So I've done a bit of tiling in my houses over the year, with no issues or questions, but now I'm planning to tile a small portion of my basement....

question is... it is a concrete floor basement from 1940, in good shape with no real cracks that I can see... can i tile directly onto the conrete, or do i need to use something in between the concrete and the mortar/tile... i've seen a few things on-line but am still confused as to waht I am supposed to do.. i've always tiled inside the house before with wood subfloors and used concrete backerboard... but not sure what to do in the basement... thanks

First put a little water on the floor.If it soaks in then the floor is not sealed and your good. If it sits there, then it's sealed and you have a problem. Because of the age of the floor and the whole asbestos thing. You can either take a chance with a membrane or really good thinset, or have the slab tested for asbestos. If it has asbestos then it becomes a major problem. If it doesn't then you can grind the top surface off.
O.k. pretending your slab is free of bad stuff; clean it really good to remove the stuff that has built up for the last 60 years. After that fix the floor of any low spots. Then finally the answer you actually asked; of course you can stick directly to concrete. It's almost the same as sticking to cement board.