Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

[Liam Proven]

On Tue, 26 May 2020 at 21:35, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> Well, there were some products whose role was to SHEAR THE SHEEP.
> The Apple3 belonged in a shearing section.  Maybe even the Lisa, although
> that wasn't its intended role.

(?)

> When I taught C, we gave the course a prerequisite of "any other
> programming language", so that the beginning of the course wouldn't get
> bogged down in "what is a program?", the concepts of stored programs,
> compiling, etc.

Sound plan.

> In the first class session, I told the students, that if they had never
> written a program in any other language, that before the second session
> (in a week), they should teach themselves a little BASIC.

Heh.

Sounds reasonable.

Now, the *nix weenies who know nothing else thing you could learn
Python in a week. Yeah right.

> Some of my students continued to use BASIC even after a semester of C.

I can believe it. For a lot of stuff, it's all you need.

> Americans were oblivious to anything that wasn't in USA.

Yes. :-(

> Yes.  TRS80.
>
> It had a memory map that was incompatible with CP/M.  BASIC in ROM at the
> bottom, and RAM at the top.

Which one?

As they're purely a theoretical concept to me and AFAIK I've never
actually touched one, the profusion of models is very confusing, and
I'm  not aware of an idiot's single-para overview.

I vaguely know of:
 • TRS-80 Model 100 (8085), pre-laptop portable
 • Tandy 1000 (PC compatible)
 • TRS-80 Model 2000 (*before* the 1000?! Also kinda-sorta PC
compatible, nearly?)
 • TRS-80 Colour, AKA CoCo -- 6809
 • TRS-80 Pocket (no idea)

Then there seem to be about 42 different computers called TRS-80 Model
X where X is either a Roman or Arabic number under 1000, after which
it all changed. Except 2000 comes before 1000. Obviously.

The TRS-80 Model I, Model II, Model III, Model 4, Model 12, Model 16,
etc. I know nothing at all about these but I believe the III ran Xenix
on a 68000 and had some resemblance to the Apple Lisa, which would
seem to preclude any relation to the Model I & Model II -- and
Wikipedia suggests that the Model II is totally different from the
Model I.

But it claims the Model III is compatible with the Model I. (Wut?)

It very quickly all becomes rather surreal and I rapidly lose track
(and interest, TBH.)

I suspect a graphic might be needed to disentangle it.

> For those parts of the world that didn't have TRS80:
> Note: Radio Shack TRS80 model 1, 3, 4 were a straightforward transition.
> 4P was a luggable version of the 4.
>
> Model 2 (and 12, later) was a TOTALLY unrelated product consisting of a
> "business" computer with 8" drives, with CP/M available.
> Model 16 had coprocessor board with 68000.

Er. Right.

So it goes:

Model I → Model III → Model 4

*And*

↘
  Model 2 → Model 12 → Model 16

... ?

Where do the VideoGenie and Coco fit in?

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