BBC BASIC for Windows: Reinspired

BBC BASIC for Windows
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Reinspired
Post by kgoodyer on Nov 18^th, 2013, 01:00am

I would just like to say hello to this group. I attended a lecture presented by David Allen at the National Museum of Computing last Thursday Evening. The lecture was entitled "The Back story of the 1980's Computer Literacy Initiative". In attendance were many of the original BBC team and we were delighted by many untold stories of how BBC basic came into being. Well I thought lets see if there was a good BBC basic emulator out in the world - I wasn't expecting to find "BBC Basic for windows". What a fantastic piece of engineering. Some of you maybe aware that there are government plans to get kids coding again in 2015, that will probably involve the BBC and the OU. Wouldn't it be nice if something like BBC basic once again became the learning tool of choice.

I'm sure you will me posting around these forums over the next few weeks as I get to grips with some of the more integrate features of BBC Basic for Windows.

Keith Goodyer

Re: Reinspired
Post by admin on Nov 18^th, 2013, 01:27am

on Nov 18^th, 2013, 01:00am, kgoodyer wrote:

In attendance were many of the original BBC team

I was invited (albeit rather belatedly) but it's an awkward journey from here so I turned it down.

Quote:

we were delighted by many untold stories of how BBC basic came into being.

Don't believe everything David said; his recollection and mine differ somewhat! wink

Quote:

Wouldn't it be nice if something like BBC basic once again became the learning tool of choice.

To an extent that's already true of schools who use OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA exam board) because BBC BASIC is one of the languages they recommend.

http://ictinaction.wordpress.com/tag/bbc-basic/

Richard.

Re: Reinspired
Post by Richey on Nov 18^th, 2013, 6:29pm

There was a recent post on the BASIC Programming Forum on the best educational BASIC.

I have posted a link there to this discussion.

http://forum.basicprogramming.org/index.php/topic,3112.0.html

wink

Re: Reinspired
Post by admin on Nov 18^th, 2013, 9:04pm

on Nov 18^th, 2013, 6:29pm, Richey wrote:

There was a recent post on the BASIC Programming Forum on the best educational BASIC...

It's interesting that the chap modestly (!) promoting his BASIC as 'the best educational BASIC' says about it that "You can't use it for serious development" and "after some time it needs to be replaced with something more serious".

Although I would never argue that BBC BASIC can compete with mainstream languages like C++ or Python on their own terms, it is powerful enough to be used for "serious development", as I and many other people can testify.

Richard.

Re: Reinspired
Post by kgoodyer on Nov 18^th, 2013, 10:05pm

Richard,

I have been coding for all my life, and have to say I have missed a good easy to understand structured basic. I have two kids aged 11 and 13, and I have been trying to get them programming. The problem is setting up the environment, and trying to explain all the things you have to do before you can compile and execute your first bit of code. With BB4W you can just install it, execute it, write some code and hit F9 to test it. You get sensible error messages that an 11 year old can understand, and when it all works you can compile it to a stand alone exe.

I have a professional project on at the moment, and as a challenge I am going to try using BB4W. Just getting my head round setting up prototypes for windows API calls, but its been a good first day.

At the same time I have just offered my kids Ł10 each extra pocket money if they can complete the KS3 work book at http://www.coinlea.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/KS3-Programming-Workbook-BB4Wv2.pdf

It frustrates me that they both have new laptops, and they only get used for games.

Keith

Re: Reinspired
Post by Richey on Nov 18^th, 2013, 11:29pm

Quote:

Although I would never argue that BBC BASIC can compete with mainstream languages like C++ or Python on their own terms, it is powerful enough to be used for "serious development", as I and many other people can testify.

and BBC BASIC for Windows also has the added advantage of being much more accessible than either of those two other languages in my humble opinion.

Re: Reinspired
Post by hitsware on Nov 19^th, 2013, 7:23pm

on Nov 18^th, 2013, 11:29pm, Richey wrote:

and BBC BASIC for Windows also has the added advantage of being much more accessible than either of those two other languages in my humble opinion.

It surprised me when the Raspberry Pi came out set up for Linux rather than some form of Basic. However on reflection, Basic may be (although not for you or I) too mundane for today's young people who are brought up in a much more computation intensive world.

Re: Reinspired
Post by admin on Nov 19^th, 2013, 9:42pm

on Nov 19^th, 2013, 7:23pm, hitsware wrote:

It surprised me when the Raspberry Pi came out set up for Linux rather than some form of Basic.

Firstly, Linux is an Operating System (c.f. Windows) and BASIC is a Language (c.f. Python), so that's a rather confusing statement. Perhaps you are too young to recall that the BBC Micro was the first home computer to make a clear distinction between the OS (in a 16K ROM from &C000 to &FFFF) and the language (in a 16K ROM from &8000 to &BFFF).

Secondly, the Raspberry Pi doesn't come "set up for Linux", normally it doesn't come with any Operating System at all! You have a choice of what OS to install: the main options being Linux and RISC OS. If choose the latter option BBC BASIC is included as standard.

If you choose to install Linux, which is the more popular option, I believe Brandy (an Open Source version of BBC BASIC) is available for that platform.

Quote:

Basic may be too mundane for today's young people

How do you square that with OCR recommending it as one of the languages to teach in UK schools? This book has an entire chapter in which all the code examples are written in BBC BASIC for Windows:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/OCR-Computing-GCSE-Students-Book/dp/1444177796#_

Richard.

Re: Reinspired
Post by hitsware on Nov 19^th, 2013, 11:55pm

on Nov 19^th, 2013, 9:42pm, Richard Russell wrote:

You are oh-so right !
I'm not too young, but perhaps too old.
(And in the wrong country)
My first system was a Commodore Vic-20 which had Basic on ROM which it booted to immediately.
Perhaps I never escaped that paradyme (though a false conception (language as OS))
Anyways it was food for thought seeing that the normal PI introduction to programming was Python rather than some form of Basic.

Re: Reinspired
Post by Richey on Dec 1^st, 2013, 12:37am

Quote:

Just noticed that the BASIC-256 site provides a link to BB4W...

presumably pointing to BB4W as a language suitable to progress to after mastering BASIC-256...

http://www.basic256.org/basiclinks

Re: Reinspired
Post by JGHarston on Dec 10^th, 2013, 4:23pm

on Nov 19^th, 2013, 11:55pm, hitsware wrote:

My first system was a Commodore Vic-20 which had Basic on ROM which it booted to immediately.
Perhaps I never escaped that paradyme (though a false conception (language as OS))

The Vic-20, like all the Commodore machines, certainly has the language/foreground application completely seperate from the operating system (Kernal (sic) in Commodore's terminology). You just call the Kernal entry block at &FFxx to, eg save a file, read a keypress, print to screen, etc., regardless of whether the caller was BASIC, a word processor, FORTH, a game, etc. It made porting 6502 BBC BASIC to the C64 extremely simple.

It's machines like the Spectrum and the Apple II where you had to trawl through a ROM disassembly to work out how to do something a simple a read a key. Most non-BASIC programs had to build bits of BASIC in order to access the machine's functions, and extensions had to patch into the BASIC in order for programs to access their functionality.