[ezy]

The funny part, and perhaps the part that really damns the critics, is that (IF..GOTO,) GOTOs and line numbers are useful baseline concepts because they have a direct correspondence to what a computer actually does. People who went from BASIC to assembly language did not experience much cognitive dissonance compared to your average JS programmer. And decades later, computers still work roughly this way under the covers complete with (tests,) jumps and memory addresses. :-)

[mrandish]

That's an interesting observation that's never occurred to me. As a teen I got a 4k 8-bit home computer in 1981, connected it to the family TV and taught myself BASIC programming from the manuals that came with it and by typing in simple game program listings from hobbyist magazines. As I got the hang of it I started customizing, expanding and combining different games just as you did.

When I got tired of BASIC and wanted to do more, the only option was this thing called assembly language. The three letter mnemonics were kind of cryptic at first but I somehow got the idea of calling up Motorola and some kind sales rep took pity on me and sent me the reference book for the 6809 CPU. The book was too advanced for me but fortunately, it came with folding quick reference card with a simple chart showing the registers, a listing of all the mnemonics and a sentence or two about each one. That card was my constant companion as I taught myself assembler by writing simple programs that would put graphics on the screen.

Just as you said, I never really had any conceptual problem with ideas like holding a numeric value in a register, an index pointer storing the address of a string or array in memory or conditionally branching. All of these had fairly direct analogs in BASIC like LET, IF, GOTO, GOSUB, ARRAY, PEEK and POKE. Even primordial 8-bit ROM based BASIC wasn't that awful. The biggest challenges were the lack of editing tools, being locked into line numbers and the cryptic two-letter error codes. I think a modern BASIC dialect with full-screen editing (no line numbers), named function calling with parameter passing and a decent debugger would still provide a reasonable introduction to computer programming.

This was enough to launch me on a successful lifelong career in high tech as a programmer, product manager, entrepreneur and eventually senior executive. Every bit of it self-taught with no formal computer education at all.

[ddingus]

I still have my 6809 book. Back then, Motorola would send docs for the asking.

I actually went to a field office where one of their engineers sat with me for a while! Very cool.

Started on 6502, friend got Color Computer, and I loved 6809. Beautiful chip.

[ddingus]

Exactly and why I wrote my comment above.

I would add the computed goto, as in something like:

GOSUB (X * 100)

Is really fast, and using switch, or case, or a set of if, then, else statements can work, but not work well.

There are times when a numeric value works for branching, and having this in BASIC maps directly to assembly language where that sort of thing gets done all the time.

[ikari_pl]

That's not something the Locomotive BASIC of Amstrad or the C64 basic support, seems like at least these two require a literal line number (probably also because how else would `RENUM` work?)