James S. Coan

The twofold purpose of this textbook was (1) to teach advanced BASIC and (2) to teach advanced college mathematics.

There were two prerequisites for this book. (1) It was written for students who had already taken an introductory course in BASIC, FORTRAN, or COBOL and (2) it was written for students who had already taken a second year course in college algebra.

There is a review chapter at the beginning of this book to bring students up to speed in BASIC programming.

The first part of the book deals with extended features of BASIC, such as, string handling, file handling, and plotting graphs on a TTY terminal. These topics are covered in detail.

The applications chapters deal with topics in advanced mathematics in the areas of coordinate geometry, area, sequences and series, polynomials, graphing, simulation, and games.

The programs in this book were developed on a General Electric time-sharing system to which was attached a Model 33 TTY terminal. (The Model 33 was ubiquitous as a console device in the early minicomputer era.)

My TRS-80 Model I Microcomputer running Radio Shack's Level II Disk BASIC could run most of the programs in this book very little modification.… (mais)

This college textbook was written with a twofold purpose in mind: (1) to teach computer programming and (2) to teach mathematics. First-year college algebra is the prerequisite for a course using this book.

The first half of the book teaches programming in BASIC. It assumes that students will have access to a time-sharing computer and that they have a teletype terminal that can read programs from and write programs to a paper tape.

The second half of the book consists of applications covering topics related to precalculus mathematics.

Although the programs in this book were developed on something like a DEC or General Electric time-sharing minicomputer running a primitive dialect of BASIC, I was able to run most of the programs listed in the book without modification on my TRS-80 Model I computer running Radio Shack's Level II Disk BASIC.… (mais)