BBC BASIC: Difference between revisions

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===BBC's involvement===

During the 1970s, the BBC Continuing Education Department was considering how advancements in computer related technology would impact British society. Their Microelectronics Report<ref name="Microelectronics_Report">{{cite web |title=Microelectronics Report |url=https://clp.bbcrewind.co.uk/media/BBC-Microelectronic-government-submission.pdf |publisher=BBC Continuing Education Department |access-date=14 January 2024}}</ref> in 1979 to the [[Manpower Services Commission]] describes formally their concerns about increasing polarisation and alienation in the workplace that 43 years earlier Charles Chaplin had shown to comic effect in [[Modern Times (film)|Modern Times]].

The BBC required a [[microcomputer]] usable for demonstrations in their programming that could be purchased by the general public to enable the viewer to themselves experiment. They decided that such a microcomputer needed to be robust, have expansion capabilities and an implementation of BASIC compatible with [[BASIC A|Microsoft BASIC VN5]].<ref name="BBC_Microcomputer_Spec">{{cite web |title=BBC Microcomputer Specification |url=http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/bbcbasic/beebspec.html |publisher=BBC |access-date=14 January 2024}}</ref>

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BBC BASIC for [[Simple DirectMedia Layer|SDL]] was also developed by Richard T. Russell, and is largely compatible with the previous BBC BASIC for Windows, sharing with that dialect many new and advanced features including data structures, PRIVATE variables, an EXIT statement, long strings, event interrupts, an address-of operator, byte variables, a line continuation character, indirect procedure and function calls and improved numeric accuracy. The first version was released in February 2019, and remains in active development {{As of|2024|08|lc=y}}.<ref>{{Cite web |title=BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0|url=https://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/bbcsdl/index.html |access-date=2024-08-05 |website=bbcbasic.co.uk}}</ref> [https://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/bbcsdl/index.html BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0] supports Windows, MacOS, Linux, Raspberry Pi OS, Android, iOS and mobile devices supporting the SDL library,<ref name=":0" /> as well as a version which allows the running of BBC BASIC programs as applets in a web-page via the Web Assembly framework. Programs can be run via the interpreter or compiled to a standalone application bundle which will run without BBC BASIC having to be installed (.exe file in Windows, .dmg file in MacOS, .zip file in Linux or Raspberry Pi OS and .apk file in Android). A high degree of compatibility with the BBC Microcomputer is also retained, including emulation of the SOUND and ENVELOPE statements, and the MODE 7 (teletext) screen mode. BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 incorporates an assembler which depends on the CPU in the platform: x86 (32-bit or 64-bit) for Windows, MacOS or Linux; ARM (32-bit or 64-bit) for Raspberry Pi. In the case of Android the assembler is ARM or x86 as appropriate. Application Program Interface (API) functions can be accessed from BASIC and from assembler code, allowing an experienced programmer to produce sophisticated applications.

A [[GPL]] clone of BBC BASIC named ''Brandy'', written in portable [[C (programming language)|C]], is also available.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://jaguar.orpheusweb.co.uk/branpage.html | title=Brandy | access-date=6 July 2011| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110717080829/http://jaguar.orpheusweb.co.uk/branpage.html| archive-date= 17 July 2011 | url-status= live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=httphttps://sourceforge.net/projects/brandy/ | title=Brandy Basic V Interpreter | access-date=6 July 2011}}</ref> A fork of this, ''Matrix Brandy'', remains under active development.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://brandy.matrixnetwork.co.uk/ | title=Matrix Brandy BASIC VI | access-date=21 August 2023}}</ref>

An emulator of the BBC Micro for the [[Commodore International|Commodore]] [[Amiga]] was produced by Ariadne Software for [[Commodore International|CBM]] (UK). While extremely fast, it did not emulate the 6502 at full speed, so assembly code would run slower than a real BBC while BASIC programs would run much faster. Due to the way the optimised BASIC and the 6502 emulation interacted, almost no commercial games would run but well-behaved code and educational software generally worked. Additionally, it used a slightly less precise [[floating-point]] numeric format. For a while it was bundled with a special academic package of the [[Amiga 500]], in the hope that schools would replace their ageing BBC Bs with Amiga 500s.