Basic compiler for Intellivision?

[vprette]

hello to all,

 

as someone would know, I'm involved in the publishing of intellivision homebrews.

I wonder if anyone would be interested in making anything similar to batari basic on the intellivision platform?

 

any comment or suggestion about this?

 

thanks

 

Valter

[+Gemintronic]

Someday someone will make a C compiler for INTV. After that someone else can figure out how to integrate BCX to parse BASIC into C.

 

Another route would be to port pyNES or ZX Basic for SMS to INTV. These tools spit out asm code blocks that can be replaced with INTV asm instead.

 

The truth is, people like Fred Quimby (batari) are far and few between. Those with the knowledge to make high level languages for low resource systems either are working on their own projects or have an active disdain for BASIC.

 

If you can find a way to fund an INTV BASIC compiler then you'd grow not only a whole new development base for INTV but people eager to publish under you as well.

[bongomeno]

I love the idea! It would also be cool if someone created a cart that is similar to the "Basic Programming" cart of the vcs. It could utilize the Intellivisions controllers in the same way. Something a little more serious than Mr. Basic Meets bits and Bytes (which I have a new boxed copy of!)

Edited December 6, 2012 by bongomeno

[+Gemintronic]

I love the idea! It would also be cool if someone created a cart that is similar to the "Basic Programming" cart of the vcs. It could utilize the Intellivisions controllers in the same way.

 

It would be neat. However, programming directly on the INTV would require rare keyboards or awkward input. Plus making a runtime engine for BASIC on a low resource system like the INTV would be a nightmare. Let's have people program new games with their existing modern computer and let the parser spit out assembly code that can be compiled into something a normal (inexpensive) cart can handle.

[nukeshed]

I would find this a wonderful addition to the tool set currently available.

[+Gemintronic]

Basically, no one is going to come out and volunteer for such a project. I'm not sure how one goes about commissioning a developer for this. More to the point, I have no idea how much it'd cost.