What does REM stand for in BASIC?

26
votes

Here's a blast from the past: what does "REM", the comment marker, stand for in BASIC? What's the origin of this non-obvious term?

5
historybasic
REM is also used by DOS Batch files for the very same purpose -- comments. - Jon Limjap
BTW: using REM as an abbreviation for remark might be non-obvious, but it certainly beats using // as an abbreviation for comment. - Jörg W Mittag

5 Answers

55
votes

I believe it stands for "Remark", that is, a comment. From the MSDN site:

Used to include explanatory remarks in the source code of a program.

7
votes

It was REMark, back in the late Steam Age (ca. 1971 or so), when I first encountered BASIC.

Most approachable book I've ever found on the language was "My Computer Likes Me (When I Speak In BASIC)", or something like that.

For extra credit and mondo greybeard rep points: BASIC is an acronym (maybe a backronym, but whatever), for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.

I hated BASIC when I first ran into it, because I learned FORTRAN IV first, and BASIC seemed incredibly primitive. It was a long time before I got comfortable with the idea that BASIC was actually a lot easier to use for the kind of casual numbercrunching it was designed to do.

6
votes

It's an abbreviation for "remark", valid only at the beginning of the line (unlike vb.net), after the line number (if any).

0
votes

I always thought of it as "reminder", myself, but Chris Bunch is probably right - "remark" seems more likely.

0
votes

In some dialects of QBasic the following is true:

REM $STATIC
or
' $STATIC

REM $DYNAMIC
or
' $DYNAMIC

$DYNAMIC sets aside storage for arrays while the program is running.
$STATIC sets aside storage for arrays during compilation.

REM $INCLUDE: 'filespec'
      or
' $INCLUDE: 'filespec'

 filespec    The name of a BASIC program file, which can include a
             path. Use single quotation marks around filespec.