Release [REPO] PandaBAS BASIC Interpreter - 0.0.0.769 - Update

[Repository]

Pandora port of the SpecBAS BASIC interpreter. Based on Sinclair BASIC, but allowing the user to take advantage of more modern hardware - 8bit graphics, sound samples/mod/mp3 etc, with a much more advanced graphics and windowing system.
Get it from here!

 

[ZXDunny]

Here's what's new for this version of PandaBAS - bear in mind that the Windows and x86/Linux versions have not been updated yet:

What's new for SpecBAS

v0.0.0.768

==========

Added:

Inline IF support - IIF(condition,true-expr,false-expr) will return the correct expression's result based on the condition. Also, IIF$ for strings

SORT array() or array$() will sort a one-dimensional array

INCLUDE "myfile1","myfile2"... to add procedures from other files into your program at runtime

RENUMBER now respects RESTORE and RUN when used with a numeric parameter

CASE structure - CASE, WHEN, OTHERWISE and END CASE - See documentation for details

Music files can now be stored in and played from a memory bank

WINDOW MERGE id can now be used to close a window and copy its contents to the display - specify ALL instead of an id to merge all open windows

MUSICPOS function - returns the position of the currently playing music in seconds

MUSICLEN function - returns the length of the current music in seconds

Auto-arrays: for simple one-dimensional arrays, you can DIM a=1,2,3,4,5 to automatically fill the array

Fixed:

Fixed an /old/ bug which inappropriately truncated arrays when LISTed

D.

 

[Asiyura]

I totally forgot about the game I was trying to copy from my old spectrum books!

I should get started again, but right now I'm trying to get something done with another language 

 

[traylorpark]

I aint no programmer, but I'd love to play around with this!

Do you know of any documentation that might help a newbie get started with programming using PandaBAS? I literally know nothing

 

[ZXDunny]

You could start with the excellent Sinclair BASIC manual -

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/ZXBasicManual/

PandaBAS is based heavily on Sinclair BASIC, and almost all the example code in that manual will run unmodified in PandaBAS. There's no manual as such yet (I've not had time to write one), but head over to

http://www.specbas.co.uk/

And there's one linked in there. If you want the most up-to-date version, then grab the Windows zip file and remove the .doc file from that and peruse at your leisure.

Bear in mind that due to the constraints of the hardware/OS, the Pandora version is pretty slow - the Raspberry Pi version is reportedly a bit faster due to hard float support (PandaBAS currently stores all numeric values and variables in floating point) but it's still a lot faster than the native Spectrum running BASIC, and the built-in graphics commands can really bang pixels around. The fastest version is the x86 linux/windows version.

Lastly, feel free to ask in here - I visit many times each day

D.