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On a slight side tangent a discussion of related old fads in IT might be interesting. Some eternally reoccur like a wheel, some haven't returned... yet.

Whats changed since then, is more than just the syntax of if/then statements.

GOTO

automatic / implicit strong typing of variables (and believe it or not, a FORTRAN "feature" to change how the automatic name based typing operated resulting in eternal confusion from that day onward)

Intermediate code (tokenized basic, pascal P-system, JVM). And unlike the p-system or JVM, virtually every tokenized basic was incompatible with every other tokenized basic.

Line oriented program editing and its companion, the line number. I think the concept of a line number might freak out modern noobs more than the concept of line oriented editing, hard to say.

To some extent, backward compatibility is seen less and less as a feature as time goes on.

Your computer powers up and boots in less than a second to a REPL for BASIC.

Numeric / non-humane usernames

Direct access to hardware with no "OS" in the way




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