bwBASIC/READMEFIRST

4-16-2020  Upd 8-8-2020 3.20d Upd 12-21-2021 3.20f Ken

Bwbasic has been around since the early 1990's
in one form or another and actually quite powerfull.

This should work under most any Linux and Linux under
WSL (Ubuntu, Debian) for Windows at the command prompt.



If running this under Linux you will need 'gcc' compiler.
To see if it's installed type in  gcc --version  if OK
then simply do the following:

tar -xf bwbasic-3.20d.tar <here>

cd <here>

To make 'cls' work as it does in DOS perform once

sudo ln /usr/bin/clear /usr/bin/cls

Tip: Now linking to clear within a bwbasic program you
     can clear the screen using command  SHELL "cls"
     This can be embedded in you program. You can also
     use OPTION TERMINAL ANSI  then use command CLS

Now lets build bwbasic and renum

(1) make               To make binaries
(2) make runlocal      To test build
(3) sudo make install  To install programs
(4) sudo make remove   To remove compiled programs
(5) make clean         To remove binaries from build

That's it.

bwbasic and renum will be in /usr/local/bin

If you want bwbasic to work from a GUI do:

make addgui

Doing the above should allow you to click on the icon
on your desktop and start bwbasic.

If you want to delete the GUI additions do:

make delgui



If running Windows 7 32bit or later up to Windows 11 64bit
install the following:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/tdm-gcc/files/TDM-GCC%20Installer
/tdm64-gcc-5.1.0-2.exe/download

OR running under Windows 7 or better you will need 'gcc' compiler.
To see if it's installed type in  gcc --version  if you
think you have gcc installed verify your 'PATH' by entering
at the command prompt  echo %PATH% to see if it's there.
If OK then at the command prompt:

cd <here>

compile.bat

Read prompts

That's it.

Move bwbasic.exe and renum.exe to locations in your PATH.



There are many, many examples in BAS-EXAMPLES and
available information in INFO and DOCS.

All should work fine. But as usual no guarentee is implied.

As a simple example try the guessing game and TicTacToe

bwbasic BAS-EXAMPLES/guess.bas

or

bwbasic BAS-EXAMPLES/tictac.bas

or

bwbasic BAS-EXAMPLES/ohmslaw.bas



Any references below to relays pertain to the BeagleBone Black.

I have included some runtime files and sample input files.
Place profile.bas in your current working directory and
relays.pro and allon.inp and alloff.inp. The file examples
will let you to by example turn off all relays alloff.inp.
To do this you would enter at the command line:

bwbasic --profile relays.pro --tape alloff.inp relays.bas

To turn all relays on:

bwbasic --profile relays.pro --tape allon.inp relays.bas

To work interactive you would:

bwbasic relays.bas

Once you get a handle on relays.bas commands you can
create you own .inp files and reference them by

bwbasic --profile relays.pro --tape <your file.inp> relays.bas

All the above can placed into a simple script file.

The purpose of relays.pro is to redirect standard and error
outputs to files relays-stdout.txt and relays-error.txt and
to turn off ANSI so the output is easily readable without
escape codes. Using relays.pro then gives you a quiet display
suitable when scripts via .inp is executed.

The purpose of profile.bas which is used by default is to
enable ANSI control sequences so the command 'cls' works
and to set the normal editor to nano which if desired can
bet set to vi. The editor comes into play when creating
or changing a .bas file. To use while running bwbasic you
would issue the command edit.



If you come up with some ideas or enhancements or have a
problem drop me a message keeping in mind my main goal
is to do maintenance updates where necessary.

ken.at.github@gmail.com