Talk:Tiny BASIC

ESP32

https://hackaday.com/2016/10/27/basic-interpreter-hidden-in-esp32-silicon/

There seems to be a Tiny BASIC in the ROM of every ESP32. -- 95.99.41.100 (talk) 13:48, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

The virtues(?) of SW copyright

A recent contribution to the article reads as follows:  "Tiny BASIC is a set of computer tools that started the software writing (programming) business. Any software written in Tiny basic language could be copyrighted. Books were written that contained programs that are still in use today because the electronic means used to execute,(run) those programs hasn't changed at all. Few if any programmers actually copyrighted their software in those days but those that did were true visionaries considering the fact that computers are a large part of life today."

I must admit I'm a little unsure as to whether the above passage actually represents a properly encyclopedic, NPOV, piece of information. Please comment, folks. --Wernher 11:41, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's nonsense. Mirror Vax 19:25, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

The article currently references the CLI when refering to virtual machiens. To me this seems to specific as the CLI is in no way related to TInyBASIC. To reference the CLI implies that the article should also be referencing the JVM, Parrot, etc -- all would be equally valid... --Olliej 05:35, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It's nonsense, virtual machines and CLI came years after of Tiny BASIC. Tiny BASIC was only a simple tokenizing interpreter. GermanX (talk) 12:34, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

This might explain why there's a link to "Copyleft" in the See Also section. It sounds like it doesn't belong in here, as this predates any concept of GPL. SineSwiper (talk) 17:16, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

No, it is there because, as mentioned in the Copyleft article (did you even bother to follow the link?), the earliest known use of the term was in connection with TinyBASIC. DES (talk) 15:34, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I found a recent very interesting version - can't find it quickly now - by G Smothers. Very interesting expression parsing. It works with QBASIC! It doesn't use computed goto which breaks my heart but the parsing method appears so simple and solid even I may be able to figure out how to add this feature. Compile this with FreeBasic and it goes like a bat out of hell.159.105.81.31 (talk) 19:29, 6 December 2010 (UTC)It was Geek Basic Software.About 200- lines of simple code that works. If you stay within its parameters it works well, might be an easy jump off for a tiny compiler (probably not by me but maybe).159.105.81.31 (talk) 19:47, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

String not defined

All terms named on the right-hand side of the grammar are defined, except for string - I've been right back to this revision to see if it went missing at some point, but it seems was never present. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:09, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

8008 basic

the article contained several references to "8008 basic". there is no evidence that such a thing ever existed (it cited Weaver and Tindall work [1], but this was not a real thing - it was an academic theoretical project that was never implemented, and had no relation to tiny basic). the text also mentioned datapoint, which does not even use the 8008. i removed those references, with appropriate summaries.

it also claimed that "The prevalence of BASIC on the first generation of home computers is an outcome of Tiny BASIC" (an anon edit), citing a source that does not actually support the claim ([2]. i removed this too.

peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 21:46, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Backus-Naur nonsense

That section seems like an overcomplicated way of describing a very simple language, understandable off-the-cuff only to readers already versed in a particular theoretical way of representing grammar and programming language structure. Both trying to comprehend it as-is, and with the "help" of the lengthy and convoluted linked article on the form itself (which runs to many printed pages in length), has left me pretty cold. Given that tinyBASIC itself would fit within one to one-and-a-half regular 80x25 screens of DOS text (or in other words: probably shorter than how it's currently represented in the article, and a pretty small fraction of the explanatory article), it surely shouldn't be beyond the wit of man to give us a layman-parseable plain English explanation, should it? It's got like a dozen instructions and is otherwise a pretty simple subset of the already pretty easy to describe regular BASIC (which is, of course, a "beginner's" language).

EG: Each line of code starts with a unique index number (entering a line with a duplicate number overwrites the original with that number); written after the number - and/or a separating colon - is a single instruction or compound set of sub-instructions, and optionally some data (numbers, a string, a one-letter variable, a port or memory address, a line-number... etc...) for that/those instruction(s) to process. The available instructions and their actions are explained in a table below, and the values they work on have to be generally of a form -blah-, or as described in that selfsame table. When a program is run, it starts from the lowest entered line number and then proceeds in ascending line number order to the highest, whereupon it ends, unless the flow is modified by a GOTO or other branch instruction.

Boom. 146.199.60.36 (talk) 17:16, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

The Backus-Naur stuff might not be the most readable way to describe the language, but I recently found out that it has the virtue of being lifted verbatim from the original author's article in Dr. Dobb's Journal of January 1976 ([3]). Which is one way to avoid accusations of original research! I think on that historical basis it should stay, even if someone has the wit and energy to write a clearer description of the language at some point in the future.

I also note that the omission of a string definition noticed by Redrose64 a couple of years back (and since corrected in the Wiki article) was a mistake copied over from that publication.

Cyningstan (talk) 15:58, 11 October 2019 (UTC)