What is BBC BASIC for the Macintosh?

BBC BASIC on the Mac?

BBC BASIC for the Macintosh has been developed with the dual aim of providing an advanced interactive programming language especially suitable for educational use. with the capability of running a large proportion of the existing educational software originally developed for the BBC Microcomputer.

BBC BASIC for the Macintosh gives you access to the foremost educational programming language in the UK, with the ability lo run many programs originally developed for the BBC Microcomputer.

BBC BASIC language interpreter

BBC BASIC supports the full BASIC language, as on Master series computers, and the most significant features of BASIC V supplied with the Acorn Archimedes. It runs programs significantly faster than a BBC Microcomputer, in some cases up to twice as fast.

Emulates BBC screen modes

BBC BASIC emulates BBC Microcomputer graphics and screen modes, including Mode 7 Teletext. It provides grey shades on monochrome Macintosh and colour on a Macintosh II, and you can even load BBC format screen dumps directly to the screen.

BBC Emulator Operating System

BBC BASIC Incorporates the BBC Emulator Operating System — BEOS — to give full emulation of the BBC Microcomputer environment on your Macintosh, thereby catering for BASIC and machine-code programs that call BBC Microcomputer routines. BEOS includes all the standard system commands, calls, and vectors.

Built-in assembler

BBC BASIC provides a built-in assembler and 6502 machine-code interpreter. You can compile and run 6502 assembler programs, or machine code which you have loaded in directly.

Transferring files

BBC BASIC includes a built-in interface to transfer programs to and from a BBC Microcomputer without additional software. The only extra requirement is a cable linking the serial connectors on the two machines.

In addition, a separate File-Mac utility is provided that will transfer several programs and/or data files in a single convenient operation. File-Mac preserves the load and execution addresses of machine-code files, so that they can be loaded or run with BBC BASICS *LOAD or *RUN commands. Even !BOOT files can be transferred, and can then simply be double-clicked to run programs.

BBC BASIC takes advantage of the advanced features of the Macintosh to provide a fast and powerful environment in which to develop, test, and run your BASIC programs.

Powerful program editor

A Macintosh-style interactive editor provides a scrolling view of program listings with convenient cursor or mouse editing. You can work with any font available on your system and you can display keywords highlighted in bold for easy reference.

A preferences page allows specific aspects of the Editor and emulation to be altered for particular situations, and saved in custom preferences flies.

Tracing and debugging

Dynamic tracing and debugging features let you run a program, or step through, highlighting each statement as it is executed, and you can display the values of any variables or expressions.

Help system

A comprehensive Help system gives you instant information on keywords and operators, without interrupting what you are doing.

Toolbox interface

A Macintosh Toolbox interface allows you to define your own menus, dialogue boxes, and scrolling lists using convenient BASIC keywords, and use the standard file dialogues for opening and saving data files.

Apple2000. (February 1991). BBC BASIC on the Mac? (Volume 6 Issue 1).

Download BBC BASIC for the Macintosh for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II