I first learned to program in Sinclair Basic on a Spectrum, and later in GW-Basic on DOS. That didn't last long; fancier, more powerful languages lured me away soon enough, and I didn't return until rediscovering the joys of coding for 8-bit platforms in 2013 or 2014.
A couple more years down the road, however, I rediscovered another old interest, namely programming language implementation. And Basic is as fun to implement as it is to use! After a tentative first attempt, I started looking into it more seriously.
But that's a long story, for another time. For now, here are the results:
- Tinycat Basic: a comparative study of implementations in Java / D / Go
- Batch Basic: structured dialect with no line numbers and a few quirks
Want to learn how to make your own? See my interpreter construction book.
Other dialects
More Basic links
- Awesome Basic:
A curated list of awesome BASIC dialects, IDEs, and tutorials
- GotBASIC.com:
For all people interested in the continued usage and evolution of the BASIC programming language.
- Phat Code: old, huge resource about Basic and (game) programming in general; offers hosting to many valuable projects
- The Basics' page: largely obsolete but still fascinating list of compilers and interpreters
- BASIC Computer Games: the classic book, all online
And some related headlines from over the years:
Sadly so few of them, but it can't be helped.