Anyone been playing with BASIC Engine lately?

Hawk

There hasn’t been any activity here for a while.
Have people been playing with the new version of BASIC Engine?
Is it still being developed?
I have yet to setup an SD card with the new Linux based version. The last thing I was considering was getting it to output to a printer/plotter. My interface arrived, but that’s where it stopped.
I’m interested to hear what other shave been doing.

uli

Hawk Is it still being developed?

At the moment, not really. My intrinsic motivation to do stuff on the Linux port is low; there hasn't been much feedback, and the hardware situation doesn't seem to get better either.

I've been doing some stuff on the Shuttle (ESP32) side in July. Unlike before, there are now methods to generate PAL and NTSC signals with exact timings, the hardware is even cheaper now, and it can still be assembled on a breadboard if necessary.

The ESP* codebase is quite a bit behind though and will need quite a bit of work to get it to a useful state, and the hardware needs to be revised as well (there are no filters on the audio output, for instance), and I'm not really motivated to do that right now. Running on the ESP32 re-introduces a lot of the limitations from the ESP8266 device, along with the corresponding development headaches.

painintheworld

I have been back at it a bit; using both the LT and NG branches. I even dug out the original BASIC Engine. I really dig playing about with them all!

This summer has been really hectic, so I've not been online for anything much at all. That will change, especially for some stuff that I was working on.

I have designed a few hundred tiles/sprites for a Breakout type game, a variant of Kaboom, a Star Raiders type game (my favorite game ever, and the greatest game of all time, IMO), something akin to Wall Defender for the Enterprise 128, and something like the 1983 Atari arcade Star Wars.

As bad as I am in programming and designing graphics, I'm orders of magnitude worse in sound stuff 🤣 If anything ever gets to even an alpha playable stage, it will have to be without sound - except for some very cool public domain MOD music to be used as background music.

Most of what I've been doing the last few days is moving about different sprites at different rates at the same time, while doing rotation and scaling. Just trying to get a handle on having different objects doing what they do, while interacting with them and not having those objects stopped while doing it.

A couple of things that I never really played back in the day (late 70s to early 80s) were text adventure games or action adventure games. It would be fun for me to play about with some of the originals from back then and try to implement something on the BASIC Engine.

I hope everyone out here is doing well! I will be visiting here much more often pretty soon!

tauonpc

uli hello. I'm a developer of TauonPC computer which is compatible with BASIC Engine. I currently have about 300 TauonPCs left in the warehouse in China. They lack SD Card extension cord but still are very good option to be used with Basic Engine on sd card. Are you interested in any way to distribute them between your users? I can offer them at the original manufacturing price, which is less than the current PCB costs.

Hawk

I have to admit that I haven’t had my BASIC Engine hardware out recently. I had no luck getting Engine BASIC to run on the last Allwinner H6 TV box I bought, but that left me with a few options still.
Sorry to hear that there hasn’t been much feedback on the Linux version. I feel bad that I haven’t given it a try. I can’t help much with the development, but I’m a test engineer by trade, so I should be able to contribute to that.
I have to admit that I have been more interested in an ESP32 solution, even though I know you feel it is going backwards. The FabGL ESP hardware setup for ps/2 keyboard and mouse, and VGA sell for less than $20 on AliExpress now. I know that you indicted that development for this platform was more difficult than the Linux compatible platforms. It seems to me that a core could be dedicated to the graphics generation.
I’ve been playing with pen plotters that are controlled serially. It would be great if there were some commands to send output to a serial port module. Some of the algorithms that I want to try will run very slowly on my old 8 bit computers.
I’ll have to check out the shuttle hardware and see if I can knock some of that up and give it a try.

