[HN Gopher] Show HN: BBC Basic on the ZX Spectrum Next ___________________________________________________________________ Show HN: BBC Basic on the ZX Spectrum Next Author : breakintoprog Score : 15 points Date : 2021-05-29 17:19 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.breakintoprogram.co.uk) (TXT) w3m dump (www.breakintoprogram.co.uk) | breakintoprog wrote: | Hi, | | A quick synposis on my project: | | The BBC Basic for Z80 kernel was written by R.T.Russell around | the same time as the original 6502 version that ran on the BBC | Micro. The CP/M version was open-sourced in 2019, and I used that | core BASIC interpreter in a homebrew computer, with the CP/M code | stripped out. | | A few weeks ago after a chance conversation on social media, I | decided to port it again to the ZX Spectrum Next (a modern | reincarnation of the original ZX Spectrum). Whilst it's another | Z80-based system, the challenge would be to add in all missing | features from the core language such as an editor, graphics, | sound, file IO, and so on. | | The link above is to my blog, which I'll be updating on a | regular(ish) basis with insights into the code. I'll also be | updating the Git project page (link to the project in the post) | with source code and executable 'nex' files that can be run on a | Spectrum Next (or clone), on a MiSTer FPGA running the ZX Next | core, or in a Next emulator such as ZEsarUX or CSPect. | | Why am I doing this? I think BBC Basic is the best-in-class of | its peers. It's performant, and has many modern language | features. It's also a pretty cool way to get to grips with the | Next hardware. I'm really enjoying working on this. The Spectrum | Next is the 8-bit micro I wish I'd had back in the 80s, and the | project is interesting, and something I can continuously improve | upon. | | Hope you enjoy! | sedatk wrote: | BBC BASIC was unmatched because of its built-in assembler. I | wish that feature was more common among BASIC interpreters back | then. | breakintoprog wrote: | Indeed! R.T.Russel's Z80 version also includes a built-in Z80 | assembler that works in exactly the same way. Being able to | inline assembler with BASIC was a stroke of genius, and many | developers of the day relied upon it to assemble their code. | I've extended the Next version to include the Next-specific | Z80N opcodes such as NEXTREG and PIXELAD. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-05-29 23:00 UTC)