my small town.
This is a temporary test while I’m waiting for my much more energy efficient Rok Wisblock boards to arrive, can’t wait to cover the whole town!
BASIC is a joyful little language!
my first coding book saw me attempting to input commodore BASIC V2 into microsoft QBASIC for MS-DOS 6.22, at age 9.
i am so glad i managed to return to now free commodore emulators like VICE, the simplicity of BASIC makes it highly composable.
writing a new game manages to balance nostalgia with "replayability".
subtoot
"but where will the money come from??"
why are these people so loud? i want no strings attached so i would probably not want or get funding
barring web browsers (maybe dillo??), most ecosystems can be one-personed into existence from first principles in a finite number of afternoons...
so what's the big deal? kinda smells like liberalism
a note !
"on procrastination"
a while ago (maybe an hour), I opened my to-do list. Here is the tale that follows of the resulting procrastination. Too much in life it is possible to convince yourself that everyone else is more organised than you because you only see the final product. So, this is one miniature combat against that idea.
I opened obsidian
on my todo list it said "make a christmas list"
...
i think to like coding is also in some important way to enjoy the physical embodied act of coding
okay, here me out, but I think it can be simultaneously true that an open source decentralized interconnected system is better for social network purposes than a consolidated corporate run system
and
said system could use a lot of improvements
jesus christ vice c64 emulator record a video and successfully upload to pleroma any% (impossible)
it is very easy to get something going quite quickly in BASIC on the commodore 64
and i would certainly say that is what it promises on the tin
which should be deemed a good thing! personally i can only enjoy a learning curve so steep...
i think the mentality that got me through my programming drought in the end was not caring what anyone else would think of my musings
and that set me free, i was finally allowing myself to enjoy making little mistakes, and forgiving myself
Amazing reddit moment.
Guy can't get cl-glfw working on macos. I say you should use my glfw wrapper which Just Works and go ignored.
Some other guy says "you should write your own C wrapper anyway because you need resource management" (??? wtf) and OP engages positively
breaking my own rule here but i may as well make bag quest 2D, it would be so easy, and really not cost that much memory at all
the bag drawing functions would just be taken from CHASE (kilobaud, feb 1977)
working on the actual data structures of the game now, initialising the game, the first bag, will go GOSUBs for bringing up menus, will probably litter a few GOTOs as well ~