On 10/30/2011 01:17 PM, Toby Thain wrote:
Hmmm.
Interesting. I wonder if I can remember enough BBC BASIC to
implement a very crude Lisp in it. :=ACD
Wouldn't be my weapon of choice, but if you really love BBC BASIC, then
go for it. Maybe you could actually compile to BASIC source (& even
exploit the inline 6502 assembler) :)
BBC BASIC has an inline assembler for 6502?? Wow, that's wild. What=20
The oriignal BBC BASIC, running on a 6502-based BBC micro has a 6502
assembled built in. BBC basic also exits for the Z80 and the ARM (at
least), it then has the approprtiate assembler for the processor it runs on.
hardware would I need to cobble together to run that?
The easiest thing if you want to run it on real vintage hardaare (as I
would) would be to find a BBC micro. They are _very_ common in the UK,
and the BASIC ROM was a stnadrd feature.
Of course the UK version is set up for 230V mains and UK TV video. The
PSU is an Astec SMPUS normally [1] amd it's easy to convert it for 15V.
If you can fidn a monitor that will synch to 15625Hz horizontal and 50Hz
vertical you'll ahve no problems with the video either. The standard
machine has a composite monchrome video output (you can add PAL-encoded
colour by setting an internal jumper), UHF RF PAL encoded colour video
(to link to a TV aerial socket) and a TTL-levbel RGB+syuc colour output
(oyu onlly get 8 colours anyway, so 3 TTL signals is all you need).
There was a US version of the Beeb with different MOS (machine operating
system, nothing to do with the semiconductors) ROMs which set it for US
TV rates, and differnet colour encoder circuitry to give you NTSC colour.
I susepct that version is much harder to find.
[1] Some very easrly machines had a linear PSU (transofemr, rectifier,
several 7805s). They were known for burnign the varnish off tables... It
is unlikely you'll get one of these.
If you don;t care about using vintage hardware, there must be a BBC
emulator available.
-tony