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Why do we use Hello World? - the history behind it

leo on February 06, 2022

Hello World! Oh wait... Hello everyone! I got bored today and did some intense research on the history of Hello World!. My mission (of finding out...

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DJ Quecke • Feb 8 '22 • Edited

I'm mildly insulted by your term "ancient developers" but that aside, I started learning BASIC in high school on a IBM 360 computer in 1976 and "Hello World" was my first program then. You might want to check IBM BASIC documentation for teachers from that period. I did enjoy your article and like to think I'm approaching "ancient" but not quite there yet.

leo • Feb 8 '22 • Edited

Using the term ancient probably was a little harsh, sorry about that!
I'll check the documentation and maybe expand on some points or re-write my article partially :)
Thank you so much for your feedback!
++++
UPDATE: I did intensive research and looked through several BASIC manuals, documentations and books from around 1976, but I sadly didn't find anything!
Still, thank you so much for mentioning that! :) I'm sure it was used a lot for teaching, though it seemingly wasn't yet mentioned in any books...

DJ Quecke • Apr 17 '22

Late night crusing and I found a couple of links I think.
Dartmouth was way ahead of the times in the 60's when they first developed time sharing on a mainframe. Then they developed the BASIC language for these mainframe terminals.

When time sharing was introduced on the IBM\360 they provided the PL/1 and BASIC languages to the terminal users. I also have been unable to find a reference for BAISC on the 360 although I am certain I used it '76, my senior year of high school.

There is a pretty good article at:

time.com/69316/basic/

I also found the textbook I used for APL in '76.

softwarepreservation.org/projects/...

Interesting stuff. Powerful language.

Thanks for your article, it got me thinking of my earliest days with computers.

leo • Jul 4 '22 • Edited

Disclaimer: I'm very sorry for the late response!

wow, it's been a while since I last checked up on DEV and I was quite surprised to see any traction on this post!

Anyway, thank you very much for the two links and the additional research! I read through the article and it was very interesting. I learned a lot of new things from it and it was especially exciting to get to know how computers and programming became more mainstream thanks to BASIC. It truly seems to be a powerful language, thanks for sharing the article!

I'm currently checking out the textbook.

Also, I'm glad you enjoyed the article, thank you very much for reading, giving feedback and doing some more research!

Paul DuBois • Feb 8 '22

What about "Hello World" in 6809 assembler for the Radio Shack Color Computer!

* FILENAME: HELLO.ASM
* CLEARS SCREEN, PRINTS "HELLO WORLD" AND
* WAITS FOR KEYPRESS

    ORG $2A00

START
* CREATE NEW STACK
    STS OLDS
    LDS #24+STK

* CLEAR THE SCREEN
    JSR $A928

* PRINT THE MESSAGE     
    LDX #MESG
LOOP    LDA ,X+
        BEQ KEY

* CALL CHROUT
    JSR [$A002]
    BRA LOOP

* WAIT FOR KEYPRESS        
KEY JSR [$A000]
    BEQ KEY

* RESTORE STACK
    LDS OLDS

* RETURN TO BASIC
DONE    RTS

* DATA
MESG    FCC /HELLO WORLD/
    FCB 13
    FCB 0
OLDS    RMB 2
STK RMW 12
    END START

Courtesy of TRS-80 Coco 6809 ASM Hello World

Arik • Feb 10 '22

Now, that's code.

Paul DuBois • Feb 8 '22

Thanks for your post.

There is actually a movie called, "Hello World". It's a great movie about inclusion and diversity in the software-developer world.

Hello World - Confronting Bias in Software Development

leo • Feb 8 '22

Oh wow! I haven't heard of that one yet! Certainly a movie I will add to my watchlist, thanks! :)

Guillermo Prandi • Feb 7 '22

In my not researched opinion, Hello World is a simpler phrase than "My human understands me", so people to which English is not their first language it might have been more easy to grasp.