Happy birthday, BASIC
Posted by Steve Revill Thu, 01 May 2014 07:24:00 GMT
To celebrate the 50th birthday of the BASIC programming language, we are very pleased to announce the release of RISC OS Pico. This is a very cut-down RISC OS for the Raspberry Pi that boots directly into BASIC, just like on the Beeb.
RISC OS Pico is available as a free download that can be installed onto pretty much any SD card, or you can buy it pre-installed from us for just a fiver.
BASIC was first unleashed upon the programming world in 1964, in a version known as Dartmouth BASIC. It became particularly popular in the 1980s when it was adopted as the built-in language of choice for the new wave of home computers. And of course, on Acorn hardware we had BBC BASIC, on the BBC Micro, which was aimed at British schoolchildren. Something which has obvious parallels to the Raspberry Pi today.
BBC BASIC lives on in RISC OS, albeit with many improvements and updates. Find out for yourself with RISC OS Pico.
Happy birthday, BASIC – here’s to the next 50 years…
I’ll be demonstrating the ‘core only’ RISC OS build on a Raspberry Pi with a 3" LCD screen at the Bristol RISC OS User Group on Wednesday 14th May. It will be running a 42 year old programme (one that was first written 42 years ago but not developed at all between 1989 [when I thought I had finished it] and May 2014).
can we find a Youtube video of this ? or just a demonstration of RISC OS PICO ?
(there is nothing on the web about this special OS)
Is there a date available when a OS Pico version for the Raspberry Pi B+ will be released?