Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Retrocomputing Basic Implementations

Here is a summary of a number of Basic implementations that I have come across and worked with as part of my retrocomputing hobby. Many of these were ported by me or others to different platforms from the ones they were originally written for (for example, single board computers based on the 6502, 6809, Z80, and 68000 microprocessors). These are all found on my github  account.

Name Developer Platform Code size Comments
Enhanced Basic (68000) Lee Davison 68000 14K Full-featured Basic for 68K platform
Tiny Basic for the 68000 Gordon Brandly 68000 4K Derived from and similar to Palo Alto Tiny Basic.
Enhanced Basic (6502) Lee Davison 6502 11K Full-featured Basic for 6502 platform.
Microsoft Basic for 6502 Microsoft Apple 2, Commodore, KIM-1, OSI, and others 8K Basic used on several early 6502-based microcomputers.
Tiny Basic for 6502 Tom Pitman 6502 3K Originally published in Dr. Dobbs Journal.
Apple 1 Basic Steve Wozniak 6502 (Apple 1) 4K Basic for the Apple 1, later expanded into Apple 2 Integer Basic.
BBC Basic 2 for Acorn Atom/BBC Computer Roger Wilson (Acorn Computer) 6502-based Acorn Atom and BBC Computers 16K Basic for the Acorn Atom and BBC Computers.
Tiny Basic for 6800 Tom Pitman 6800 2K My version runs on the Heathkit ETA-3400.
Tiny Basic for 6809 Tom Pitman 6809 2K 6809 port of 6800 version.
TSC Micro BASIC PLUS Technical Systems Consultants 6809 4K Similar to Tiny Basic.
Sinclair ZX81 Basic John Grant and Steve Vickers, Nine Tiles Networks and Sinclair Research Sinclair ZX80/ZX81, Timex 1000 8K Basic for the Sinclair ZX81 computer.

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