| BASIC is a terrible language, and the only reason it became popular is that there was a book published with a lot of games written in that language. Not even close. BASIC was a very powerful language. Not "powerful" in the way we think of languages today with OOP and all that, but powerful in its flexibility. Each machine had its own version of BASIC that made the most of each machine's unique capabilities. Games were probably the minority of BASIC programs. BASIC was a serious language for serious business programs, especially in sales and accounting. If your needs were scientific, you went with FORTRAN. If you were needs were hardcore business, you went with COBOL. If your needs were academic, there was Lisp and a bunch of others. But BASIC was the common language that almost every computer had available. Huge companies managed inventory with BASIC. Transit timetables were calculated in BASIC. Machine control, non-mainframe astronomy, specialized journalism applications, record-keeping, and dozens of other needs were handled well by programs written in BASIC. The first program I ever sold commercially was essentially a single-user Salesforce for the Commodore 64 tailored for limousine companies. I wrote it in BASIC. If you think BASIC was only used for games, that's a reflection of your limited experience, not of the limitations of BASIC. |
Seriously, there was no support for what made the C64 the C64 in the C64 BASIC! You wanted grpahics? PEEK and POKE. Sound? PEEK and POKE.