Evolution of BBC BASIC

[Richard Russell]

The table below lists a (highly over-simplified) history of the development of BBC BASIC since its inception in 1981. It is not intended to be comprehensive nor accurate, and it isn't, but rather to give an at-a-glance overview of the evolution of BBC BASIC to place the different versions in context.

I am aware that some implementations which people may feel particularly attached to are missing, for example 32016 and PDP-11, but I wanted to keep it simple. If there are any major errors or omissions, please let me know.

evolution.png

[Richard Russell]

I have reason to believe that Brandy was already around in 2002, does anybody know for sure when it was released?

[jgharston]

I have reason to believe that Brandy was already around in 2002, does anybody know for sure when it was released?

The 'History' file in version 1.19 has:
Version 1.00 08/11/2000
This is the initial release version of the interpreter.

As well as the 32016 and PDP11 versions mentioned, there's 65816, 68000 and 6809 versions, and people working on RISC-V and AVR.

[Richard Russell]

The 'History' file in version 1.19 has: Version 1.00 08/11/2000

OK, I'll update the table accordingly.

As well as the 32016 and PDP11 versions mentioned, there's 65816, 68000 and 6809 versions, and people working on RISC-V and AVR.

Yes, but I don't think it would be helpful to try to squeeze them into the table.

With a modern, high-performance, architecture like RISC-V I wonder why anybody would feel the need to code a new version in assembly language rather than simply compiling one of the existing C versions (e.g. mine or Matrix Brandy).

[Richard Russell]

The table below lists a (highly over-simplified) history of the development of BBC BASIC since its inception in 1981.

Note that one of the simplifications I've made is to include under Version 5 some implementations which don't support the full set of ARM BASIC V features. For example BBC BASIC (Z80) v5 doesn't have INSTALL or LIBRARY, and 6502 Advanced BASIC doesn't include the whole-array operations (which are arguably some of the principal features of BASIC V).

[jgharston]

With a modern, high-performance, architecture like RISC-V I wonder why anybody would feel the need to code a new version in assembly language rather than simply compiling one of the existing C versions (e.g. mine or Matrix Brandy).

From memory, it is a slightly tweeked SDL BBC BASIC. My main involvement was in defining the machine level API specification.

[Richard Russell]

From memory, it is a slightly tweeked SDL BBC BASIC.

Have you a link? All I can find, on a quick web search, is a compiler described as supporting a subset (naturally!) of BBC BASIC, called BASIC-V.

[jgharston]

Have you a link? All I can find, on a quick web search, is a compiler described as supporting a subset (naturally!) of BBC BASIC, called BASIC-V.

https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=27527
with a GIT repository at:
https://github.com/hoglet67/BBCSDL/releases
and a demo at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbilwWMbJk8

[Richard Russell]

https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=27527
with a GIT repository at:
https://github.com/hoglet67/BBCSDL/releases
and a demo at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbilwWMbJk8

OK. I would need to compare his core-interpreter source files (bbmain,c, bbexec.c, bbeval.c) with mine to check whether they really have been 'tweaked' or not. I'd like to think that if he found anything that needed changing for the RISC-V he would have informed me, with the hope that this could be resolved with some conditional code to keep the core interpreter source 'universal'.