> I'm not sure it makes sense to speak of "the BASIC language 
> has survived".
> It's more the name that has survived, not the language. I 
> don't see that VB.NET is any closer to the original BASIC 
> than Delphi to Pascal. Or C99 to K&R C. 
> 
> IMO one of the main components of BASIC popularity is 
> Microsoft's adoption of it in the form of VB. Without VB, 
> BASIC would be a niche language today, much more niche than 
> FORTRAN or COBOL. And this was a pretty much arbitrary 
> decision (arbitrary in terms of language, not in terms of 
> business or marketing). Delphi is similar in many respects 
> (one is that Pascal would be quite a niche language without 
> it); it's just not quite as widespread because it's not from 
> Microsoft. (BTW, it is my impression that Delphi is much less 
> common in the USA than elsewhere, more specifically Brazil and
> Europe.)


Also when the 'home computer' industry started, Basic was on practically
every one of those machines.  After all, that's how Bill Gates got started,
he was first with Basic for the Altair.  It's no surprise that Microsoft
pushes Basic, even if just in name alone these days.  Even that's done
half-heartedly.

MS Office helps with VBA, the VBA engine appears in a surprisingly large
number of products, including non-MS, such as AutoCAD.

IIRC, there was a licencing issue with USCD Pascal, there was a case where
the licence got pulled, leaving a few people upset.  That wouldn't have
helped it spread.

Practically every language survives in a little niche somewhere, I did Y2K
work on a Borland Pascal system.  Still plenty of COBOL out there.  

Almost all of those hand-held bar code scanners have some sort of Basic
variant in there.  I always liked these -
http://www.microassociates.net/mars-electronics/meq-300.html.

Same Mars as makes the chocolates.  The keypad rotates 180 degrees for
left/right hand use, optical RS232 (+ a 9-pin), battery in the handle so it
had a nice balance.

Tony

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