Robin Gravel's Blog

I used to love programming in BASIC on my Vic20, C64, and Apple IIc. It's been years since I owned any of those pieces of hardware, and just as long since I coded in their languages. Since then I had gotten quite used to more modern languages and their features.

 

I recently purchased Petit Computer for the DS (lets you program in BASIC on the DS) and it has been quite a shock all the things I've been taking for granted. For instance, there is no such thing as a group of statements in an IF... THEN. If I want to execute more than a single command I have to call a subroutine (or a reasonable facsimilie since there are no explicit subroutines either). So far I can find no indication of user defined functions with encapsulated variables. And there's no indentation for readability. It takes quite a bit of adaptation to move backwards.

 

Thank goodness there are at least named labels so I don't have to reference specific line numbers in Gosubs.

 

So, I feel your pain.

For instance, there is no such thing as a group of statements in an IF... THEN. If I want to execute more than a single command I have to call a subroutine (or a reasonable facsimilie since there are no explicit subroutines either).

 

That's easy to work around. Say you want to do this:

 if a = 10 then
   a = 20
   b = 30
   c = 40
 endif

 

invert the test case and use goto

 if a <> 10 then goto skip
   a = 20
   b = 30
   c = 40
skip:

Thanks SpiceWare. That makes sense.

 

 

110 if a <> 10 then goto 150

120 a = 20

130 b = 30

140 c = 40

150 REM skip

 

Commodore Basic uses numbers noit labels.

Many BASIC also allow for multiple commands on a single line, e.g.

110 if a = 10 then a = 20 : b = 30 : c = 40

120 REM endif

How about making user functions that would work on both QuickBASIC and C64? Wouldn't that be one way of making cross platform games?

Many BASIC also allow for multiple commands on a single line, e.g.

110 if a = 10 then a = 20 : b = 30 : c = 40

120 REM endif

 

Yeah! But Basica/Qbasic can have 255 characters per line while Basic 2.0 only has 80 characters per line.

How about making user functions that would work on both QuickBASIC and C64? Wouldn't that be one way of making cross platform games?

 

DG: a text adventure game is not designed for porting to Basic 2.0 in mind. But new games will.

 

The best way to port from PC to Basic 2.0 is to use Basica unstead Qbasic to make new games. Because Qbasic is more advanced than Basica and it does not need numbers as labels.