I just applied to take over this project. I have been working on many enhancements and have requested on several occasions to be added to the project.
I will be making regular updates and will be monitoring this forum to make this project even better.
A little background on myself:
I have been a programmer and developer for over 25 years. The first system I developed for was the TRS80 Model 1 (Remember that blast from the past) using BASIC. Currently I am an Assistant Professor at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, OH.
I have been working on a book proposal/outline for teaching kids how to program and would like to use the BASIC-256 environment. I am also hoping to use this code in my doctoral research.
I have a fork with many new functions (CHR,ASC,FLOAT), pseudo constants like (YEAR, MONTH, DAY, HOUR, MINUTE, SECOND, EOF), the % (modulo) operator, and graphics commands to paint text on the graphics window. Also in the fork the RANDOM generator has been updated to return 0-.9(9) not 0-1, and the logic in the interpreter was tweaked to allow numbers to be converted to strings (and back) without the use of the type casting functions.
I will add the UNIX sound logic (see prior forum post by vladisvi) soon.
Jim Reneau (renejm)
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So what's happening with this project now? Have you been able to take over the project? Either way, I'd be very interested in seeing your fork as I am contemplating adding some of that stuff myself.
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Probably the most of active/ambiguous developers are attracted by kbasic (http://www.kbasic.com/), which by relying on KDE4 is ported to Linux, Macs and Windows. Though:
1. it is more difficult to set it on Gnome desktop
2. it is more complicated than Basic-256
3. it doesn't have sound support for tone generation (IMHO can play wav files on Windows?).
So, Basic-256 is nice simple gadget with some nice features, and I'd be happy if someone could manage its development.
If problem is related to access in current repository, then I encourage him/her to create new fork in this or other site.
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I have been in communication with Ian and he is currently deployed with the US Navy. He will add me to the project when he hist sht ground. I am looking forward to making it work without a fork.
I will keep following up with him and will keep all of you in the loop.
Can you make a list of what you would like to see added so that I can compare it to my list of what I have done and plan to do??
Jim
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First of all let me say that I just found this project not long ago and it seems like a great tool to teach the basics of programming to children, or, in my case, non-programmer friends who want to learn the basics and find out why it fascinates us programmers so much ;)
After tinkering around with it a bit, the main things I'd like to see added/changed are:
1) If/Else statements. I find it strange that there is no 'else' statement. The only way around it that I saw is to use two 'if' statements with opposite tests. It would be nice to be able to write something like this:
IF foo = bar THEN
STATEMENT1
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Sorry, I posted that midway through. As I was saying, it would be nice to be able to write something like this:
IF foo = bar THEN
STATEMENT1
STATEMENT2
ELSE
STATEMENT 3
STATEMENT 4
END
That sort of syntax would probably break existing programs though.
The other main thing I thought of was, like you've already done, to not require the explicit casts between int and string.
I don't know much C++ unfortunately, but I've been digging around in the code and getting a hang of how it works. Hopefully I'll be able to make some useful additions and learn some C++ while I'm at it.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I just applied to take over this project. I have been working on many enhancements and have requested on several occasions to be added to the project.
I will be making regular updates and will be monitoring this forum to make this project even better.
A little background on myself:
I have been a programmer and developer for over 25 years. The first system I developed for was the TRS80 Model 1 (Remember that blast from the past) using BASIC. Currently I am an Assistant Professor at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, OH.
I have been working on a book proposal/outline for teaching kids how to program and would like to use the BASIC-256 environment. I am also hoping to use this code in my doctoral research.
I have a fork with many new functions (CHR,ASC,FLOAT), pseudo constants like (YEAR, MONTH, DAY, HOUR, MINUTE, SECOND, EOF), the % (modulo) operator, and graphics commands to paint text on the graphics window. Also in the fork the RANDOM generator has been updated to return 0-.9(9) not 0-1, and the logic in the interpreter was tweaked to allow numbers to be converted to strings (and back) without the use of the type casting functions.
I will add the UNIX sound logic (see prior forum post by vladisvi) soon.
Jim Reneau (renejm)
Congratulations Jim!
Good luck and keep us notified.
Valdis
Please add exponents. Seems like ^ is pretty essential.
So what's happening with this project now? Have you been able to take over the project? Either way, I'd be very interested in seeing your fork as I am contemplating adding some of that stuff myself.
Probably the most of active/ambiguous developers are attracted by kbasic (http://www.kbasic.com/), which by relying on KDE4 is ported to Linux, Macs and Windows. Though:
1. it is more difficult to set it on Gnome desktop
2. it is more complicated than Basic-256
3. it doesn't have sound support for tone generation (IMHO can play wav files on Windows?).
So, Basic-256 is nice simple gadget with some nice features, and I'd be happy if someone could manage its development.
If problem is related to access in current repository, then I encourage him/her to create new fork in this or other site.
I have been in communication with Ian and he is currently deployed with the US Navy. He will add me to the project when he hist sht ground. I am looking forward to making it work without a fork.
I will keep following up with him and will keep all of you in the loop.
Can you make a list of what you would like to see added so that I can compare it to my list of what I have done and plan to do??
Jim
First of all let me say that I just found this project not long ago and it seems like a great tool to teach the basics of programming to children, or, in my case, non-programmer friends who want to learn the basics and find out why it fascinates us programmers so much ;)
After tinkering around with it a bit, the main things I'd like to see added/changed are:
1) If/Else statements. I find it strange that there is no 'else' statement. The only way around it that I saw is to use two 'if' statements with opposite tests. It would be nice to be able to write something like this:
IF foo = bar THEN
STATEMENT1
Sorry, I posted that midway through. As I was saying, it would be nice to be able to write something like this:
IF foo = bar THEN
STATEMENT1
STATEMENT2
ELSE
STATEMENT 3
STATEMENT 4
END
That sort of syntax would probably break existing programs though.
The other main thing I thought of was, like you've already done, to not require the explicit casts between int and string.
I don't know much C++ unfortunately, but I've been digging around in the code and getting a hang of how it works. Hopefully I'll be able to make some useful additions and learn some C++ while I'm at it.