Small snippet to make the AY scream a bit

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I suggest to open a new "Documentation" sub-forum to discuss all this and also to announce the achivements about the documentation.

Good idea

Forgot to mention there's a Spanish introductory manual I wrote for an online Magazine last year: ZX Basic: Un sueño hecho realidad (ZX Basic: A dream come true).

Sounds very good, but my translator kills the sense of anything.

Please don't stop coding... Please!!!

• Z80 architectures: MSX, Amstrad, ZX Spectrum clones, Gameboy, etc...
• 68000 architectures: QL (many people asking for it)

6502 would be great as well: http://playpower.org project is really needing better development tools related to NES game development, and other computer/game systems using this processor, like Apple1/2, BBC, Atari 400/800/XE, Commodore64/vic20, etc., are really needing an awesome cross-compiler like zxbasic-compiler is - and maybe the 6502 results can be compatible with the 6809 used on CoCo2 or Thomson?

• .NET To run your programs in .NET (this should be easy)

if you're taking this idea really seriously, don't forget checking if this can be compatible with Mono project ( http://www.mono-project.com ) - imho, .net stuff is completelly crappy and useless when missing Mono compatibility

• Z80 architectures: MSX, Amstrad, ZX Spectrum clones, Gameboy, etc...
• 68000 architectures: QL (many people asking for it)

6502 would be great as well: http://playpower.org project is really needing better development tools related to NES game development, and other computer/game systems using this processor, like Apple1/2, BBC, Atari 400/800/XE, Commodore64/vic20, etc., are really needing an awesome cross-compiler like zxbasic-compiler is - and maybe the 6502 results can be compatible with the 6809 used on CoCo2 or Thomson?

about Playpower project, i posted this message there today: http://volunteers.playpower.org/forum/topics/boriel-s-zxbasic-compiler-fork-for-nes-compatibility
would be interesting seeing some feedback from there, which surelly will help zxbasic-compiler a lot becoming a multitarget cross-compiler - what do you all think?

[boriel]

A "fork" is really discouraged, IMHO.
In fact, the idea behind ZX BASIC is people to contribute to the compiler deveolping *backends*. ZX Basic is a retargeable compiler, which means the Source code is translated to Intermediate Code and from there to asm and finally assembled. Everything is modularized, so you can (or should?) add a different module on each stage for different purposes. E.g.

• If you change the backend, your program will compile for another platform.
• If you change the fronted, you can create programs in another language (e.g. C, or Fortran).

Also, forking the compiler could eventually lead to different language flavours or variations (one for NES, another for ZX Spectrum). Even though INK or PAPER might make nonsense in other platforms, new features can be added just by using function calls and subs (this is what C does, in fact). So we need not to change the language adding incompatible features between platforms (incompatible functions are OK).

If fact, NES is an 8 bit CPU, so the backend should be not very hard.

Well, that my opinion. ZX Basic is licensed GPL, so if people want a fork, they could proceed as they want.

Also, forking the compiler could eventually lead to different language flavours or variations (one for NES, another for ZX Spectrum). Even though INK or PAPER might make nonsense in other platforms, new features can be added just by using function calls and subs (this is what C does, in fact).

yes, NES display is really different (and a bit confusing for all people used to code on known 8bit computers) - bitmap patterns (256 8x8 patterns, taking 4kb, used a bit like msx1 in text mode) are 2bit (instead of 1bit from zx-spectrum, msx1, etc.) - 4 groups of 4 colours, which colour '0' (border colour) of each is always the same - resulting on 13 colours - attribute are, for choosing these groups, is 16x15 as displayed (32x32 as whole playfield) - and the palette used on hardware sprites are another 12 colours, which colour '0' is for transparent (from the same 64 - which seems based on yuv, not rgb (like 2 bit for each primary) )