[cctalk] Re: BASIC

BASIC was always a popular language in the Hewlett-Packard world. From the HP 2000 timesharing BASIC that was popular in educational settings similar to the original DTSS, To BASIC/3000 on the HP 3000 which was a first-class language with both interpreter and compiler (producing very fast code), to the HP 250/260 which used BASIC as their primary development language, Rocky Mountain BASIC in the technical world, the Series 80 microcomputers, HP Business Basic again on the 3000 which was probably largest and most complex language system ever created for the Classic 16-bit 3000 systems and which was intended to be both a migration path for 250/260 applications to MPE and to be a new standard Basic across multiple HP platforms. From 1980-1986 or so I worked for an HP OEM / ISV whose "ERP" (we didn't call them that yet) package was written in BASIC on the HP 3000. It was limited to Letter-digit variable names but was quite performant and had its own API into the IMAGE DBMS etc. BASIC got used for lots of "serious" development.