BBC Basic

since 1981 (earliest usage recorded on this site was 1981)

BBC BASIC is a programming language, developed in 1981 as a native programming language for the MOS Technology 6502 based Acorn BBC Micro home/personal computer, mainly by Sophie Wilson. It is a version of the BASIC programming language adapted for a U.K. computer literacy project of the BBC.

BBC BASIC, based on the older Atom BASIC (for the Acorn Atom), extended traditional BASIC with named procedures and functions, REPEAT-UNTIL loops, and IF-THEN-ELSE structures inspired by COMAL. The interpreter also included powerful statements for controlling the BBC Micro's four-channel sound output and its high-resolution graphics display.

more info

Users

Technology Timeline Graph

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

BitWise

fuzzyman

AndyC

ntoll

jorjun

nimasmi

parsley72

jtauber

adders

morgs

tartley

drakkos

jamesotron

xhae

GordyBrow

BitWise - 13 years

fuzzyman - 9 years

AndyC - 4 years

ntoll - 7 years

jorjun - 2 years

nimasmi - 41 years

parsley72 - 6 years

jtauber - 2 years

adders - 11 years

morgs - 6 years

tartley - 1 years

drakkos - 3 years

jamesotron - 4 years

xhae - 7 years

GordyBrow - 8 years

BitWise

1981–1993

I loved my BBC but my wife said it had to go when I got my first IBM PC. Twenty years later I bought one back on eBay!

fuzzyman

1982–1990

AndyC

1982–1985

Only reason I stopped using it is because I moved on to BBC Pascal

ntoll

1983–1989

Cut my teeth with BBC Basic. Lots of fond memories of the language and the code. Like @jtauber I spent much of my time playing Elite ;-)

jorjun

1984–1985

Fun making animated graphics and very simple games. Sometimes accompanied by noise :p !

nimasmi

1984–

I remember in reception class at primary school showing the teacher how we could change the text colour in our story.

jtauber

1985–1986

A neighbour had a BBC Micro. I mostly played Elite on it but did do a bit of coding.

adders

1985–1995

my first programming language at junior school. Used to spend ages typing thousands of lines of codes from books. Kids have it easy these days.

parsley72

1985–1990

My secondary school had BBC B's, although they later upgraded to BBC Masters. I wrote a matrix calculator for my O-level Computer Science practical.

morgs

1986–1991

I fondly remember my Model B with 100K floppies. I had a Siemens drive that would let you flip them over and use the other side - dual index sensors etc. Got started with BBC Basic by typing in program listings from old magazines...

tartley

1987

drakkos

1988–1990

Used to play about with it in primary school.

jamesotron

1990–1993

We had BBC micros when I started at high school. She was the only girl at school who would talk to me.

GordyBrow

1992–1999

Really early foray into the world of programming. I was too young for this. It only lasted that number of years because they were still kicking about when I reached high school. It was still fun to mess around with it then.

1992–1998