4 ms·

Apple IIa – ROM for the Apple IIe That Compiles Basic (2018)

99 points by mariuz 7y ago

pjmlp 7y ago
Regarding Basic compilers, there were plenty to choose from, and relatively fast versus any other high level language, C only started to matter on 8 and 16 bit platforms, after UNIX started to gain market adoption. Naturally an Amiga was much powerful as an Apple IIa, but stuff like AMOS did wonders on the demoscene.
- jacobush 7y ago
  I don't think hardly any demos were made with AMOS.
  - cr0sh 7y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted, but I owned a copy of AMOS and AMOS 3D after it came out, and I certainly don't recall anybody using it for much that I recall, other than a few homebrew games and such. Certainly not any demos I ran across. That said, last week I went on a spree looking up AMOS - and interestingly, I found that the author released it as open source a while back, and recently released a new cross-platform language that supposedly is AMOS compatible (IIRC), and open source too. I think he had a patreon or something to sponsor it's development: https://www.amos2.org/ https://www.amos2.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMOS_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMOS_(programming_language) Though the wikipedia article mentions a few commercial games that were made with it... Anyhow - via finding that, and some other searching, I found that there is still an active AMOS community out there. I'm not sure I need another BASIC-ish retro-language in my repertoire, but I find it fascinating nonetheless!
chungus 7y ago
Recently I found out John Romero does a podcast where he speaks about Apple II at great length, you can find it at appletimewarp.libsyn.com Very interesting and entertaining podcast.
- acomjean 7y ago
  Very interesting.. Though very infrequently updated. Snakebyte used low res graphics to do collision detection! I thought about that sometime in the 80s but didn't learn assembler... Thanks! http://appletimewarp.libsyn.com http://appletimewarp.libsyn.com
jcadam 7y ago
Cool. I got started programming in BASIC on the Apple ][ as a kid like a lot of coders my age. Sometimes I think about buying an old machine just for the nostalgia factor.
tenebrisalietum 7y ago
The writer wonders if a compiler would fit in 14K of ROM. I remember, for the Commodore 64, in some old Compute! book, a compiler called "Sprint" if my memory is correct. This book featured programs you could type in using their program "MLX" (which was a BASIC program you had to type in as well). "Sprint" was one of these. The program was about 6K (it definitely was the biggest program in the book). I never typed it in. I remember it having limitations, like considering all variables integers and not supporting the DIM statement fully. I'm not too familiar with BBC BASIC but my understanding was you could mix 6502 opcodes in with BASIC statements and basically do inline assembly. That would seem to be the optimum strategy for old 8-bit computers that would have to store the source and object code in as little as 64K or less of RAM. ---------- > A NEXT, however, must check each time the stack of FOR statements to find the variable to increment and the line to jump to. This is why on most BASICS we always left out the variable, most BASICs would "automatically" loop to the outermost FOR.
- ta-gazette22 7y ago
  Here is a link to Sprint published in Compute's Gazette from January 1986 -- https://archive.org/details/1986-01-computegazette/page/n73 https://archive.org/details/1986-01-computegazette/page/n73 Integer and string only, no parentheses (strict left to right evaluation), array sizes were limited to 126 elements and one dimension, but longer variable names. Converting a normal C= 64 program to work with it was daunting. This issue also has a machine language assembler, which I did use extensively.
- ebg13 7y ago
  I don't know how BASIC compares to Pascal, but there was a Pascal compiler that fit. This is a really cool writeup about it. https://web.archive.org/web/20180911174601/http://www.supercoders.com.au/blog/nickgammongpascal.shtml https://web.archive.org/web/20180911174601/http://www.superc...
- Someone 7y ago
  ”This is why on most BASICS we always left out the variable, most BASICs would "automatically" loop to the outermost FOR” Innermost (https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/NEXT https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/NEXT, https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Visual_Basic/Loops#Nested_Loops https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Visual_Basic/Loops#Nested_Loop...) Also, I don’t think that solves the fundamental problem that (edit: you can get very close. If you maintain a stack of ‘for loop contexts’, NEXT without loop variable name(s)) is little more than an indirect jump), in Basic, for loops don’t introduce a scope, making ‘innermost’ not really a thing (“most recently encountered” is a better way to phrase it) My Basic is very rusty, but I think this is valid in a classic Basic interpreter: 10 input f 20 if f = 0 goto 50 30 for i = 1 to 10 40 goto 60 50 for j = 1 to 25 60 print “foo” 70 next Whole-program analysis likely can convert most, if not all, uses of NEXT to jumps in ‘normal’ code, but fitting that in 14 kB may be problematic.
zwieback 7y ago
My computer as a teen. I would literally stay up late reading the monitor ROM listing and thinking Woz was some kind of super hero. Anything Apple did after the ][ seemed like a betrayal to me (although I do own an iPod I love).
RachelF 7y ago
There were a few compilers for AppleSoft BASIC. The most well-known was Microsoft's BASIC compiler. It could not handle arrays, though. The original Integer BASIC that Woz & Co wrote was faster than AppleSoft, but lacked much complexity. I never heard of a compiler for it.

