Date : Mon, 28 Jan 2013 01:37:43 +0000
From : public@... (Daniel Beardsmore)
Subject: Commodore 64 BBC BASIC
Something I've never taken the time to research thoroughly -- the BBC Micro
has always felt like it was the only 8-bit machine to have a real OS. You
don't need the BASIC ROM for the computer to function, so long as you have
another language ROM present.
Simple things like the foresight to include a VFS that hides the implementation
details from some OS calls even up to permitting network file systems, is
remarkable (although the original NFS was ...... lacking a bit :) You didn't
need to install a disc operating system to get disc support -- just a driver
ROM that follows a very clean API.
Then when you consider all the system extension APIs and flexibility, that
Acorn still fit the whole OS in under 16 kB is pretty amazing.
On 28/01/2013 01:29, Rick Murray wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I think what helped keep BASIC small (and likewise under RISC OS) was that
certain parts of it were nice veneers for OS functionality. Take negative
INKEY for instance, all BASIC needs to do is make an OS call.
>
> If your host OS doesn't provide these services, or does so in a completely
alien way, it will take correspondingly more coffee to provide the expected
language features. I can imagine twice the size...
>
> By the way, "coffee" in the above paragraph was supposed to be "code" but
my phone's tappey-swipey 'keyboard' auto-corrected it to coffee and I thought
that to be suitably apt.
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Rick.
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [BBC-Micro] Commodore 64 BBC BASIC
> From: "J.G.Harston" <jgh@...>
> To: BBC Micro Mailing List <bbc-micro@...>
> CC:
>
> Well, (insert Bloodnock quote here)!
>
> After years of hearing rumours and fruitless searching, I've tracked
> down Aztec's version of BBC BASIC for the Commodore 64:
> http://mdfs.net/bbcbasic/C64/
>
> It turns out that the released version was very incomplete, more like a
> demonstration demo than a finished product. A lot of functionality is
> missing, even switching to MODE 0 causes it to start falling over.
> Strangely, considering that, the code image is 30K when even a fully
> functional version on the BBC is 16K; I would expect something maybe a
> few kilobytes longer adding an interface between BASIC and the C64
> kernel - not wholly twice as long.
>