BAM: About + Links

[CharlieJV]

Basic Anywhere Machine (check it out)

What it is, the "short"(?) version:

Imagine Wikipedia (as in the software behind it), all existing in one self-editing and self-saving HTML file.  Imagine it hosting a QB64 interpreter, IDE, all of the programming tools and programs, and everything to support all processes and artefacts for project management, source code management, and everything end-to-end in a software development process.

Still early going, but that's where it is heading.

And all you need is a web browser.  Offline, online, fine.  What you do with it will still work in 15 or 20 years.  You won't need to find software or an operating system to run it.  Just find a web browser.  Everything else you need (every single thing other than a web browser) is in the one HTML file.

It is like a fully self-contained virtual computer that will have everything you need to manage QB64PE code for huge projects.  Kind of like a QB64PE software development "bottle garden" (not sealed! you can still put stuff in it and get stuff out of it!)

Some technical clarifications:

Okay, it is not Wikipedia software.  It is a "TiddlyWiki" instance.  Because TiddlyWiki has the goods (goodies) to create just about anything.  Don't let the cutesy name fool you.  The thing is a powerhouse.

The embedded BASIC interpreter started off with vanilla wwwBASIC, but BAM's version is significantly enhanced.  (An on-going process.)  At the moment very focused on GW-BASIC "reasonable" compatibility before moving on to QB64PE "reasonable" compatibility.  (I say "reasonable" because I cannot stand javascript, so updating the interpreter to handle the more intricate/complicated statements/functions/features, I just don't want to think of that just yet.)

Aside:

• multi-member team software development project?  That is a BASIC Anywhere Machine "TiddlyWiki Farm" running on a node.js server; awesome, but not required if you have good workflow processes.
  

More info:

• Project web site, Programming Reference, Blog, YouTube Playlist
  
• Tracking Enhancements to wwwBASIC, GW-BASIC Compatibility Tracking
  
• QB64/QB64PE Compatibility Tracking (very early going, a bit under the radar, loads of testing to do)
  

[mnrvovrfc]

First I saw this announcement on Reddit, really glad that information about this is available on this site as well!

This is pretty cool, could change the characters outputted by "CHR$()"... not that it's something I like to do even for making simple arcade games, but maybe something that might have to be done for non-English language support.

[CharlieJV]

First I saw this announcement on Reddit, really glad that information about this is available on this site as well!

This is pretty cool, could change the characters outputted by "CHR$()"... not that it's something I like to do even for making simple arcade games, but maybe something that might have to be done for non-English language support.

Yeah, posting pretty much anywhere I think there may be interest, being careful to try to stick to things here that are useful "QB64PE-sidekick" stuff, and whatever is BAM as stand-alone product stays out of here.

The wwwBASIC character set, to me, I find fat for some situations.

So I introduced a second character set, a copy of the original character set, but the alphabetic, numeric, and some symbols to be "thin".

Load up BASIC Anywhere Machine, file open some program that involves text (or create your own), go to the Project Menu, click on "Runtime Properties" and choose the other font.

Here are the definitions for the fonts:

• original wwwBASIC Font
  
• alternative thin wwwBASIC Font that I added
  

On my radar: adding a "PETSCII" compatible font, such that we have all of the oldtime graphics characters.

Anyway, all of that to say that to say that we can have various "traditional" ASCII's from vintage BASIC's.

For the full international character sets, I'd rather have, I think, a new BASIC function (_CHR$ ?) to access the unicode full monty.

Aside: I'm also not a fan of image smoothing on text, preferring the crisp and old-school pixelated text, so you'll also find an option to turn off image smoothing.