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Basic256

A topic by UglyMike created 9 days ago Views: 86 Replies: 14

Viewing posts 1 to 3

UglyMike37 days ago

Hi all! New member here! Totally new at this, beeing an old, almost senile geezer, so be gentle…

Years ago (10-15 years), I got involved with BASIC-256. It had a lively community back then and I had a lot of fun sharing small programs and getting involved in the community. I’m even mentioned on its Wikipedia page!!

Now that I’m retired, I decided to revisit it and was disappointed that the community was gone, the website was as good as dead (https://basic256.org ) and the project had stopped with the last official release dating back to 2020 with version 2.0.0.11 ( https://sourceforge.net/projects/kidbasic ). Some developer activity had gone on since then, but it seems the project ended with a failed port of Qt5 to Qt6. Of course, the maintainers had been plugging away at it since 2006, so there is that too.

The last release works well enough for fun coding so I created a new website (https://uglymike.static.domains )to showcase my work. It seemed I was pretty much the only BASIC-256 user left.

So I did what any self-respecting retiree would do and forked the project (well, more of a continuation than a fork. It’s still basic256), got some help from the free A.I. Engines out there (some help being an understatement….) and presto!! Basic256 reborn, this time on https://github.com/uglymike17/basic256 There is no release yet, but you can already download almost-recent builds for Windows, macOS, Linux-x86 and Linux-ARM (Raspberry Pi) from my website mentioned above. Why, there is even a version you can run straight away in you browser,! Just point your browser at https://uglymike17.github.io/basic256 and get cracking! There are some cool examples you can load.

Now, basic256 is not a real retro BASIC (like the ones that emulate Commodore, Spectrum, QBasic and so on) but neither is it a really ‘modern’ BASIC with SDL, C++ includes, 3D engines and what have you. It still is at its core an educational BASIC, ready to help you get started in the world of programming (Jeez, writing a book here….)

So, what do you think? Care to give it a try? It’s all free stuff (GPL) There is documentation on https://doc.basic256.org but again, that site is showing its age. I already converted it to Docusaurus and will also put it on github.io. For now, the help still points to the ‘old’ documentation (as does the About-box)

Remarks and suggestions at this early stage are very welcome! Stars on the github page are welcome too as these will help me get the Windows Installer signed….

Kind regards,

UglyMike

david.JamIsFun9 days ago

Hello.......I was so surprised today. In fact, I discovered this old post in the pending folder today. Itch's spam detector automatically classified your post as spam post last month. Maybe too many URLs are in this post. Anyway, the new official version of the language software and the new website, congratulations!

UglyMike9 days ago

Things happen..

I have just submitted a new post. Please check if it is not in the spam box (again)

Thanks,

Uglymike

david.JamIsFun9 days ago

Yes.....this post was in the pending folder: https://itch.io/post/17025057
Ok now but still strange because the date is "28 days ago".

UglyMike8 days ago

very strange…. In my ‘Posts’ listing, I have 2 posts. One post labelled ‘Published’ 28 days ago but when I click on it, it says awaiting moderator. 0 views, 0 comments

If I press the edit button on that one, I see my very big post about the beta. This 4-line post you mention is not one I recall…. It is also not in my ‘Posts’

I also have a second post labelled ‘Draft’ and titled “Basic256 v2.1.0 is out”. That one should be published.

Something strange is going on with the state of my posts

UglyMike8 days ago

Ah, i see now. That was not a post, but a reply of mine to a post of yours regarding the Basic256 book….

Funny that just 2 links are enough to send it to the spam bucket….

Still no idea where my last post is??

david.JamIsFun8 days ago

Ha....maybe I undertood. Perhaps there are so many game developers and tools developers promoting their projects (stored on Github) by issuing a lot of posts with Github's URLs in different forums or messageboards on Itch. That is not a bug of the spam detector. The Itch's staff really wants to stop this phenomenon.

david.JamIsFun8 days ago

`Hi, at the moment, there is no post in the pending folder. Maybe there is bug in Itch's spam detector. There are two posts in your posts listing. Perhaps you may not need to publish the big "Beta" post any more because the beta stage was over. The other post is the "Basic256 v2.1.0 is out" post. My guess: this post will appear in the pending folder 28 to 29 days later. Would you mind posting this "Basic256 v2.1.0 is out" post in a new thread again? But without any URL I believe that the spam detector will not isolate this new post(no URL). If succeed, edit the post, add another URL, issue the post. If succeed again, edit, add, issue........... So continue these same steps again and again..... If the spam detector really isolates the post at one point, we will understand in what situation the spam detector takes action automatically. Maybe you need to spend 15 minutes on trying. If there is really a bug, I will be able to report to the staff of Itch with details. Thanks.

UglyMike8 days ago (2 edits)

I have reviewed the last post and there is not a single github mentioned, just three links:homepage, a subdomain with documentation and a subdomain where the WASM lives… Lets see where that lands first.

Oh, and the big Beta post is probably a first try on getting someting published. It’s called “Basic256 The Next Generation” and is about similar to this post simply called “Basic256” Then again, this post (“Basic256”) does not appear in my list of posts…. Only the next generation one and the v2.1.0 one.

No Time To Play9 days ago

Basic-256 is still included in the Debian repositories as of Bookworm, but I only tried it briefly and set it aside because it seems to be designed for learning and recreational programming. Not what I needed. But kudos for trying to keep it alive.

UglyMike9 days ago

yes, but that is still the ‘old’ v2.0.0.11 version (maybe with some v.2.0.99 patches)

I am in contact with the maintainer of the .deb package to see if he can switch to the new v2.1.0 version…

Thanks for having a look.

david.JamIsFun9 days ago

New examples of Version 2.1 will make you surprised.

UglyMike8 days ago

Thanks!!

david.JamIsFun4 days ago

Hello! May I ask what the conclusion is? The spam detector takes action in what circumstance? Furthermore, there are three webpage addresses in this post: https://itch.io/post/17028692

Do you know why the spam detector did not ban this post? Thanks.

UglyMike4 days ago

i guess because, based on what you previously said, there is no Github mentioned, just ‘generic websites….