news@rtrussell.co.uk <n...@rtrussell.co.uk>

BBC BASIC, the programming language specified by the BBC for its
groundbreaking Computer Literacy Project, is 25 years old today!
Designed originally for the BBC Microcomputer, BBC BASIC has since been
implemented on at least seven different processor types and 30
different computer platforms.  Today it is still, in the form of BBC
BASIC for Windows, a popular language for programming PCs.

In the early 1980s the BBC set out to educate the public in the use of
computers.  It was soon realised that the wide variety of different
machines, operating systems and languages of the day would cause
difficulties.  The decision was made to target the educational material
at a standard machine running a standard language, thus the BBC
Microcomputer and BBC BASIC were born.

The original version of BBC BASIC was written by Sophie Wilson of Acorn
Computers; she later developed a more sophisticated implementation for
the Acorn Archimedes.  Other versions, including those for the
Cambridge Computer Z88, Amstrad Notepad range and Microsoft Windows
were written by Richard Russell, until recently a Senior Research and
Development Engineer with the BBC.

Web links:
http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/
http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/products/bbcbasic/birthday/
http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/products/bbcbasic/history.html
http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/products/bbcwin/bbcwin.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_BASIC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Wilson