Re: My First Computer (was Computing Editorial)

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <9307085f.0302081037.373355f2@posting.google.com>,
Dosius <steve@dosius.zzn.com> wrote:

>> You could extend Tiny BASIC by changing the IL interpreter program. Your
>> changes would automatically work with any other Pittman Tiny BASIC.
>> People added I/O commands, PEEK/POKE memory, string manipulation, etc.
>> This gave you BASIC, but now you had a way to make it extensible in a
>> structured fashion.
>> 
>> The IL language looked a lot like a machine language, but was a lot
>> simpler. There are only 40 simple instructions, so it was a "bridge" --
>> harder than BASIC, but easier than machine language.
>
>A pseudocode.  Inform uses the same idea in its compiler, I think, as
>does UCSD Pascal.

And so does Java.  And back in the Apple II Integer Basic heydays, we
had the Sweet-16 pseudo-machine -- early versions of the S-C Assembler
used a lot of Sweet-16 code, and it could assemble to Sweet-16 code
as well.



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