Interesting that the author doesn't mention Parallax BASIC Stamp [0] when it's a Basic-programmable microcontroller that's been on the market since the 1990s. Regardless, the Arduino Due is 4x the CPU at about the same price. Kinda neat.
While this is fun, I'm not sure why anyone would choose Basic over CircuitPython or MicroPython [1] if they're trying to program a modern micro with a beginner friendly language.
> Regardless, the Arduino Due is 4x the CPU at about the same price. Kinda neat.
And the Due is 14 years old and kind of overpriced - there are much better options available nowadays. (For instance, there are a ton of boards based on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 and RP2350, both of which will run circles around the Due.)
Not sure why they should mention the Stamp. Back in the 90's and 00's they cost like $80 and were not an open system. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $160, so not even close to being as accessible as even the high end Arduinos today.
We've come a long way. Dr. Dobbs, Volume 1 #5 (PDF) [2]
Source (8080) available on github [0]
Others: [1]
I forgot how I first loaded it. Doubtful that I typed it in, but I do recall getting a paper tape from somewhere and loading it via a cheap optical reader.
Life got interesting when I got a NorthStar disk for the IMSAI. And ever after.
Well the title is missleading a little bit. Technical it is a Arduino but only the 32 bit ARM Cortex-M Arduinos are supported. Not exactly what i had in mind reading Arduiono. If you intrestend in a fantastic BASIC for cheap RP2040 RP3250 look for MMBasic
While this is fun, I'm not sure why anyone would choose Basic over CircuitPython or MicroPython [1] if they're trying to program a modern micro with a beginner friendly language.
[0] https://www.parallax.com/products/basic-stamp-2-microcontrol...
[1] https://learn.adafruit.com/getting-started-with-raspberry-pi...
And the Due is 14 years old and kind of overpriced - there are much better options available nowadays. (For instance, there are a ton of boards based on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 and RP2350, both of which will run circles around the Due.)
It provides a compiler and interpreter, like most BASICs that were not constrained by 8 bit home micros hardware restrictions.
Source (8080) available on github [0]
Others: [1]
I forgot how I first loaded it. Doubtful that I typed it in, but I do recall getting a paper tape from somewhere and loading it via a cheap optical reader.
Life got interesting when I got a NorthStar disk for the IMSAI. And ever after.
[0] https://github.com/kevinthecheung/tiny-basic
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_BASIC
[2] http://cini.classiccmp.org/pdf/DrDobbs/DrDobbs-1976-05-v1n5....
Firefox will complain about http. Allow download. I checked it, it's real pdf.
It has support for much of PICO's I/O capability including network connectivity. It is VERY easy to work with and has excellent documentation.
AND it is a free download with an active community.
https://geoffg.net/
This TinyBASIC however, is using Python only during the build phase, the actual interpreter code is in C and what runs on the Arduino is a binary.
I mean, crap like this means we need 1GB for a weather app and 4GB RAM for a simple text editor.