Business Basic is a category of variants of theBASIC computer programming language which were specialized for business use onminicomputers in the 1970s and 1980s. To the underlying BASIC language, these dialects addedrecord handling instructions similar to those inCOBOL, allowing programmers to build complex file-handling applications using what was at that time a much more modern programming language.MAI Systems released the first example asMAI Basic Four in 1972,[1] and several similar versions emerged through the 1970s.
Business Basics addedindexed file access methods to the normal set of BASIC commands, and were optimised for other input/output access, especiallydisplay terminal control. The two major families of Business Basic are Basic/Four andData General Business Basic. In addition, the Point 4 company, which developed the IRIS operating system, had their own version of BASIC. The UniBASIC owned by Dynamic Concepts of Irvine is a derivative of the Point 4 BASIC.
In the 1980s, Business Basics were ported from their original proprietary environments to manyUnix platforms,CP/M, and toDOS. In the 1990s, some Business Basics were ported toLinux andWindows, and Business Basicintegrated development environments became available. Notably, in 1990 MAI's version was ported from their BOSSoperating system to become the multi-platform Open BASIC.
Business Basic continues to be widely used due to the very large base of application software.