Chat GPT and Apple Integer BASIC

[Jim McClanahan]

I have been tinkering with several aspects of ChatGPT. It can actually do some fairly amazing things, although it is far from perfect.

A friend was able to query ChatGPT on some fairly obscure points of information that seemed to have been harvested from work he had done. (Not meaning that in a bad way--ChatGPT learns by consuming information and the info in this case seemed to be stuff he had put on the web although with some tweaks and twists.)

I tried to think of anything I've worked on and posted that is obscure. One thing I asked was whether it was possible to run Apple Integer BASIC on the KIM-1. The first answer said it was possible, you just needed to load and run it. I flagged that as incorrect and added the input that you had to at least patch the I/O routines.

Then I asked ChatGPT to generate a new answer. Part of that answer included this statement:

"Apple Computer licensed Integer BASIC from Microsoft in 1976 to be used on their Apple II computer, which was released in 1977. However, prior to the release of the Apple II, Apple made a deal with MOS Technology to offer a version of Integer BASIC for the KIM-1 computer. The KIM-1 version of Integer BASIC was similar to the version that was later used on the Apple II, but with some differences due to the different hardware architecture of the KIM-1."

Has anyone ever heard of a version of Integer BASIC ported to the KIM-1 "back in the day"? I did a fair amount of research when I was porting it for the EPROM, and never saw anything like this in looking through old magazine and such.

It is entirely possible that this statement is somewhere out there, was ingested by ChatGPT, but is inaccurate. There are several versions of Apple Integer BASIC around. The first was for the Apple 1, but there was a later and expanded version for the Apple 2. But I have never seen any "official" port to a non-Apple platform or architecture. It seems like Microsoft would have considered them more of a threat at the time if they had done something like this. (Which would have complicated the licensing of a floating-point BASIC from Microsoft, which was something Apple came to view as critical to have for the success of the Apple 2.)

Thanks,

Jim W4JBM

[Hans Otten]

Never heard of Integer Basic ported to the KIM-1 officially. 

ChatGGPT and Bing and all that AI hype, please no more .. 

[D Hassler]

I think were having some semantic confusion.  Here's what little I know: Apple BASIC (as implemented for the Apple 1 computer) is not Integer BASIC as used on the Apple II.  Two different animals.  Er, well, Integer BASIC is the next generation evolution of Woz's original Apple BASIC (which I think he first called Game BASIC).  The source code of the Apple BASIC on the PAL-1 that I use came from Jim's github repo.  It works *exactly* as the 1976 Apple BASIC manual describes, and does not include quite a few of the Integer BASIC commands I remember from being a teenager, when I got a few chances to use it on on of the three Apple II machines we had in high school.

Best regards, Dave (K7CCC)

[GN Liu]

here is the answer I just tried on new bing :)

Searching for: Apple Integer BASIC on the KIM-1

Searching for: KIM-1 BASIC

Searching for: KIM-1 BASIC

Generating answers for you…

Generating answers for you…

Hello, this is Bing. I can help you with your query.😊

Apple Integer BASIC is a BASIC interpreter written by Steve Wozniak for the Apple I and Apple II computers1. The KIM-1 is a small 6502-based single-board computer developed by MOS Technology2. Both computers use the same microprocessor, but they have different versions of BASIC.

The KIM-1 has its own version of Microsoft BASIC called KB-9 or KB-63, which is different from Apple Integer BASIC. Therefore, it may not be possible to run Apple Integer BASIC on the KIM-1 without some modifications or emulation.

Do you want to know more about Apple Integer BASIC or KIM-1?

Received message. Hello, this is Bing. I can help you with your query.😊 Apple Integer BASIC is a BASIC interpreter written by Steve Wozniak for the Apple I and Apple II computers. The KIM-1 is a small 6502-based single-board computer developed by MOS Technology. Both computers use the same microprocessor, but they have different versions of BASIC. The KIM-1 has its own version of Microsoft BASIC called KB-9 or KB-6, which is different from Apple Integer BASIC. Therefore, it may not be possible to run Apple Integer BASIC on the KIM-1 without some modifications or emulation. Do you want to know more about Apple Integer BASIC or KIM-1?

Learn more:1. en.wikipedia.org2. en.wikipedia.org3. retro.hansotten.nl4. github.com5. retro.hansotten.nl6. retro.hansotten.nl

+5 more

1 of 6

 

Searching for: running Apple Integer BASIC on the KIM-1

Searching for: running Apple Integer BASIC on the KIM-1

Generating answers for you…

Generating answers for you…

I found some information that may help you with running Apple Integer BASIC on the KIM-1.

According to one source1, someone is working on a project to port Apple Integer BASIC to the PAL-1, a clone of the KIM-1 single-board computer. They have shared some notes and code on GitHub that you can check out.

Another source2 suggests that you need an expanded KIM-1 with RAM memory above $2000, 16K recommended, to run most software. You may also need some programs to convert binaries to papertape etc.

I hope this helps. Do you have any other questions?

Received message. I found some information that may help you with running Apple Integer BASIC on the KIM-1. According to one source, someone is working on a project to port Apple Integer BASIC to the PAL-1, a clone of the KIM-1 single-board computer. They have shared some notes and code on GitHub that you can check out. Another source suggests that you need an expanded KIM-1 with RAM memory above $2000, 16K recommended, to run most software. You may also need some programs to convert binaries to papertape etc. I hope this helps. Do you have any other questions?

