2 months ago
- C Source, Inc. was founded in 1983 and dissolved in 1996, with Gene W. Brown as president and Tom Hogan as a senior programmer and marketing VP.
- BASIC_C was a library for C compilers (Lattice, DeSmet, Computer Innovations) that implemented over 80 BASIC-like functions to help BASIC programmers learn C.
- The library included familiar BASIC commands like INPUT, LPRINT, LOCATE, and INKEY, and came with a well-written manual comparing BASIC and C.
- A 1984 review by Ernest Tello noted that BASIC_C eased the transition to C but warned that line-by-line translations from BASIC might not produce optimal C code.
- The library had some bugs (e.g., the COLOR function did not match IBM BASIC behavior) and lacked math functions, but offered unique functions like BLOAD, BSAVE, and SWAP.
- The product required some C knowledge and was not a full automatic converter; it was a learning aid and conversion tool for BASIC programmers.