Dmian

I'm sorry to hear this. I love the ESP8266 version, but the video is awful. I really like the H3 firmware on an Orange Pi, and if I had to choose one, that would be it. It felt quick, loaded instantly, and had everything I needed. But that has also been left behind, I think. The Linux one didn't click with me for some reason. I'm not much of a programmer and I don't see the need for those many development tools, or those many drivers. I just need a good BASIC interpreter, and that's it. And HDMI. Old video sucked.
I love the concept of Fantasy consoles (like Pico-8), and would like to see that applied to a hardware project with BASIC some day.
The chip crisis has also affected me, and I don't buy as much electronic things as I used to. So I'm now dedicated to other hobbies of mine.

Gadgetjack

I just recently discovered the Basic Engine site and have dived in head first. I have the esp32 and the Orange Pi PC and the Pc desktop version running now. I could not get the esp8266 version going for lack of the video chip availability and cost.
I read you have NTSC going on the esp32 version? I would love to try that on my board , as PAL monitors are hard to find in the USA. Any chance of getting a copy of it ?
A new fan in the US.
Jack

Dmian

Gadgetjack Hi Jack!
Are you looking for an NTSC ESP8266 board?
Like this one?:

BE NTSC

If that’s the case, write me at dmian73 at icloud dot com. Since I may be able to help you. Sorry for replying so late. I don’t come here often. Until the chip (and general supply) situation improves, I stopped buying chips, specially micros and all kind of processors. If we keep the demand high, prices will never come down…

Cheers!

painintheworld

Surely someone will check back in one of these first days and will also have the VLSI video chip. There were several people building and selling ready to go BASIC Engines based on the 8266...a couple of years ago. I bought one from a user on here (a user who hasn't poked his head in in over a year. I couldn't recommend him anyway, as he took $200 from me for some other retro stuff and hasn't delivered it ...in 18 months or so).

The 8266 based BASIC Engine really helped spark getting back into doing some BASIC programming and being powerful enough to make up for my lack of skill, and the inherent slowness of using a BASIC interpreter.

My favorite version is still BASIC Engine NG, the Orange Pi H3 chip based version. Unlike the LT x86/x64 versions of BASIC Engine LT, I've had no issues with the inbuilt MOD player.

As expected, the x86/x64 version is ludicrously fast for being such an authentic, 80s looking BASIC.

Now that certain hectic things have eased up, I will be checking in more often here, as I hope others do. I look forward to seeing what your coding leads to!

Regards,
Mark

Gadgetjack

During my wait time , i have been playing with "Eris" code on a esp32 vga board. Took a while to get the software to finally compile but I have it running now. It was weird that the autoexec.prg was causing so much trouble. Every time it booted , that file ran and scrambled the font file till it was rebooted and it ran again , and so on. I then deleted the file and everything calmed down. Have ran several of the games now and I am kinda impressed. Wish he had kept developing this firmware. It had some real possibility. The spiffs file system is the real deal breaker , too hard to develop on.

Hawk

Gadgetjack Yeah, I really like the concept of "Eris" BASIC, especially running on the FabGL ESP32 hardware, but there were some things that didn't sit well with me. From memory, it didn't have SD card support when I was looking at it, and it was all written in a "Fantasy" machine language that anyone wanting to help develop and maintain would have to try and learn. I would have rather seen it developed in a high level language like C/C++.
There were some other quirks, like the fact that it couldn't scroll a listing.
I still really like the FabGL ESP32 hardware, but I think it has been replaced now by the PicoMiteVGA. I though Engine BASIC or MMBASIC on the FabGL would be great, but instead they developed the PicoMiteVGA which is almost as simple to make as the FabGL dev board.
It's a shame that it's so difficult to get the same program to run "bare metal" on different platforms. There is still some many cheap SoC and SBCs coming out that would be perfect for a "Boot-to-BASIC" OS.
I'd love to see what could run on the Orange PI 800. I'm just looking for a reason to buy one.

painintheworld

Hawk I've been wanting to get the PicoMiteVGA a spin! I've got a Color Maximite 1 and 2, Haven't updated the Maximite 2 in ages. That is something I need to do, whenever (if ever) things settle down around here.

