basic

basic (ˈbeɪsɪk)
—adj
1.	of, relating to, or forming a base or basis; fundamental; underlying
2.	elementary or simple: a few basic facts
3.	excluding additions or extras: basic pay
4.	chem
	a.  of, denoting, or containing a base; alkaline
	b.  (of a salt) containing hydroxyl or oxide groups not all of which have been replaced by an acid radical: basic lead carbonate, 2PbCO3.Pb(OH)2
5.	metallurgy of, concerned with, or made by a process in which the furnace or converter is made of a basic material, such as magnesium oxide
6.	(of such igneous rocks as basalt) containing between 52 and 45 per cent silica
7.	military primary or initial: basic training
—n
8.	(usually plural) a fundamental principle, fact, etc

basic

BASIC

computer language, 1964, acronym for Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code; invented by J.G. Kemeny and T.E. Kurtz.

basic ba·sic (bā'sĭk)
adj.

1. Of, being, or serving as a starting point or basis.

2. Producing, resulting from, or relating to a base.

3. Containing a base, especially in excess of acid.

4. Containing oxide or hydroxide anions.

BASIC   (bā'sĭk)  Pronunciation Key  A simple programming language developed in the 1960s that is widely taught to students as a first programming language.

BASIC

/bay'-sic/ n. A programming language, originally designed for Dartmouth's experimental timesharing system in the early 1960s, which for many years was the leading cause of brain damage in proto-hackers. Edsger W. Dijkstra observed in "Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective" that "It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." This is another case (like Pascal) of the cascading lossage that happens when a language deliberately designed as an educational toy gets taken too seriously. A novice can write short BASIC programs (on the order of 10-20 lines) very easily; writing anything longer (a) is very painful, and (b) encourages bad habits that will make it harder to use more powerful languages well. This wouldn't be so bad if historical accidents hadn't made BASIC so common on low-end micros in the 1980s. As it is, it probably ruined tens of thousands of potential wizards.

[1995: Some languages called `BASIC' aren't quite this nasty any more, having acquired Pascal- and C-like procedures and control structures and shed their line numbers. --ESR]

Note: the name is commonly parsed as Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, but this is a backronym. BASIC was originally named Basic, simply because it was a simple and basic programming language. Because most programming language names were in fact acronyms, BASIC was often capitalized just out of habit or to be silly. No acronym for BASIC originally existed or was intended (as one can verify by reading texts through the early 1970s). Later, around the mid-1970s, people began to make up backronyms for BASIC because they weren't sure. Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code is the one that caught on.

BASIC definition

language
Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. A simple language originally designed for ease of programming by students and beginners. Many dialects exist, and BASIC is popular on microcomputers with sound and graphics support. Most micro versions are interactive and interpreted.
BASIC has become the leading cause of brain-damage in proto-hackers. This is another case (like Pascal) of the cascading lossage that happens when a language deliberately designed as an educational toy gets taken too seriously. A novice can write short BASIC programs (on the order of 10-20 lines) very easily; writing anything longer is painful and encourages bad habits that will make it harder to use more powerful languages. This wouldn't be so bad if historical accidents hadn't made BASIC so common on low-end micros. As it is, it ruins thousands of potential wizards a year.
Originally, all references to code, both GOTO and GOSUB (subroutine call) referred to the destination by its line number. This allowed for very simple editing in the days before text editors were considered essential. Just typing the line number deleted the line and to edit a line you just typed the new line with the same number. Programs were typically numbered in steps of ten to allow for insertions. Later versions, such as BASIC V, allow GOTO-less structured programming with named procedures and functions, IF-THEN-ELSE-ENDIF constructs and WHILE loops etc.
Early BASICs had no graphic operations except with graphic characters. In the 1970s BASIC interpreters became standard features in mainframes and minicomputers. Some versions included matrix operations as language primitives.
A public domain interpreter for a mixture of DEC's MU-Basic and Microsoft Basic is here (ftp://oak.oakland.edu/pub/Unix-c/languages/basic/basic.tar-z). A yacc parser and interpreter were in the comp.sources.unix archives volume 2.
See also ANSI Minimal BASIC, bournebasic, bwBASIC, ubasic, Visual Basic.
[Jargon File]
(1995-03-15)

BASIC Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code