QD SBASIC Parser Thing

[RalfR]

Hi,

QBASIC was sold as a separate program from QD. I still have the original disk and manual for QBASIC : it states it was copyright Jochen Merz Software.

Seem so. So Marcel gets the key

[RalfR]

Just found out, that I once have bought QBASIC, so can try.

Single-sided QL disks are horrible to copy under QPC2, but this may not be QPC2's fault. Jochen has alwys formatted Single-sided disks. Start - stop -start -stop. Standard 720k does work ok.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I use QD and the SBAS/QD thing to run SBASIC programmes, so I can not use line numbers.But, when the SBAS Thinfg is run by press the QD F10 key, the programme runs, but leaves the QD window locked.

Is it possible for the SBAS thing to multitask with QD?

Pity QBASIC not freeware or made available, as production of the compiled programme would be good.

[Derek_Stewart]

Can QBASIC be made freeware?

[bwinkel67]

Is QBASIC a compiler or just another BASIC interpreter for the QL?

A few weeks ago I posted my 90's BASIC that I wrote on the QL which I call CL (need a better name), distributed under GPL 3's free license. The distribution includes full C source code written in Digital 'C' SE (both in original form of 4 files and concatenated together into one since I couldn't get it to compile as I had in the 90's for some reason). It implements a SuperBASIC-like (presently integer only) BASIC interpreter.

It's not super efficiently implemented as I don't tokenize, though on an unexpanded QL it runs under 2x realtime compared to SuperBASIC and is only about 37K in size. It doesn't fully implement SuperBASIC in its current form as I designed it from my experience with various Sinclair BASIC's I grew up with, and its goal back then was to create a Macintosh scripting language that gave that platform a QDOS-like experience -- and was well received by Mac hacks but not the general public since Mac folks didn't like the command-line.

I don't have an inclination to work on it more but the code base isn't huge and follows a standard recursive descent parser so others could add to it. It's on the "MDV Software Reclamation" thread as cl.zip. If there is interest I can put it on GitHub to make it more manageable. Been meaning to give it to Dilwyn to put on his site.

[bwinkel67]

Oh, and I've presently taken a snapshot of it and am using it for the ZXSimulator to create a fully-working ZX81 clone that will run on an unexpanded QL so I've been stripping features out of the interpreter. I will eventually add floating point (which I did when I ported it originally to the Mac in the 90's via the Mac's Think C) and may tokenize it for speed for the ZXSimulator so at that stage I definitely should put it on GitHub and branch so that stuff can go back into the plain old interpreter as well. I"m still in the prototyping stage to where I want to get something running just to see if I can get an old ZX81 game with graphics to work as right now it could run some text-only ZX81 stuff but nothing fancy since I haven't implemented character positioning via AT. Spring break is over after today so things will slow a bit until May.

[Derek_Stewart]

Is QBASIC a compiler or just another BASIC interpreter for the QL?

Sorry for assuming that wpeveryone knows what QBASIC is, which is a Thing that can parse a SBASIC file from QD calling the SBASIC Interpreter and compile the programme with Qliberator.

QD includes SBAS/QD which allows SBASIC source code to passed to the SBASIC Interpreter, but does not allow compilation into an executable.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I write SBASIC programs in QD and when I press F10 which uses the SBAS/QD Thing to run the BASIC programme in QD.

All works great except there is a window opened which is channel #0,1 probably for error messages.

I usually write programs to opens all its own windows and not use any default channels, how do I disable this extra window opened by SBAS/QD?

[Artificer]

Hi Derek,

You wrote

All works great except there is a window opened which is channel #0,1 probably for error messages.

I also use QD and the QD SBAS thing almost every time I write any SBASIC. I find that I need to explicity open chan#0 and chan#1 with an explicit window size (ideally outlined) for chan#0 at the start of every program when executing it through the QD F10 Sbas thing.

Cheers

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

Thank you the information, I wil give it try.