Here's an explanation of as many BASIC dialects as possible.
BASIC was invented in 1964, but for very primitive computers. I don’t know the makes or models, but I think they used punch cards and ticker tape.
Later on, BASIC became divided into two camps, which were DEC BASIC and Data General BASIC. The difference was mainly in handling strings, meaning sequences of characters.
Microsoft chose the DEC BASIC style for their first version of BASIC on the Altair 8800, then continued with this style. This means they used commands such as LEFT$, MID$, and RIGHT$. After this, most people creating new dialects of BASIC chose to follow suit. Some notable exceptions were Atari for their 8 bit computers, and Sinclair for their ZX80, ZX81, and ZX Spectrum computers. They could create a string up to 32K long, but the Microsoft/DEC style BASICs could only create much smaller strings.
Originally, BASIC had no commands for colour, graphics, or sound, but these were added later, when computers with these facilities were released.
Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore did a deal with Microsoft in 1977 that for a one off payment of US$25,000 Commodore would be able to use it for as long as they liked, instead of paying US$3 per computer sold. Apple did a similar deal for their Apple II computer. Commodore added a few commands such as OPEN and CLOSE, each followed by various numbers, to deal with files and devices. After this, Microsoft were busy adding commands for colour, graphics and sound to their BASIC. These included SET and RESET (later PSET and PRESET) for plotting and unplotting pixels, LINE for drawing lines, etc, but Commodore didn’t want to buy an updated BASIC from Microsoft. Instead of this, they continued to use their BASIC without commands for colour, graphics or sound on their VIC-20 and Commodore 64 computers for the entire lifetimes of those computers! Lots of users of the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 wanted a BASIC that had commands for colour, graphics and sound, instead of using or failing to use numerous PEEK and POKE commands, so Commodore released cartridges called the Super Expander for the VIC-20 and the Super Expander 64 for the C64, which had commands to use these facilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Expander_64 However, Commodore made up their own commands, including GRAPHIC, BOX, SSHAPE, and GSHAPE. Apple DID go back to Microsoft for an updated BASIC, though. Commodore also bought and sold Simons’ BASIC with quite different commands, programmed by Commodore PET and C64 user David Simons. Lots of third party companies created and sold their own extended BASICs for the C64, each with different commands.
Atari had commands such as GRAPHICS, PLOT, DRAWTO, COLOR, and SETCOLOR for their 8 bit computers, including for their 128 then later 256 colours, but no commands for their sprites.
Acorn Computers created their own BASIC dialects, such as Atom BASIC for their Atom computer, then BBC BASIC for their BBC Microcomputer, after being awarded a contract by the BBC to create a computer for their Computer Literacy Project. BBC BASIC has a lot of influence from the Pascal language, with commands such as DEF PROC and END PROC for creating named procedures and PROC (name) for calling up those procedures instead of having to use GOSUB line number. Another PASCAL influence is that it also has long, meaningful variable names and structured programming, such as REPEAT UNTIL… loops, which can run either forever, or until the condition FALSE is met. BBC BASIC doesn’t use PEEK or POKE commands at all, because these have been replaced with a question mark “?” called an indirection operator. Acorn produced four ROM based versions of BBC BASIC for their 8 bit computers. A few years after BBC BASIC was released, Sinclair produced something called SuperBASIC for their not very popular QL computer, which is similar to BBC BASIC in many ways. Acorn later produced BBC BASIC V for their Archimedes computers, which are 32 bit ARM machines.
Meanwhile, Microsoft were upgrading their BASIC, which was bought in three different versions over the years by Tandy for their Color Computer, nicknamed “CoCo”. Microsoft also produced GWBASIC for PCs. These BASICs were combined and extended to produce an even more advanced BASIC for MSX computers, which are almost unknown in the USA. MSX was a standard for home computers which originated in Japan, created by a company called ASCII Microsoft, which had bought the rights to Microsoft products for the far east. MSX BASIC added commands for interrupts, as well as for designing sprites.
Meanwhile, in the UK, a consumer electronics company called Amstrad decided to bring out a computer which had a combination of lots of good features from other computers, as well as an excellent BASIC. They went to Locomotive Software, who then made them a BASIC based on BBC BASIC, but deleted the PASCAL type commands, kept the long variable names, then added commands for interrupts, as well as rewriting the BBC BASIC commands SOUND and ENVELOPE to give programmers more control over the AY-3-8912 sound chip than ever before. It was called Locomotive BASIC for the Amstrad CPC computers.
Later on, Commodore started releasing computers which had versions of their Super Expander BASICs built in. These were the Commodore 16, Commodore Plus/4 and Commodore 116 with Commodore BASIC V3.5 instead of V2 on the C64. Out of these three, the original and cheaper design Commodore 116 with a rubber keyboard was only available in Europe, with most of them sold in West Germany. Eventually, Commodore bought the rights to the Amiga computer and decided to go back to Microsoft to buy a version of BASIC for it. Microsoft provided Commodore with a version similar to their MacIntosh BASIC. AmigaBASIC has no need for line numbers, although it can use them if preferred, includes labels instead of line numbers for programs to jump to, commands for sprites, local variables, pull down menus, mouse control, and speech synthesis. As part of this deal, Commodore had to agree to acknowledge Microsoft on the startup screen of their Commodore 128 computer, which uses Commodore BASIC V7 Copyright Commodore 1985 and Microsoft 1977. Commodore BASIC V7 added a few commands to Commodore BASIC V3.5, including for controlling the SID sound chip.
Recommended reading includes “30 Hour BASIC” by BBC and NEC, published in different versions for most popular computers of the early 1980S in the UK. There are editions of this for Atari 8 bit, Acorn BBC, Commodore 64, Oric, Sinclair ZX81, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, as well as possibly some others, and a Standard or General edition. I won’t post a link, because there are so many versions. I can also recommend the BBC Micro User Guide on https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14024 Apart from this, I can recommend “SuperBASIC - The Definitive Handbook” https://sinclairql.speccy.org/archivo/d ... lsbtdh.pdf , as well as MSX BASIC Guide by JVC on https://hansotten.file-hunter.com/uploa ... sicjvc.pdf and the official AmigaBASIC manual on https://archive.org/details/Amiga_BASIC_1985_Commodore
