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Tiny BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language that can fit into as little as 2 or 3 KB of memory. This small size made it invaluable in the early days of s (the mid-1970s), when typical memory size was only 4–8 KB. The prevalence of BASIC on the first generation of home computers is an outcome of Tiny BASIC.〔("Dr. Dobb’s Journal" )〕 ==An early free software project== Tiny BASIC is an example of a free software project that existed before the free software movement. It started in the newsletter of the People's Computer Company in 1975. Dennis Allison, a member of the Computer Science faculty at Stanford University, wrote a specification for a simple version of the BASIC programming language.〔 The ACM Special Interest Group on Programming Languages (SIGPLAN) reprinted the Tiny Basic design notes from the January 1976 Tiny BASIC Journal.〕 He was urged to create the standard by Bob Albrecht of the Homebrew Computer Club. He had seen BASIC on minicomputers and felt it would be the perfect match for new machines like the MITS Altair 8800, which had been released in January 1975. This design did not support text strings and only used integer arithmetic. The goal was for the program to fit in 2 to 3 kilobytes of memory. The Tiny BASIC contents of the newsletter soon became ''Dr. Dobb's Journal of Tiny BASIC'' with a subtitle of "Calisthenics & Orthodontia, Running Light Without Overbyte." Hobbyists began writing BASIC language interpreters for their microprocessor-based home computers and sending the source code to ''Dr. Dobb's Journal'' and other magazines to be published. Dick Whipple and John Arnold wrote an interpreter that required only 3K of RAM. By the middle of 1976, Tiny BASIC interpreters were available for the Intel 8080, the Motorola 6800 and MOS Technology 6502 processors. This was a forerunner of the free software community's collaborative development before the internet allowed easy transfer of files, and was an example of a free software project before the free software movement.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Open hardware: How and why it works )〕 Computer hobbyists would exchange paper tapes, cassettes or even retype the files from the printed listings. Jim Warren, editor of ''Dr. Dobb's Journal'', wrote in the July 1976 ACM Programming Language newsletter about the motivations and methods of this successful project. He started with this: "There is a viable alternative to the problems raised by Bill Gates in his irate letter to computer hobbyists concerning 'ripping off' software. When software is free, or so inexpensive that it's easier to pay for it than to duplicate it, then it won't be 'stolen'." The Bill Gates letter was written to make software into products. The alternative method was to have an experienced professional do the overall design and then outline an implementation strategy. Knowledgeable amateurs would implement the design for a variety of computer systems. Warren predicted this strategy would be continued and expanded.〔 The May 1976 issue of ''Dr. Dobbs Journal'' had Li-Chen Wang's Palo Alto Tiny BASIC for the Intel 8080 microprocessor. The listing began with the usual title, author's name and date but it also had "@COPYLEFT ALL WRONGS RESERVED".〔 Source code begins with the following six lines. "TINY BASIC FOR INTEL 8080; VERSION 1.0; BY LI-CHEN WANG; 10 JUNE, 1976; @COPYLEFT; ALL WRONGS RESERVED" The June date in the May issue is correct. The magazine was behind schedule, the June and July issues were combined to catch up.〕 A fellow Homebrew Computer Club member, Roger Rauskolb, modified and improved Li-Chen Wang's program and this was published in the December 1976 issue of ''Interface Age'' magazine.〔 The source code begins with the following nine lines: TINY BASIC FOR INTEL 8080; VERSION 2.0; BY LI-CHEN WANG; MODIFIED AND TRANSLATED TO INTEL MNEMONICS; BY ROGER RAUSKOLB; 10 OCTOBER, 1976 ; @COPYLEFT; ALL WRONGS RESERVED〕 Roger added his name and preserved the COPYLEFT Notice. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tiny BASIC」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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