One of the first things I did when I first had access to an Apple II Plus back in 1981 was to enter programs in Applesoft BASIC, typed from a listing in Nibble magazine. With time and the help of technical info I learned from All About Applesoft from Call-A.P.P.L.E. I learned how to play with this programming language on a deeper level. I was eventually able to redo a program for printing labels for IV meds at the hospital where I was training, and used that wonderful “&” extension to add assembly language routines to simplify parts of the program.
Though I had originally learned FORTRAN in college, I was able to extend this knowledge to BASIC, and had a lot of fun doing so. And it is all thanks to the original creation of this language fifty years ago (as of June of this year), I and all of the others who dove headlong into the microcomputer revolution had a way of creating programs.
When I heard of this golden anniversary, I was inspired to come up again with a parody song. Sorry that these songs are based on such an old pop tune, but hey, it was what I heard when I was in high school. Thanks Microsoft (for what became Applesoft), Apple (for selling the Apple II), and Steve Wozniak (for designing the Apple II, and incorporating his own BASIC into it)!
How many of these keywords did you use when you wrote programs in Applesoft??
Me and You and Our Apple II
by Steven Weyhrich(parody of Lobo’s, “Me and You and a Dog Named Boo“, from 1971)
I remember to this day
DIMensioning an array
And how it worked through the loop
Using FOR and NEXT
Dynamic RAM made that hardware go
The Woz design ensured that’s so
Oh how I wish I was
Back at the prompt againMe and you and our Apple II
GOSUB, GOTO, INPUT, PRINT and END
Me and you and our Apple II
How I wished I could find some FRE mem …Using STORE and RECALL
I managed variables and all
And created hi-res shapes
For a game that would win
That contract job, it gave me work
And then they paid me for what it was worth
Another box of disks and
Back at the prompt againMe and you and our Apple II
OPEN, CLOSE, POSITION, WRITE, RENAME
Me and you and our Apple II
How I’d love to replay that great gameI’ll never forget that day
I saw that Mac with its cute display
The clicks and its icons
Were fascinatin’ to my brain
And though its been thirty years or so
That old II’s bugging me to go
I’ve gotta boot it up and get
Back to the prompt againMe and you and our Apple II
READ, RESTORE, TRACE, NOTRACE and REM
Me and you and our Apple II
How I wished I could find some FRE mem …Me and you and our Apple II
OPEN, CLOSE, POSITION, WRITE, RENAME
Me and you and our Apple II
How I’d love to replay that great gameMe and you and our Apple II
GOSUB, GOTO, INPUT, PRINT and END
Me and you and our Apple II
How I wished I could find some FRE mem …
BASIC enabled me to spend more time developing alterations to Appleworks and less time messing with the way to deliver and remove them.
A nostalgic bit of poetry.