I've got a FabGL VGA setup, but was unsuccessful loading BASIC to it. One of these days I will get back to it. I did find (re-find, lmao) my original BASIC Engine a few days ago 🙂

davegardnerisme

I used my orange pi version this year to make an advent code-breaking calendar for the kids. I made it look like an 80s business computer terminal, and they had to figure out various codes/challenges to have it plot on a map where presents were hidden.

Orange Pi version is still my preferred version. I have a bunch of boards and still use them. I’m with Dmian on pico 8 — there’s something alluring about having a fast boot, easy, integrated game making platform. Basic engine is very close for me, but if anything I’d probably swap basic for something else.

painintheworld

davegardnerisme My preference is all the Orange Pi NG version, Dave. I have a 10" portable LCD monitor mounted to an old laptop lap desk thing, with a large 12 volt / 5 volt lithium battery pack. Got the Orange Pi (as well as Raspberry Pi, and other things at times) attached to the back of the monitor with Velcro. On the odd day I have to pick the wife up from work, I will take it and get there an hour or 90 minutes early, then play about with that until she comes outside.

Another reason I like the Arm NG version better is that there are no issues with MOD tunes or with BLIT. The MOD player doesn't load in the x86/x64 LT version (compiler error), and I can't get pixel by pixel movements with BLIT. When trying to BLIT a large object a pixel or two at a time, the only thing it shows it the original and final positions.

There was someone hacking on the LT version some time back, but I can't recall who, bumping up the number of sprites. Was that you, by chance?

I won't be so long before checking the board next time. My brother in law was hospitalized just after my last post in early November. He is still in the hospital, but is supposed to be released around the turn of the new year. I've been helping my sister and taking turns sitting with him at the hospital. It has been a trying time. Come to find out it started with an abscessed tooth that ruptured in his sleep. He went septic, had a stroke, etc. Nearly two months of IV antibiotics.

Hawk

painintheworld I recently ordered the PicoMiteVGA, as I thought that it would satisfy most of my wants for a modern Boot-to-BASIC computer. I also bought the rest of the parts to get my Colour Maximite 2 put together. I haven’t built either of them yet.

I had high hopes for the FabGL VGA setup, and had several different versions. I thought that the Eris BASIC was the best option, since Uli didn’t want to go backwards with BASIC Engine. Eris BASIC never quite felt complete enough. I have since found out that Paul Scott Robinson, the author of Eris BASIC, is developing for the Foenix computers made by Stephany Allaire.

Lately my programming efforts have been towards my vintage pen plotters. These require either an RS232 or centronics port, neither of which seem to be implemented in newer Boot-to-BASIC hardware, so I have been using my old computers instead. Old versions of BASIC are very cumbersome.

Dmian

I’m looking to getting one of the Agon Light boards that Olimex is going to release soon (that was created by Bernardo Kastrup). They look really nice as a platform.

I’m still dreaming of my idea of a board that delivers an environment like the Pico-8, but using BASIC as the programming language.

A lot of the modern efforts to create BASIC boards are centered around making the hardware faster and more powerful, which in itself is a good thing, but I firmly believe that to encourage kids to program in the way home computers did in the eighties, you need to provided tools that ease the creation of games, but with a set of limitations that discourage distractions by offering too many options, in the way Pico-8 does. Fantasy consoles are what I would’ve wanted as a kid, and the only problem I see to them is that you need to load a full OS to use them.

A little, cheap RPi sized board, with instant on BASIC interpreter, and game creation tools like Pico-8 is my Utopia. Maybe some day…

Hawk

Dmian I've had a bit of a look at the Agon project now, and I really like how they're using an ESP32 as a graphics chip. Ever since I saw this project https://www.instructables.com/Arduino-Basic-PC-With-VGA-Output/ and also came across Fabrizio's FabGL, I thought that using dual ESP32s would be a great option. Plenty of scope to improve the graphics over time...although developers really want stability.
In the PicoMite VGA project, they use the second core of the RPi Pico as the graphics adapter. I think this is faster, as it reads/writes to shared RAM. Again, room to improve the graphics independantly from the OS/BASIC interpretor.
I may yet be enticed into purchasing an Olimax Agon Light just because I think they're cool.

davegardnerisme

was someone hacking on the LT version some time back, but I can't recall who, bumping up the number of sprites. Was that you, by chance?

