BabaBASIC

Languages and libraries

basic interpreter

SHOW HN2023

234points
92comments
#220of 3,109 in 2023
Top 8%of 2023 by points

How HN took it

LovedMost comments that take a side are positive

10 positive, 13 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 0 critical, out of 23 comments about the project. Thread score +0.37.

Docs: 2 for, 0 againstExecution: 2 for, 0 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Nostalgia for QBasic and its built-in help system

    From 3 comments
    • >I think the killer feature of QBasic and even more so QuickBasic was the help and reference without any internet access in the 90s, I taught myself QBasic largely out of that…
      knome on HN
    • > the killer feature ... was the help and reference So much this. The help in QBasic is how I learned to program at ten years old in a pre-internet world. A couple years later my…
      donatj on HN
    • This is nice, I'd like to know the changes you made. I started a discussion on GitHub, I think the killer feature of QBasic and even more so QuickBasic was the help and…
      stuaxo on HN
  • Good project for nostalgic fans and teaching

    From 2 comments
    • Impressive project! I remember a friend showed how to render some "demo" style graphics (not a fractal, I believe it was some kind of line-based art) on our pentium. First time I…
      e12e on HN
    • Yep, me and my son are currently daily users of QB1.1 in DOSBox. Works nicely, but you might need trial and error to figure out the [Break] key when you're on a laptop. Haven't…
      marttt on HN

Objections

  • No networking or graphics support yet

    From 2 comments
    • Not with BabaBASIC (for now?). No networking support whatsoever :P
      thatha7777 on HN
    • No, not at the moment, it only supports the default "text mode" (VT100). Graphics modes are my next milestone.
      thatha7777 on HN
  • Autocompletion is limited

    From 1 comment
    • Ohhhh yes, you're absolutely right. Frankly, this is my first Android/mobile application, so I'm still trying to wrap my head around the limited screen space and whatnot. I'd be…
      thatha7777 on HN

Requests

  • Support SOUND and PLAY

    From 1 comment
    • Awesome! A blast from the past! Feature request: could you make SOUND and/or PLAY work? :-)
      aleken on HN
  • Graphics modes

    From 1 comment
  • Run gorillas.bas and other classic games

    From 2 comments
    • Yeah, but... Can it gorillas.bas?
      jkonline on HN
    • That's an awesome resource! Thank you for sharing. Hopefully BabaBASIC will be able to run any of these games at some point of time. My first explorations as a child were more…
      thatha7777 on HN
  • Live documentation feature

    From 1 comment
    • I'm actively working on some kind of "live docs" feature for BabaBASIC. Though ... I have to wonder (and I'm only half-joking) -- should it just be a ChatGPT integration that can…
      thatha7777 on HN

Questions

  • Does it support graphics?

    From 1 comment
  • Can it run existing QBasic programs such as nibbles?

    From 1 comment
    • Mid 90s qbasic was how I learned to program! My friend and I extended the nibbles / snake game ... I wonder if I can get it to run on your qbasic implementation:…
      ronyeh on HN

Alternatives named

  • PuffinBASIC

    From 1 comment
    • Ah, and I almost forgot, in re the changes: the commit log is the definitive (and painstakingly accurate) log of changes: https://github.com/ianatha/bababasic/commits/main To…
      thatha7777 on HN
  • QB64

    From 1 comment
    • QB64 has taken on the mantel of modern reimplementation, its worth seeing if there are any extensions from there that are worth implementing.
      stuaxo on HN
  • DOSBox running original QBasic

    From 1 comment
    • Worth noting that you can also run the original qbasic in dosbox. That's handy if you want to run old qbasic code, since typically that code expects to be able to poke hardware…
      londons_explore on HN
  • B4A

    From 1 comment
    • You could also use B4A (https://www.b4x.com/b4a.html), which compiles BASIC into Java bytecode and has an interface builder -- as well as versions available for iOS, Arduino, and…
      gramie on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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