BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 version 1.43a released

Richard Russell · Post by **Richard Russell** » Sat 29 Nov 2025, 15:03

I have released version 1.43a of BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 (desktop platforms only, the Android and iOS editions are unaffected and remain at version 1.42a). The changes in this version are as follows:

Environment

This version should be compatible with SDL3 by means of the SDL2-compat wrapper; some Linux distributions are now supporting SDL2 applications by this means.
BASIC Interpreter / Run Time Engine

Improved support for some compact keyboards which do not have a dedicated cursor-key cluster.

Removed the restriction that the destination array in a whole array assignment must be the same type as the source array(s).
IDEs and Utilities

Using Alt-Tab to switch between applications in Windows no longer spuriously activates the SDLIDE menu bar.

The profiler utility allows you to select (Ctrl+A) and copy (Ctrl+C) the report to the clipboard.
Libraries

Added listlib.bbc to partially emulate the functionality of Python lists.

Modified filedlg.bbc to add flag bits &100 (omit '..'), &200 (omit '@lib$') and &400 (omit '@usr$').
Example Programs

Added listdemo.bbc to demonstrate the functionality of the listlib library.

Modified about.bbc to report the version number of SDL3 if this is being used (via SDL2-compat).

This version may be downloaded, for all the desktop platforms, from the usual location. The GitHub repository has also been updated.