The original version of this post was published on March 16, 2014.
Back in the day, I used to write machine-language subroutines for the Commodore 64 that I would then call from a main program written in BASIC. I found it easier to use BASIC as the higher-order controller over a set of ML functions that usually did things for which CBM BASIC 2.0 was not well-suited.
In one case, I wrote an Xmodem file-transfer protocol handler.
In the mid-1980’s, I’d owned a used TRS-80 Model I for about a year when I had a yearning for a newer system. I only had cassette-based storage which proved to be unreliable. I had a 16K machine and I had a few games and tools for the TRS-80. I learned Z-80 assembly language and I was having a lot of fun tinkering, but that particular line of computers had met its end.
“It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration” – Edsger Dijkstra
My early days of computing began in the late 1970’s. I used to go in to the Radio Shack in the mall where they would let the patrons type stuff into their display-model TRS-80. You could tell that none of the patrons were skilled in any type of computer language as the screen was filled with a line of nonsense followed by a line indicating that a syntax-error had occurred.
When I first began using microcomputers in the late 1970’s, development tools for 8-bit machines were precious and mysterious commodities. Most of these sorts of tools that looked to be useful were very expensive. My usage of most of these tools was driven by budgetary constraints.
The Gateway Drug : BASIC
All it really took to pique someone’s interest in microcomputers was to show them a simple program such as: