BA67

80s BASIC Interpreter

About

BA67 (pronounced BASIC SEVEN) is a standalone BASIC interpreter, that can be used as a daily tool on a personal computer.

It is inspired by the COMMODORE BASIC V7 (C)1977 from the C128. Three times the digit 7 led to it's name BA67.

If you're familiar with the C64/C128, you will quickly find yourself comfortable with this interpreter. But BASIC is also a very easy to learn programming language as well as an operating system. So it suits perfectly for beginners as well.

Many have programmed BASIC interpreters before, so why another? Well, they all had some sort of limitations, or were written in some strange language that I don't like.

This BASIC is compatible with COMMODORE's BASIC V7, but also features some improvements.

Goal

Back in the 80s, everyone could start a computer and program a simple

10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"
20 GOTO 10

These days there are so many languages and programs to install before the fun starts, that many do not even bother to try it.

The goal of this project is to get people to start programming.

It aims to provide a BASIC language, that sticks to a very widespread standard, keep backwards compatiblity and focus on an easy to learn language with easy to understand syntax and few keywords.

Keeping the backwards compatiblity also enables you to have AI generators answer your questions.

Complex operators, module definitions, structures and inheritance are excluded on purpose. Yet, the language should offer a modular approach for complex programs without introducing complex syntax.

The very final goal would be to have a standalone hardware, that boots to this BASIC.

It features a screen editor that should behave as the retro one does.

Get It

LINUX
Currently, BA67 is designed to convert a Raspberry Pi 400 into a standalone computer, that boots into the BA67 interpreter.
For testing, an image of dietpi.com was used. In order to start the conversion process, download and run - at your own risk - this script: update.sh.
Don't sue me if your files are deleted, your sd card gets broken or your house gets on fire. I did my best to make this working, but things might not work as intended. Do backup all important data before you run this script.

WINDOWS, MAC
While it might acutally work on a MAC, I've not tested it so far.
In order to install this on Windows, get a C++ IDE (VSCodium e.g.) and install git, CMake, make and a C++ compiler. Go to a directory and type git -c user.name=JohnDoe -c user.email=me@privacy.net clone --recurse-submodules --remote-submodules https://github.com/KungPhoo/ba67-basic.git ba67.
Then, open the CMakesList.txt or (depending on your setup) that folder in your IDE and compile the program. If you don't know how to do that, be patient unil there might be setups.

More

View the full README.md for details.