Yes!

Having a few more sprites makes life easier when making games. The next biggest thing that would make my life easier is having structures, dictionaries, better functions, a bigger stack to avoid running out of local variables. This is where I’m not sure I would choose BASIC if I was making the whole thing from scratch. Not sure what I’d go with instead though. If it were me, probably Go!

I’ve written a pretty big game for basic engine NG and working on another now (side scroll army shooting game).

Dmian

Hawk I'm tempted to make a RPi 3-footprint sized PicoMite VGA. It's not that difficult, I think. The RPi Foundation gives you all the info to implement a board similar to the RPi Pico using the RP2040. I may try this, since the micro is really cheap, and I have a few ideas of how to solve the footprint limitations.

Gadgetjack

My wife traveled for work and came home with Covid. So i am quarantined for a few days. Converted a raycaster for the NG version of Basic-Engine while I have lots of time to play. If you make a game of it , please share.
``
10 DIM SinTable(1795)
20 DIM CosTable(1799)
30 PI = 22 / 7
40 DIM Mapp(10, 10)
50 FOR z= 0 TO 1795
60 SinTable(z) = SIN(z * PI / 900) * 100
70 CosTable(z) = COS(z * PI / 900) * 100
80 NEXT z
90 FOR y = 1 TO 10
100 FOR x = 1 TO 10
110 READ Mapp(x, y)
120 IF Mapp(x, y) = 2 THEN
130 Mapp(x, y) = 0
140 px = x: py = y
150 END IF
160 NEXT x
170 NEXT y
180 px = px * 1000
190 py = py * 1000
200 SCREEN 3
210 Angle = 0
220 SkyColor = rgb(0,0,64)
230 ' WallColor = rgb(0,64,0)
240 FloorColor = rgb(12,12,12)
250 DO
260 call Raycast
270 DO
280 kb = INKEY()
290 LOOP UNTIL kb >1
300 IF kb = 87 THEN px = px - SinTable(mangle) * 5: py = py - CosTable(mangle) * 5
310 IF kb = 83 THEN px% = px + SinTable(mangle) * 5: py = py + CosTable(mangle) * 5
320 IF kb = 65 THEN mangle = mangle + 25
330 IF kb = 68 THEN mangle = mangle - 25
340 IF mangle < 0 THEN mangle = mangle + 1800
350 IF mangle > 1795 THEN mangle = mangle - 1800
360 LOOP
370 proc Raycast
380 s = -1
390 FOR z = -160 TO 160
400s = s + 1
410 a = mangle + z
420 IF a < 0 THEN a = a + 1795
430 IF a > 1795 THEN a = a - 1795 '
440 xx = px: yy = py
450 dd = 0
460 DO
470 xx = xx - SinTable(a)
480 yy = yy - CosTable(a)
490 m = Mapp(xx / 1000, yy / 1000)
500 dd = dd + 1
510 LOOP UNTIL m
520 ds = 1000 / dd
525 cr=rnd(16):cg=rnd(15):cb=rnd(16)
530 LINE s, 0,s, 99 - ds, SkyColor
540 LINE s, 100 - ds,s, 100 + ds,rgb(cr,cg,cb)'walls
550 LINE s, 101 + ds,s, 199, FloorColor
560 NEXT z
570 RETURN
580 DATA 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
590 DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
600 DATA 1,0,0,1,0,1,1,1,0,1
610 DATA 1,1,1,1,0,0,0,1,0,1
620 DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,1
630 DATA 1,0,0,0,0,2,0,0,0,1
640 DATA 1,1,1,1,0,1,0,0,0,1
650 DATA 1,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,0,1
660 DATA 1,0,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,1
670 DATA 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1

Gadgetjack

Turn caps lock on....sorry , I forgot.

Gadgetjack

A-S-D-W to move