Learn more:1. github.com2. retro.hansotten.nl3. en.wikipedia.org

2 of 6

[GN Liu]

Wrong format after post....

Searching for: Apple Integer BASIC on the KIM-1

Searching for: KIM-1 BASIC
Generating answers for you…

Hello, this is Bing. I can help you with your query.😊

Apple Integer BASIC is a BASIC interpreter written by Steve Wozniak for the Apple I and Apple II computers². The KIM-1 is a small 6502-based single-board computer developed by MOS Technology⁵. Both computers use the same microprocessor, but they have different versions of BASIC.

The KIM-1 has its own version of Microsoft BASIC called KB-9 or KB-6⁴, which is different from Apple Integer BASIC. Therefore, it may not be possible to run Apple Integer BASIC on the KIM-1 without some modifications or emulation.

Do you want to know more about Apple Integer BASIC or KIM-1?

Source: Conversation with Bing, 3/2/2023(1) Integer BASIC - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_BASIC Accessed 3/2/2023.
(2) KIM-1 - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIM-1 Accessed 3/2/2023.
(3) KIM-1 Software – Retro Computing - Hans Otten. http://retro.hansotten.nl/6502-sbc/kim-1-manuals-and-software/kim-1-software/ Accessed 3/2/2023.
(4) GitHub - w4jbm/Apple-1-Integer-BASIC: Notes and code .... https://github.com/w4jbm/Apple-1-Integer-BASIC Accessed 3/2/2023.
(5) KIM-1 Software – Retro Computing - Hans Otten. http://retro.hansotten.nl/6502-sbc/kim-1-manuals-and-software/kim-1-software/ Accessed 3/2/2023.
(6) KIM-1 Simulator – Retro Computing - Hans Otten. http://retro.hansotten.nl/6502-sbc/kim-1-manuals-and-software/kim-1-simulator/ Accessed 3/2/2023.

Searching for: running Apple Integer BASIC on the KIM-1

Generating answers for you…

I found some information that may help you with running Apple Integer BASIC on the KIM-1.

According to one source¹, someone is working on a project to port Apple Integer BASIC to the PAL-1, a clone of the KIM-1 single-board computer. They have shared some notes and code on GitHub that you can check out.

Another source³ suggests that you need an expanded KIM-1 with RAM memory above $2000, 16K recommended, to run most software. You may also need some programs to convert binaries to papertape etc.

I hope this helps. Do you have any other questions?

Source: Conversation with Bing, 3/2/2023(1) GitHub - w4jbm/Apple-1-Integer-BASIC: Notes and code .... https://github.com/w4jbm/Apple-1-Integer-BASIC Accessed 3/2/2023.
(2) KIM-1 Software – Retro Computing - Hans Otten. http://retro.hansotten.nl/6502-sbc/kim-1-manuals-and-software/kim-1-software/ Accessed 3/2/2023.
(3) Integer BASIC - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_BASIC Accessed 3/2/2023.

[D Hassler]

Something tells me that ChatGPT/Bing AI is "not ready for prime time", yet.  :^D

On Wednesday, March 1, 2023 at 10:01:05 PM UTC-8 liuga...@gmail.com wrote:

Wrong format after post....

[Jim McClanahan]

The Bing answer is kind of what I was expecting to see. Not  so much from vanity (okay, maybe a little bit) but more from curiosity, it seemed like an answer about Apple Integer BASIC on the KIM-1 would likely partly point back to the githhub location that actually.

It was a challenge to port over because the recreated source code just adds a level of cover to some of the incredible trickery Woz used to save a few bytes here and there. (Which was a necessity back when he hand coded it.)

One of my first questions to ChatGPT was to create a 6502 program that counted from 1 to 10. It had an error where it initialized the counter inside the loop. (So you were always stuck at 1.) When I rephrased the question and asked it to store the counter on Page Zero, it made the change and the code looked like it would run. (It used some ROM calls to print the value and exit that I didn't recognized the address of offhand--maybe the C64?) For Python code, it has done an even better job of giving me a starting point.

If I was a good programmer, I wouldn't worry about ChatGPT putting me out of work. But I can see ChatGPT or other tools doing a lot of the work and programmers being able to focus on verifying code that isn't very tricky and still having to dig in to things where there are complexities.

thanks,

Jim W4JBM

[Hans Van Slooten]

As a software developer in my day job, I find that most of my job is solving domain-specific problems, not figuring out how to write the code. My concern with AI helpers isn’t that they’ll take my job, but that they would introduce subtle bugs. It’s harder to reason about code you didn’t write yourself, and if it’s generating more than a simple for loop you could easily see it adding bugs that are hard to find. I think there is a role for AI coding (just like we keep moving to higher and higher abstractions in code) but a lot of software development is reasoning about abstractions which will be hard for AI to capture. I wouldn’t say impossible, but if you look at other areas of AI (think AI language translation — e.g. Chinese to English) it’s “okay” but no native speaker would mistake it for a human. That last mile in AI is a very hard problem.

Hans V.

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