Editing True BASIC (section)

==History==
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True BASIC traces its history to an offshoot of [[Dartmouth BASIC]] called Structured BASIC, or [[Dartmouth_BASIC#SBASIC|SBASIC]] for short. This was released sometime in 1975 or 1976, but was not installed as the mainline version of BASIC on the [[Dartmouth Time-Sharing System]] (DTSS) that supported the campus. Shortly after, Kemeny became involved in an effort to produce an [[ANSI]] standard BASIC in an attempt to bring together the many small variations of the language that had developed through the late 1960s and early 1970s. This effort initially focused on a system known as [[Minimal BASIC]] that was similar to earliest versions of Dartmouth BASIC, while later work was aimed at a [[Full BASIC]] that was essentially SBASIC with various extensions.

By the early 1980s, tens of millions of [[home computer]]s were running some variation of [[Microsoft BASIC]], which had become the ''de facto'' standard. The ANSI efforts eventually became pointless, as it became clear that these versions were not going to have any market impact in a world dominated by Microsoft. Both versions were eventually ratified but saw little or no adoption and the standards were later withdrawn. Kemeny and Kurtz, however, decided to continue their efforts to introduce the concepts from SBASIC and the ANSI Standard BASIC efforts. This became True BASIC.

Initially based on Dartmouth BASIC 7, True BASIC was introduced in 1985. There are versions of the True BASIC [[compiler]] for [[MS-DOS]], [[Microsoft Windows]], and [[Classic Mac OS]]. At one time, versions for [[TRS-80 Color Computer]], [[Amiga]] and [[Atari ST]] computers were offered, as well as a [[UNIX]] command-line compiler.