itch.io

I have rebuilt the Forces of Darkness executable so that it will run successfully from (for example) the Téléchargements directory, I will upload it to Itch in the near future.  Making the BBCSDL IDE run is more difficult!

BBC BASIC (when running on Windows) doesn't support Unicode filenames (or pathnames) - this is because Windows uses UTF-16 when all the other supported platforms use UTF-8.

No, it's Web Assembly (compiled by Emscripten) so I can provide a URL but not a file (unless the file is just a dummy redirect of course)  I can't see anywhere that I can specify a URL so that it is listed with the downloads as an alternative way of running it.

Yes, it's only the example program from BBC BASIC but I thought it deserved its own listing.  It can also be run on the web without needing to download anything (I wish itch.io allowed you to publish an app with both download and web implementations, but it doesn't seem to).

I don't think it's unduly harsh.  BBC BASIC is (nearly) 42 years old and most of the features you complain about have been there from the start.

Some can be justified (Cartesian Coordinates are used in PostScript, OpenGL etc. and are the standard way to represent 2-dimensional data in science and engineering); others less so (resolution-independent coordinates are great, but they should have been something like 16-units per pixel, not two).

Having to remain compatible with a language designed in the 1980s is both a blessing and a curse.  The blessing is that it ensures stability, and removes the temptation to 'tinker' with the language.  The curse is that (the few) things that, with hindsight, were poorly designed constantly rankle.

By the way, there is a 'proper' ELSEIF syntax, but it's been shoehorned into the language and as such is not particularly pleasant.  I'd recommend using a CASE statement in preference:

> how can I side-load my own programs into the Android edition? 

If you are simply wanting to run your own BASIC programs in the Android edition of BBCSDL, that's most straightforwardly achieved by connecting your mobile device to a host PC using a USB lead, and mounting the Android file system as a remote drive.  The directory which appears as @usr$ in BBC BASIC corresponds to the path Android/data/com.rtrussell.bbcbasic/files/ as seen from the host.

You can even run BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 on the host and directly edit your BASIC program(s) directly within the remote drive, then you simply have to run them from the Android edition; this is easier than using the limited editing capabilities of the 'touch IDE'.  It is probable that if your program crashes out you will need to force-close and re-launch BBC BASIC on the device.

If you want to go the whole-hog and create an APK from your program so that you can side-load it without needing to use BBCSDL at all, use the BBC2APK utility.  This is Windows-only so that may be an issue for you if you're using a different OS (it uses the Apktool utility for the heavy-lifting so may in principle be portable to other platforms but it's not something I have attempted).