Commander X16

Why use BASIC 2?  It's horrible, without any commands for graphics, sound, or the joystick.  Was BASIC 7 more money to license?

18 hours ago, integer_basic said:

Why use BASIC 2?  It's horrible, without any commands for graphics, sound, or the joystick.  Was BASIC 7 more money to license?

Have you checked out the Commander X16 programmer's guide at https://github.com/commanderx16/x16-docs/blob/master/Commander X16 Programmer's Reference Guide.md?  They've added graphics, mouse, and joystick commands to the ahem, basics.

6 minutes ago, Sean said:

Have you checked out the Commander X16 programmer's guide at https://github.com/commanderx16/x16-docs/blob/master/Commander X16 Programmer's Reference Guide.md?  They've added graphics, mouse, and joystick commands to the ahem, basics.

Aha!  Very nice!  Very nice indeed!

On 2/8/2021 at 9:15 PM, Sean said:

Have you checked out the Commander X16 programmer's guide at https://github.com/commanderx16/x16-docs/blob/master/Commander X16 Programmer's Reference Guide.md?  They've added graphics, mouse, and joystick commands to the ahem, basics.

It's still dreadful. The problem is not so much the shortage of the sort of command added, though that is relatively simple. The problems are the failings integrated into the structure (that carry through to BASIC 10) ; almost no program structures , no long identifier names, no local variables. These require significant reengineering to work at all, and are likely to be unstable.

A little bit off-topic: the only Basic I actually liked was GFA-Basic which I used pretty often back on the Amiga.  To be honest, that was the third and last Basic I ever used (C64 Basic V2 -> AmigaBasic -> GFABasic).   I don't think I will ever use Basic on C64 and CommanderX16 but instead revert to assembly straight away (either directly or via cross compiling another programming language)

6 hours ago, paulscottrobson said:

It's still dreadful. The problem is not so much the shortage of the sort of command added, though that is relatively simple. The problems are the failings integrated into the structure (that carry through to BASIC 10) ; almost no program structures , no long identifier names, no local variables. These require significant reengineering to work at all, and are likely to be unstable.

If I had to use BASIC, something more along the lines of QBasic would definitely be preferable, if less retro.  Longer identifier names, structured instead of line numbers, and the TYPE statement to allow some degree of abstraction, all make trying to write something complex much easier and more maintainable.  I will likely stick to C or assembly for anything I write for the X16.  But I was specifically addressing integer_basic's points regarding graphics and joystick.

2 hours ago, Sean said:

If I had to use BASIC, something more along the lines of QBasic would definitely be preferable, if less retro. 

1. The X16 was founded on some objectives based on "good retro".

2. BASIC 7 and BASIC 10 are still "bad retro", like loading files from 5.25" diskettes on a 1541.  That is not what attracts me to the platform.  It gets old, very fast.

• 
  What a quaint old-skool feeling.  I'm back in 1985. 
  


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  How nostalgic!  NOW PLEASE GET ME OUT OF HERE.
  

I've come around to Paul's thinking. 

I'd like some sort of 16K S-BASIC interpreter.  Not transpiled.

I know, I know "You want it, you write it.  No one is stopping you."

 

Well sure.  I can try.  I'm a high-level programmer that knows C.  I can at least write a big fat binary and then think about how to optimize it.  Please wish me luck, because I'm going to need it.

 

2 hours ago, Sean said:

If I had to use BASIC, something more along the lines of QBasic would definitely be preferable, if less retro.  Longer identifier names, structured instead of line numbers, and the TYPE statement to allow some degree of abstraction, all make trying to write something complex much easier and more maintainable.

That pretty much what the Color Maximite is doing, but that of course requires a lot more horsepower, and then BASIC becomes the main way of developing for it and the system itself becomes a black box that just speaks BASIC. And that's great, if that's what you want.

2 hours ago, Sean said:

I will likely stick to C or assembly for anything I write for the X16. 

Yep, and that's great too, and really gets down to the reason that the X16 exists. To have something simple enough that it is relatively easy to work at that level. That is the "dream" after all.

I used the BASIC that came with the C64 and C128 back in the day and while they can be used for various things, they quickly fall short and I abandoned them for Forth and assembly.

With the X16 I will not even bother to try the BASIC, I will go to C and assembly instead. I wish it could boot into Forth and I could choose to play in that environment, or just load (C or assembly) software, then I would be very happy.

Another alternative would be Scheme, I am not sure how feasible that is? My little 8-bit Lisp machine.. ?

1 hour ago, hth313 said:

With the X16 I will not even bother to try the BASIC, I will go to C and assembly instead. I wish it could boot into Forth and I could choose to play in that environment, or just load (C or assembly) software, then I would be very happy.

What would be the obstacle to booting into Forth?