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89 sats \ 0 replies \ @0fje0 2 May \ on: The BASIC Programming Language Turns 60 devs
A great read, thanks. A commentor below that article wrote:
The most influential thing I ever read was from the Applesoft Tutorial:
"There is nothing you can do by typing at the keyboard that can do any damage to the computer. Unless you type with a hammer. So feel free to experiment. With your fingers."
That brought back some fond memories!
A friend of mine ordered an Apple IIe and had it delivered to me, because he didn't have a fixed address at the time. When it arrived, I phoned him with the news and he asked me to unbox it and "see if it works".
After switching it on, I had no idea how to determine if it worked, so I just literally started to hit every key on the keyboard starting from the top left corner and working my way - very methodically one by one, mind you - down the whole keyboard and watched as the characters appeared on the screen.
Hmmm... So it "works"? I mean, the characters do show up, right?
It wasn't until I came to hit the <Enter> key that the screen suddenly did something: It said "Syntax error." Great, I guess it works!
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