Business Basic
Business BASIC is a family belonging to the BASIC programming language. This is a pure interpreter language. This means that after coding the programs not running compilation had to be done. The instructions entered were executed by an interpreter line by line. This meant for the programmer that input row were examined by the interpreter immediately. Was the statement is incorrect, the interpreter dismissed the input with an appropriate comment.
History
In 1975, the company Nixdorf Paderborn developed the magnetic disk system 8870/1, which belonged to the realm of so-called " Middle- data technology ." This system could be connected to multiple terminals. Applications were programmed in Business Basic.
One of the most famous applications was the commercial application COMET, which is still in use today. COMET was extremely successful in the 70s and 80s and was used for about 200 industries.
Operation
In Business Basic variable names were allowed only as a simple letter with a number, eg K1 $ for a string field (text box ) or, for example P1 numeric. The size of an alphanumeric field depended on the size of the disk partition. At the end of the string, there was still a so-called boundary character (ASCII of hexadecimal 00) that the end of the string marked. Numeric fields gave it as simple variables or as so-called vectors ( arrays). These were multi-dimensional arrays with more elements. For example, A ( 9 ) was a vector with 10 elements (A ( 0 ) to A ( 9) ). A vector B (3.9 ) was a vector with 4 × 10 elements: B ( 0,0) ... B ( 0,9 ), B (1,0) ... B (1,9 ), B (2.0 ) ... B (2,9 ) and B (3,0) ... B (3,9 ). Could be dimensioned in the following types:
After that time scales Business Basic was easy to learn and powerful programming language. This was supported by Basic machine programs that were called by the CALL instruction and countless convenient functions prepared for disposal. Later that Basic was, for example, converted to the Cross-Basic, and then run, inter alia, to Siemens MX and RM computers. For the Windows world, there is still the NetBasic than 16 - and 32- bit version.
Today a derived from Business Basic version called " UniBasic " is marketed for operation under SCO Unix, Linux and Solaris. The surface is still ASCII - oriented - some "modern" features such as windows, databases, etc. are now supported. Under the name "DL -4", there is a based on UniBasic / Business Basic version that runs under Windows.
Short list of instructions
Swell
- Nixdorf 8870 Business BASIC Manual (as of 1 June 1985)