During the 1970s two mini-computer manufacturers dominated the education market for computers. Last week I wrote about DEC, and this week I'm writing about Hewlett Packard.
I got into programming and BASIC a decade later, on my birthday in 1983, to be specific. To me, multi-user computers were something I had never experienced. A few years later, my school got computers: four single-user CP/M machines. Looking back, it's strange how fast the "face" of computing changed.
This is a great series, Gary, and I look forward to future installments.
It is amazing how quickly things changed. I went from a Time-Shared 56KB system costing about the same as two houses, to a 640KB PC a decade later that cost several thousand dollars. I can run the old Time-Shared systems on my laptop at lightning speed. I can even have DEC and HP running at the same time. If I could go back in time, my 14 year old self wouldn’t believe it.
I think my 14 year old self would not believe it either. But I think that guy would also have wondered why a real great speech interface hadn’t arrrived yet. And perhaps he’d be secretly sad that a working teleporter was nowhere to be found :-)
It should be noted that the "HP BASIC" mentioned refers to only the early "HP Timeshared BASIC"., on early model of the HP Series 2000.
Later models, like for example the Series 200 has a much more advanced BASIC, and also the more technical/engineering/scientific oriented versions "Rocky Mountain BASIC" is well enhanced beyond what is described here.
Those can very well handle string arrays, where a DIM statement would like for example like "DIM Name$(12)[32]" define an array of 12 strings of up to 32 characters.
Those also they allow for multi line IF..THEN..ELSE, which also allows jumping to labels, not only line numbers, though it still requires only one statement per program line.
This article and the last are specifically about mini-computer Time-Shared BASICs in the seventies. These were for machines that cost in the 10s of thousands of dollars. DEC BASIC-PLUS and HP Time-Shared BASIC didn't stand still either. They went on to influence many of the economical home and business computers in the mid to late 70s going forward. These computers supplanted the need for Time-Sharing. This includes mass market machines such as TRS-80, Apple II, and business computers such as the IBM PC, and many more. I will be covering home computers, and business computers in separate articles. As Ralf mentions, HP Time-Shared BASIC also influenced HP's engineering and scientific BASIC, and on the DEC side, BASIC-PLUS went on to become VAX BASIC, which could run on the largest mainframes of the 1980s.
I got into programming and BASIC a decade later, on my birthday in 1983, to be specific. To me, multi-user computers were something I had never experienced. A few years later, my school got computers: four single-user CP/M machines. Looking back, it's strange how fast the "face" of computing changed.
This is a great series, Gary, and I look forward to future installments.
Thank you!
It is amazing how quickly things changed. I went from a Time-Shared 56KB system costing about the same as two houses, to a 640KB PC a decade later that cost several thousand dollars. I can run the old Time-Shared systems on my laptop at lightning speed. I can even have DEC and HP running at the same time. If I could go back in time, my 14 year old self wouldn’t believe it.
I think my 14 year old self would not believe it either. But I think that guy would also have wondered why a real great speech interface hadn’t arrrived yet. And perhaps he’d be secretly sad that a working teleporter was nowhere to be found :-)
It should be noted that the "HP BASIC" mentioned refers to only the early "HP Timeshared BASIC"., on early model of the HP Series 2000.
Later models, like for example the Series 200 has a much more advanced BASIC, and also the more technical/engineering/scientific oriented versions "Rocky Mountain BASIC" is well enhanced beyond what is described here.
Those can very well handle string arrays, where a DIM statement would like for example like "DIM Name$(12)[32]" define an array of 12 strings of up to 32 characters.
Those also they allow for multi line IF..THEN..ELSE, which also allows jumping to labels, not only line numbers, though it still requires only one statement per program line.
This article and the last are specifically about mini-computer Time-Shared BASICs in the seventies. These were for machines that cost in the 10s of thousands of dollars. DEC BASIC-PLUS and HP Time-Shared BASIC didn't stand still either. They went on to influence many of the economical home and business computers in the mid to late 70s going forward. These computers supplanted the need for Time-Sharing. This includes mass market machines such as TRS-80, Apple II, and business computers such as the IBM PC, and many more. I will be covering home computers, and business computers in separate articles. As Ralf mentions, HP Time-Shared BASIC also influenced HP's engineering and scientific BASIC, and on the DEC side, BASIC-PLUS went on to become VAX BASIC, which could run on the largest mainframes of the 1980s.