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From: The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: The joy of FORTRAN-like languages
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2024 18:12:10 +0100
Organization: A little, after lunch
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On 30/09/2024 17:31, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>> On Sun, 29 Sep 2024 07:16:43 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> Curly braces. I had a friend who said 'you cant program in C on an Apple
>>> because there are no curly braces'.
>>>
>>> I think I sent him a header file with
>>>
>>> #define BEGIN {
>>> #define END }
>>
>> As of C99, there is a standard C header file called iso646.h. Its contents
>> look like
> 
> Back in the early days of C standardization ('89), trigraphs were supported
> to handle characters missing from the compiler character set.
> 
> Specifically to handle the braces (??< and ??>).

That friend  said that around 1983. About the Apple II (released 1978)

The Apple II had no | or \ or { or } or even [ or ]  on the keycaps. Nor 
_ or ~

These were added for the Apple III. I have no idea whether they were  in 
fact able to display  them or to enter them via some obscure sequence of 
keystrokes, but it wasn't a simple process.

The easy way would be to use a generate a macro file like
printf("#define BEGIN %c\n", 123 );

....and so on to bootstrap being able to write the code using what 
keyboard input you had.


Looking back, it seems unlikely that any programming language apart from 
BASIC or ASSEMBLER would be possible.

There were compilers for 6502s  but the rather large runtime libraries 
made them a poor choice for small memory machines. BASIC was in ROM and 
ASSEMBLER only used what you wanted it to use

Personally I thought the Apple II was a rich boy's toy.

Come to think of it, that sums up nearly every apple product..



-- 
“Some people like to travel by train because it combines the slowness of 
a car with the cramped public exposure of 
an airplane.”

Dennis Miller