Illustrating BASIC: A Book from 1977

[TI-994A]

This book, by Donald Alcock, was a marvellously illustrated BASIC manual that explained the many concepts of computer programming in a fun way. It removed all the technical daunt from the subject by using doodles to simplify the topics.

A picture was literally worth a thousand words!

Anyone else had the pleasure of learning from this book back in the day?

[marc_256]

Yep,

Mine is from 1981 ...

[Kiffi]

My edition is older

[Little John]

My edition is older

From the Stone Age! Cool.

[TI-994A]

My edition is older

And, apparently, written by a different guy as well.

[Olli]

Ten years are missing for me ! (on TMS7020)
manual Exelbasic (near 1987)

Just a butterfly you can see here, in the menu "Exelvision".
ti99 french author.

Inspired link from your signature :

[Piero]

I have this (1982, 1st Italian edition):



and had this (but gave as present):

[BarryG]

You can read "Illustrating BASIC" online -> https://archive.org/details/ibaspl/mode/2up

[TI-994A]

Ten years are missing for me ! (on TMS7020)

But you're still among the pioneers, @Olli.

Just a butterfly you can see here, in the menu "Exelvision".
ti99 french author.

Great site, by the way.

If it's yours, please allow me a point of clarification on this post:

screenshot from www.ti99.com/ti/



The Texas Instruments TI-99/4A home computer was released only in June of 1981.

So, if it arrived in the early 80s (as cited in the post), it must have been the Texas Instruments TI-99/4 home computer, which was released in 1979.

Just thought I should clarify.

[Olli]

If it's yours, please allow me a point of clarification on this post

No, it is not mine ! But thank you !!

However, the author is still alive ! And, plus : it is actually updating its site !!
I will take a look if its mail address is displayed. And I think it could be very interesting you contact him also, if you read strange things, or if you want to note some remarks, and why not inviting him to this forum (if he is not already hidden there !).

So, note that, in France, we have ever been seriously late. My personnal way is I received a computer EXL100 which was destinated to the garbage, because no mass memory. Just a motherboard (complete), a rom basic memory, a remote control keyboard (very difficult to type a long program) and the manual with 100 program examples. That could be plugged on a TV. It was in 1989.
Then it began for me, with a very very big miss of documentation and mass memory. So, lots of op code combinations, and brain memory.

The author of the site (Mr Malhuret ?) : I d like to share a little bit informations, notably for a magazine named "Exelment vôtre" : very beautiful, illustrated and humouristic magazines which added pages and pages of source codes, sometimes with Assembly code.

No mass memory, it really was an other universe compared to today...

[PBJim]

Thanks to TI-994A for posting this. I had not seen the book in years but it was popular in computer studies courses in UK during the 1980s — not forming part of the curriculum but used informally to supplement it. The edition had the beige cover sent by marc_256.

The writing style was enjoyable, not like much of the banal and rather hollow tech material we have to work with these days.

The other which was used often at the time was this :

[threedslider]

My first programming was GFA Basic on Atari ST

But I lost everything all stuff, that mean book and computer

Only reference here from wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFA_BASIC

Thanks all for sharing !

[Olli]

Hello TI-994A !

I read a little bit the site :
- Mister Montupet is the author of the site;
- He starts a recent update (since last March);
- He tryed to prepare a specific meeting in 2019 for 2020, but problem of coroflu, of course;
- He let a mail address published on the main page.

My personal hardware was so the EXL100, a 8-bits TI CPU. I have also to clarify anything with him because... He wrote my no-mass-memory computer had 2KB in RAM. Unabled !

[TI-994A]

Hello TI-994A !

I read a little bit the site...

Hello, @Olli!

Thanks for your replies. If you're able to reach the site-owner, I'm sure that he'd appreciate the corrections.

Thanks to TI-994A for posting this. I had not seen the book in years but it was popular in computer studies courses in UK during the 1980s — not forming part of the curriculum but used informally to supplement it. The edition had the beige cover sent by marc_256.

Hi @PBJim. Yes, it was used in some curricula, and hence the "School Edition" as stamped on my copy. Great teacher who made learning fun.

You can read "Illustrating BASIC" online -> https://archive.org/details/ibaspl/mode/2up

Thanks @BarryG. Now everyone could enjoy the great nuances of the book firsthand.

[Piero]

Wow! (about the Authors of my "Basic and PC" Italian edition):

https://archive.org/details/A_Bit_Of_BA ... ritchfield

Sadly, you can only see the "contents index" here:

https://archive.org/details/basicpersonalcom0000dwye