New beta release 1.2.7r2021

[LCD]

The idea is to put them as external libraries, as most of the functions.
This make the compiler more portable to other archs.

Sure, but this means, it needs to be well documented which functions are there in external librarys. I currently write the description of the Librarys for my BorIDE. This means: If you write a command that is a part of a Library (as in case of LCASE), the autocomplete recognizes it and Quickhelp will tell the user: "Hey, user, watch out, this is a external function, do not forget to include it with INCLUDE <Libname>".I'm thinking about making it possible to autoinclude the includes.

That's the strong point of C. You will see C everywhere, because it's a tiny language with a big standard set of libraries. Unfortunately, there is not such a thing for BASIC.

Maybe C is anywhere, but not on my computer At least, not yet. Alont the idea that you allways need the Main { } function, is sick .

I would like to implement also READ/DATA/RESTORE (in a limited way, at least) to improve compatibility, before this release.

Yes. Compatibility is a good reason, but I myself have not used them for years, except to include binaries. In Pure BASIC there is DataSection / EndDataSection (For speed reasons) where I can also include a binary data from file.

1.2.7 is a "big step" towards 2.0. Unfortunately, except the new preprocessor most of ZX BASIC 2.0 should be rewritten *from scratch* :?

Sounds like much reworking comes to you.

I'm even thinking in renaming the compiler to something like "ZXB" or "Retrobasic" or alike...

Or maybe BorBas, RetBorBas, BoRetroBas or so... Finding a cool and unique name is important.