99 points by mariuz 7y ago

Regarding Basic compilers, there were plenty to choose from, and relatively fast versus any other high level language, C only started to matter on 8 and 16 bit platforms, after UNIX started to gain market adoption. Naturally an Amiga was much powerful as an Apple IIa, but stuff like AMOS did wonders on the demoscene.

jacobush 7y ago
I don't think hardly any demos were made with AMOS.
- cr0sh 7y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted, but I owned a copy of AMOS and AMOS 3D after it came out, and I certainly don't recall anybody using it for much that I recall, other than a few homebrew games and such. Certainly not any demos I ran across. That said, last week I went on a spree looking up AMOS - and interestingly, I found that the author released it as open source a while back, and recently released a new cross-platform language that supposedly is AMOS compatible (IIRC), and open source too. I think he had a patreon or something to sponsor it's development: https://www.amos2.org/ https://www.amos2.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMOS_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMOS_(programming_language) Though the wikipedia article mentions a few commercial games that were made with it... Anyhow - via finding that, and some other searching, I found that there is still an active AMOS community out there. I'm not sure I need another BASIC-ish retro-language in my repertoire, but I find it fascinating nonetheless!

chungus 7y ago

Recently I found out John Romero does a podcast where he speaks about Apple II at great length, you can find it at appletimewarp.libsyn.com Very interesting and entertaining podcast.

acomjean 7y ago
Very interesting.. Though very infrequently updated. Snakebyte used low res graphics to do collision detection! I thought about that sometime in the 80s but didn't learn assembler... Thanks! http://appletimewarp.libsyn.com http://appletimewarp.libsyn.com

jcadam 7y ago

Cool. I got started programming in BASIC on the Apple ][ as a kid like a lot of coders my age. Sometimes I think about buying an old machine just for the nostalgia factor.

tenebrisalietum 7y ago

The writer wonders if a compiler would fit in 14K of ROM. I remember, for the Commodore 64, in some old Compute! book, a compiler called "Sprint" if my memory is correct. This book featured programs you could type in using their program "MLX" (which was a BASIC program you had to type in as well). "Sprint" was one of these. The program was about 6K (it definitely was the biggest program in the book). I never typed it in. I remember it having limitations, like considering all variables integers and not supporting the DIM statement fully. I'm not too familiar with BBC BASIC but my understanding was you could mix 6502 opcodes in with BASIC statements and basically do inline assembly. That would seem to be the optimum strategy for old 8-bit computers that would have to store the source and object code in as little as 64K or less of RAM. ---------- > A NEXT, however, must check each time the stack of FOR statements to find the variable to increment and the line to jump to. This is why on most BASICS we always left out the variable, most BASICs would "automatically" loop to the outermost FOR.

ta-gazette22 7y ago
Here is a link to Sprint published in Compute's Gazette from January 1986 -- https://archive.org/details/1986-01-computegazette/page/n73 https://archive.org/details/1986-01-computegazette/page/n73 Integer and string only, no parentheses (strict left to right evaluation), array sizes were limited to 126 elements and one dimension, but longer variable names. Converting a normal C= 64 program to work with it was daunting. This issue also has a machine language assembler, which I did use extensively.
ebg13 7y ago
I don't know how BASIC compares to Pascal, but there was a Pascal compiler that fit. This is a really cool writeup about it. https://web.archive.org/web/20180911174601/http://www.supercoders.com.au/blog/nickgammongpascal.shtml https://web.archive.org/web/20180911174601/http://www.superc...
Someone 7y ago
”This is why on most BASICS we always left out the variable, most BASICs would "automatically" loop to the outermost FOR” Innermost (https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/NEXT https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/NEXT, https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Visual_Basic/Loops#Nested_Loops https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Visual_Basic/Loops#Nested_Loop...) Also, I don’t think that solves the fundamental problem that (edit: you can get very close. If you maintain a stack of ‘for loop contexts’, NEXT without loop variable name(s)) is little more than an indirect jump), in Basic, for loops don’t introduce a scope, making ‘innermost’ not really a thing (“most recently encountered” is a better way to phrase it) My Basic is very rusty, but I think this is valid in a classic Basic interpreter: 10 input f 20 if f = 0 goto 50 30 for i = 1 to 10 40 goto 60 50 for j = 1 to 25 60 print “foo” 70 next Whole-program analysis likely can convert most, if not all, uses of NEXT to jumps in ‘normal’ code, but fitting that in 14 kB may be problematic.

zwieback 7y ago

My computer as a teen. I would literally stay up late reading the monitor ROM listing and thinking Woz was some kind of super hero. Anything Apple did after the ][ seemed like a betrayal to me (although I do own an iPod I love).

RachelF 7y ago

There were a few compilers for AppleSoft BASIC. The most well-known was Microsoft's BASIC compiler. It could not handle arrays, though. The original Integer BASIC that Woz & Co wrote was faster than AppleSoft, but lacked much complexity. I never heard of a compiler for it.