i am into old programing languages , esp basic . were there any business apps in basic ? i know there are a ton of

[AllaN01Bear]

scientific apps and games . lots of games . thanks

[bucolic_frolic]

1. chatGPT advises

Yes, there were many business applications written in the BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) programming language, especially during the early days of personal computing in the 1970s and 1980s. BASIC was designed to be simple and accessible, making it an ideal choice for beginners and hobbyists. Many early personal computers, such as the Commodore 64, Apple II, and early IBM PCs, came with BASIC interpreters built into their operating systems.

Businesses and individuals developed a wide range of applications in BASIC, including:

Accounting Software: BASIC was used to create basic accounting and financial applications for small businesses.

Inventory Management: BASIC was employed to develop programs for managing inventory and tracking stock levels.

Word Processing: Basic word processing applications were written in BASIC for early personal computers.

Database Management: BASIC was used to create simple database management systems for organizing and storing business data.

Educational Software: BASIC was popular in developing educational software for teaching programming, mathematics, and other subjects.

Communication Programs: BASIC was used to create early communication programs for tasks like sending and receiving messages.

Small Business Tools: Various tools for managing small businesses, such as appointment scheduling, customer tracking, and invoicing, were developed in BASIC.

As technology advanced, more powerful programming languages and development environments emerged, leading to a shift away from BASIC for serious business applications. However, the simplicity of BASIC and its role in the early days of personal computing played a significant role in introducing many people to programming and computer usage.

[Eugene]

2. Microsoft Excel used Visual Basic to allow users to code extensions.

Microsoft now offers tools to migrate that code to C#.

Way back in the 90s, I used Visual Basic to write a tool that was part of a larger
proprietary system. I eventually rewrote it in C++.

[Captain Zero]

3. I worked in a large corporation

That no longer exists. The businesses and products still exist. In the division of that corporation I worked in we had super minis running basic that was proprietary to us and supplied by a programmer who was a consultant. Huge runs of orders, inventory, manufacturing and sales at satellite locations that ended up feeding data to mainframe runs on Univacs and IBMs. There was a programming department of 8-10 that maintained and tweaked that software at my location. This was in the 1980s. Have fun.

[adnoid]

4. Peachtree Accounting

I recall helping a friend set that up, fairly popular commercial package and it was all interpreted BASIC. It's been sold several times and I'm certain it's not that any more, but it was in the early 1980s.

[willamette]

5. I worked on Taxcut

I worked on Taxcut, before it was acquired by one of the (eventually) huge tax preparation outfits, in the 1987 tax season. It was in BASIC.

[hunter]

6. I remember a whole lot of business stuff written in BASIC and wrote some myself.

Unlike scientific apps and games, which were of great interest to those who would crack the software or eventually release the source code out the back door, a lot of BASIC business apps were boring, proprietary, distributed as boiled down encrypted p-code, copy protected, and eventually forgotten.

My favorite BASICS, for nostalgic recreation are:

-- https://www.bbcbasic.net/bbcsdl/

-- Frank Ostrowski's Turbo Basic XL for the eight bit Ataris

--- and sometimes QB64, standing well removed from the developer conflicts of 2022.