ST Basic - inspired by QDOS?

[stephen_usher]

BASIC is/was the best starting language (controversial!) BECAUSE it doesn't have typing and it reasonably limited.

For a start it can pass the "annoy your parents/siblings in 10 minutes" test, at least on the old micros, with easily accessible sound commands etc. That's a great hook for 13 year olds.

Before you can get anywhere in modern languages there's a steep learning curve, not only of the language structure and syntax but also multiple libraries etc. It may be very powerful and flexible but it's also complex and difficult.

Just try to write a program in Python on a Raspberry Pi to play an annoying sound at the same time as printing your name on the screen in multiple colours in 2 minutes... Something ZX Spectrum BASIC, SuperBASIC, BBC BASIC can all do in a small number of lines. Almost instant gratification, instant syntax error checking without having to go through the edit, "compile", run cycle. It's a very low barrier to entry.

With respect to ST BASIC, it was a bit rubbish when moving over to it from SuperBASIC as it was so primitive in comparison. You'd have thought that Metacommco, with its experience with the QL, could have learnt some lessons from the Sinclair product.

With regards to SuperBASIC it's not quite a perfect language. It could do with being able to evaluate strings as mathematical expressions and the addition of structures but otherwise it's close to a modern language anyway.

[Pr0f]

Having used a good few BASIC's over the years and written 2 for myself for small boards, I think SuperBasic is an excellent implementation and complements the unusual OS that it integrates with.

Yes there is big manual - but most of the regular language elements work in the way you might expect, so you only need to dip into the manual for lesser used keywords and functions or for the unexpected twists and extras in these elements.

[pjw]

<>

Clearly, you have very decided views on the matter. But propounding them, ex cathedra, as if no other views were possible, rubbishes not only all other views (and they must be presumed to exist!) but those who hold them. That is neither polite nor politic.

[Pr0f]

Basic is today nowhere to be found

You are not looking very hard - BASIC is implemented on many small micro systems, either as a compiled form or interpeted - as a Tiny basic it exists on the ESP32 platform - why did they do that if it is such a useless language - people do things for a reason...

Much less ANY builtin basic that came along ANY machine EVER.

And yet Basic of a sort is incorporated into MS Office products - those are still being sold - depends on how far you are casting your gaze, you world seems smaller than mine??

I can't recall ONE instance where they were used for anything really useful, let alone great.

But again this is your point of view from your exposure to the world of IT and BASIC. The usefulness of an implementation would surely be something the developper / user would have to proffer their opinion on the usefulness of it.

Even more, all they did was create a digital swamp that burried the machine.
Not that much was used in Spectrum or QL ROM but since one could never know where particular incompatibility could pop up,
everyone had to walk like on egg shells all the time. This totally botched any real upgrades and cemented the machine.
To a platform that was never great to begin with

You are going to need to explain that sentence - I read it through a couple of times but it didn't make a hill of beans sense to me.

[Pr0f]

Interface 2 - the ROM cartridge add on for the spectrum - made the requirement for anything in the original ROM redundant.

The ZX Spectrum was built to a price, designed to compete for the Micro in Schools program the BBC were promoting in the early eighties - the Acorn machine won - it was a much better designed Micro - but it was twice the price - and almost all the kids at the time got a ZX for use at home.

[Pr0f]

ANother historic artefact. BAsic as a language that gets used by Excel beancounters.
That's so going to place man on the moon one day...

Don't tell me you missed that?!

[Pr0f]

Interface 2 - the ROM cartridge add on for the spectrum - made the requirement for anything in the original ROM redundant.

But it had to work along original ROM. very sequence for ROM switch was tied to specific pattern in original ROM.

Incorrect - it sat in the same ROM space and had not switch in/out - that was Interface 1. Do your research fella.

[Pr0f]

That's actually quite a nice keyboard for the ZX - I don't recall seeing them back in the day.

[janbredenbeek]

A lot has been written about the ZX Spectrum ROM and the stories behind it - the most funny thing being that Sinclair actually never owned the rights because he 'forgot' to officially buy them. Amstrad had to buy it separately from the creators at Nine Tiles.

From my point of view, ZX BASIC has evolved from a 4K tiny integer BASIC interpreter (ZX80) via a limited version of BASIC with FP (ZX81) to a product that could more or less compete with Microsoft BASIC at the time (I wouldn't say 'compatible' given the fact that I spent more than a year to make it BASICODE compliant ). The main problem with it was that the code was still based on data structures carried over from the memory-cramped ZX80 and '81 (a good example being the 1-letter restriction on string, array and for-next variables). But it is well known that Sir Clive didn't want a complete rewrite from scratch. Given that, the developers have done their best to implement some concept of what could be a proper filing system (using channels and streams), but they didn't have the time and resources to do it properly (as the story goes the development continued some months after the launch, but by then there were too many Spectrums sold to recall them for an update).

On the other hand, Commodore went the other way by implementing an old version of Microsoft BASIC in the '64 that couldn't even remotely utilise its powerful sound and graphics capabilities - probably because it was meant to be aimed at the games playing consumer.

The Spectrum - as probably viewed by Sir Clive - was meant to be a machine for learning programming skills but eventually became a games machine too - albeit with less hardware capabilities until the 128K Spectrum came along. Nevertheless, if I had bought a C64 instead of a Spectrum I would probably have faced a much steeper curve in learning how to program.

Fortunately, the QL was designed from scratch without most of the 'ballast' of its predecessors, though the last-minute decision to put SuperBASIC in ROM was IMHO a mistake leading to the delayed delivery and bad press. It would have been better to equip the QL with a simple shell and supply SB as a loadable application on MDV or ROM extension. That said, SuperBASIC was at the time one of the best BASICs around, even better than the BBC's. AFAIK there were no BASICs around which let you extend it with your own keywords and functions - in BASIC as well as machinecode!

Jan

[pjw]

AFAIAC, SuperBASIC was never more than a way of stringing together
bits of assembler. And it took out the tediousness of having to write
reams of glue code to produce GUIs and other necessary bits and bobs
to keep the show on the road. The code that actually does the work of
a program are the machine code commands, aided and abetted by the
willing cooperation of Qdos.

While S*BASIC may not be suitable to write an operating system in (or
maybe one can?) its good enough to write its own compiler, as Turbo
and Q-Liberator can attest.

S*BASIC isnt great because it is BASIC, or some kind of universal
computer programming language, but because it is well-integrated into
the "QL" system; they fit like hand in glove. And since this is a site
for QL-loving people, thats good enough for me!