Modern Boot to BASIC Computers

Hawk

People here who are interested in BASIC Engine are probably interested in other modern Boot to BASIC computers, so I thought maybe a new thread was in order.

I have been monitoring the progress of the project to port BBC BASIC to the Raspberry Pi Pico. It appears to be getting quite mature.

https://github.com/Memotech-Bill/PicoBB/releases/tag/V23_03

It’s almost to the point where I’d get some hardware to test it.

Has anyone here tried it yet?

Willard

The only advantage I see is to compare these other BASIC computer projects to the BASIC Engine project. This may give a benchmark to the progress of the BASIC Engine project. If you are interested in other BASIC computer projects you may want to look at these links below:

AgonLight2
https://www.olimex.com/Products/Retro-Computers/AgonLight2/open-source-hardware

BBC BASIC on the AgonLight2 - Modern Z80 single-board computer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lby88Q7_GYs

The AGON light: New open source 8-bit System
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRcipJ-k_aY
TIME STAMPS:
12:29 Some BASIC examples
23:47 More BASIC examples

Currently I am working on porting an Apple II program to BASIC Engine NG. I am learning a lot but also coming up with some questions I may post to the forum. Any ideas what command to use to enter player's names from the keyboard in BASIC Engine NG?

It might be interesting to see if the BBC BASIC programs can be ported to the BASIC Engine project for a comparison of projects.

Dmian

AgonLight is a really interesting project to watch. I follow Bernardo on Mastodon, and it seems like the project is really active, and great new things awaits us in the future.
Here's the official page: https://www.thebyteattic.com/2022/04/announcing-agon.html

Other projects I've been following are:

PicoMiteVGA: small, cheap BASIC system, based on the RPi Micro. https://geoffg.net/picomitevga.html
The Maximite was nice, but the lack of a good distribution was detrimental to the project.

Z-Berry: this is a cute one. I really like the RPi 3 footprint (same as the original BASIC Engine) https://sites.google.com/site/zberrysbc/1-z-berry-design

Neo6502: Tsvetan from Olimex just announced this project, inspired by the AgonLight architecture. https://olimex.wordpress.com/2023/04/21/neo6502-open-source-hardware-modern-retro-computer-project/

And there may be more. Seems like the ESP32 and the RP2040 have sparked something in the retro community, so it's bubbling with new projects and ideas. Really happy with these developments. 🙂