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Atari BASIC
 A program ready to run | |
| Family | BASIC |
|---|---|
| Designed by | Paul Laughton Kathleen O'Brien Carol Shaw (manual) Keith Brewster (manual) |
| Developer | Shepardson Microsystems |
| First appeared | 1979 |
| Stable release | Revision C
/ 1983 |
| Platform | Atari 8-bit computers |
| License | Commercial proprietary software |
| Influenced by | |
| Data General Business Basic[1] | |
| Influenced | |
| BASIC A+, BASIC XL, BASIC XE, Turbo-BASIC XL | |
Atari BASIC is an interpreter for the BASIC programming language that shipped with Atari 8-bit computers. Unlike most American BASICs of the home computer era, Atari BASIC is not a derivative of Microsoft BASIC and differs in significant ways. It includes keywords for Atari-specific features and lacks support for string arrays.
The language was distributed as an 8 KB ROM cartridge for use with the 1979 Atari 400 and 800 computers and included the Atari BASIC Reference Manual written by Carol Shaw and Keith Brewster.[2][3][4] Starting with the 600XL and 800XL in 1983, BASIC is built into the system. There are three primary versions of the software: the original cartridge-based "A", the built-in "B" for the 600XL/800XL, and the final "C" version in late-model XLs and the XE series.
Despite the Atari 8-bit computers running at a higher speed than most of its contemporaries, several technical decisions placed Atari BASIC near the bottom in performance benchmarks. The original authors addressed most of these issues in a series of improved versions: BASIC A+ (1981), BASIC XL (1983), and BASIC XE (1985).
The complete, annotated source code and design specifications of Atari BASIC were published as The Atari BASIC Source Book in 1983.[5]
- ^ Lorenzo, Mark (2017). Endless Loop: The History of the BASIC Programming Language. Philadelphia: SE Books. p. 106. ISBN 978-1974-27707-0.
- ^ "Compute!'s First Book of Atari". www.atariarchives.org. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
Carol Shaw, Keith Brewster. BASIC REFERENCE MANUAL. draft, Atari, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (1979)
- ^ Edwards, Benj (12 October 2011). "VC&G Interview: Carol Shaw, Atari's First Female Video Game Developer". They had a manual for Atari BASIC [for the Atari 800] and somebody wrote sort of a cutesy manual that was supposed to be very humorous, but it had a lot of technical errors in it. I ended up rewriting the manual. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
- ^ "Women in tech: The groundbreaking career of video game pioneer Carol Shaw". blog.avast.com. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
- ^ Wilkinson, O'Brien & Laughton 1983.
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