alt Hacker NewsDon't talk bad about ZX Basic. It had :
- IF THEN
- FOR
- GOSUB / RETURN
- DEFN
- GOTO
- READ / DATA
That was the same thing that any 8 bit BASIC of the era.
I have yet my books of learning BASIC (for kids), and there for ZX Spectrum, Commodore, Apple 2, etc... And only had that. The only thing that I remeber lacking compared againts other BASICs, was the ON GOTO, ON GOSUB and ELSE . On the control of flow in BASIC... That is all.
I will not see something more advanced (and without numbering the lines), like while and do loops, or select case, proper subrutines and functions, until I touch Turbo BASIC (and QBASIC)
There was a wild range in capabilities in the various BASIC implementations of that time. I grew up with an Amstrad CPC6128, it came with Locomotive BASIC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive_BASIC), which was very capable: at one point I had written a multiplayer game with background music in it, without needing a single PEEK, POKE or CALL. The few times I saw Commodore BASIC programs it was littered with those three.