Date   : Mon, 06 Mar 2006 19:56:49 GMT
From   : Pete Turnbull <pete@...>
Subject: Re: Exile (Re: Zalaga)

On Mar 6 2006, 11:40, W.Scholten wrote:
> Mike Tomlinson wrote:
> > In article <440B0184.70903@...>, W.Scholten <whs@...>
writes
> >
> >>Oh, and Basic is *not* an
> >>acronym. Anyone who believes that is far too gullible! It's just a
name.
> >
> > Er, no.
> >
> > Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.  And I remembered
> > that, didn't have to look it up.
>
> I rememebered that too. and it's rubbish. Noone uses 'symbolic
> instruction code' when describing a language. I also remembered there
> were others (magazine articles I read long ago) who didn't accept
"Basic
> is an acronym" either.

Perhaps they knew nothing of the origins, which predate microcomputers
and in particular 8-bit machines by rather a long time.  Kemeny and
Kurtz, who invented it in the 60s, called it that in the 60s.  It was a
time when it was common to make acronyms that formed real words.   It's
a play on words, like a pun.  It doesn't make it any the less an
acronym for that.  And why do you regard the "design" of the language
as a "tremendous overstatement"?   The original Dartmouth versions were
rather different to the subset that Micro-Soft [sic] foisted upon the
unsuspecting, and which was copied by many.

The language in all the original forms (Dartmouth, Microsoft, etc) is
spelled in capitals: "BASIC", not "Basic". Just Like FORTRAN and ALGOL.

-- 
Pete                                           Peter Turnbull
                                               Network Manager
                                               University of York