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BBC Basic was a really good Basic. Its low level routines (for floating point, for example) were available at certain addresses so you could call them from asse

BBC Basic was a really good Basic. Its low level routines (for floating point, for example) were available at certain addresses so you could call them from assembly. And since you could mix assembly into Basic also, it gave you a nice path from simple programs to really making the most of the machine. I find it astonishing how well thought out this machine was.

jlarcombe 8y ago
Yes it really was well thought out. Another good example is the 'tube' interface for second processors. Enthusiasts have recently put this to use to interface with a Raspberry Pi which can emulate various processors from back in the day at unheard-of speeds, and also provides a modern native ARM coprocessor. The neat thing is that this all works with no changes to the BBC and no special software; you just use the operating system routines as usual on code running on the second processor and it all just works. Not bad for a system designed in 1981. https://github.com/hoglet67/PiTubeDirect/wiki https://github.com/hoglet67/PiTubeDirect/wiki