Console Mode editions updated to version 0.48

[Richard Russell]

I have updated the BBC BASIC Console Mode editions (BBCTTY) to version 0.48: The main changes in this version are:

• Support for array slicing has been added, using the syntax array(first TO last) or array(row, first TO last).
  
  
• Compound assignment and array arithmetic can now both use the exponentiation operator ^.
  
  
• In the default *HEX32 mode, PRINT~ and STR$~ report an error if the value cannot be expressed as 32-bit hex.
  
  
• Added median.bbc as a demonstration of array slicing (it implements the Quickselect algorithm).
  

The new version can be downloaded from the usual place.

[John Spikowski]

Richard,

Does your console BASIC run on the RPI Zero W1? This board is running a 32 bit version of Raspian OS. (Debian)

If so, I would like to give your BASIC a try.

John

[John Spikowski]

Richard,

I downloaded your console RPi Zero 32 bit version. Here are the issues I'm dealing with. I'm using the latest version of Raspian OS. Does BBC BASIC run in SSH connection?
I read the docs on your web site and I don't see any reference to supporting the RPi Zero W1 32 bit processor.


pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ldd  /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libm.so.6
        /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libarmmem-${PLATFORM}.so => /u
sr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libarmmem-v6l.so (0xb6f06000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libc.so.6 (0xb6db9000
)
        /lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3 (0xb6f9b000)
pi@raspberrypi:~ $

• The examples aren't viewable in a text editor.
• I had to chmod 755 bbcbasic for it to execute.
• This is what I get when I try to run ./bbcbasic
  

Code: [Select]

pi@raspberrypi:~/BBC_RPi_Zero_32 $ ls -l
total 232
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  1040 Jun 25  2020 15puzzle.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  1546 Jun 28  2020 8queens.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  2954 Mar  1  2022 animal.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  1271 Jan 30  1988 animal.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  1208 Apr 26  2019 basrun.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 98452 Mar  2 07:14 bbcbasic
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  1297 Mar 10  2021 calendar.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 10992 Jul  3  2020 chess.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  1149 Mar 14  2023 client.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi   807 Jun 23  2020 hanoi.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  2979 Mar 14  2023 lanchat.bbc
drwxr-xr-x 2 pi pi  4096 Mar  7 15:33 lib
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  1605 Mar  1 04:06 median.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  3409 Oct 20 07:14 mysqldem.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  4403 Oct 22 12:12 patience.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  1379 Mar 14  2023 server.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  1245 Jun 27  2020 snake.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  2131 Jan 24  2022 solve.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 19333 Mar 12  2021 sortdemo.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  3850 Apr 28  2024 sorttest.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  2712 Jul  3  2020 speed.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  4799 Nov  1  2021 sudoku.bbc
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi   405 Dec 17  2005 sudoku.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  9480 Jun 30  2021 timing.bbc
pi@raspberrypi:~/BBC_RPi_Zero_32 $ chmod 755 bbcbasic
pi@raspberrypi:~/BBC_RPi_Zero_32 $ ./bbcbasic
./bbcbasic: /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libm.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.29' not found (required by ./bbcbasic)
pi@raspberrypi:~/BBC_RPi_Zero_32 $


[Richard Russell]

Does your console BASIC run on the RPI Zero W1?

I've no idea, I don't have one.  I don't make available a pre-compiled version for that platform, so you'd need to recompile it from the source code.  I'd be interested to learn what happens if you try.

As regards dependencies, it does rely on compiler extensions and intrinsics supported only by GCC and Clang, but that's not a major limitation in practice.

But the fact that it can successfully be run on the Raspberry Pi Pico, which is little more than a microcontroller, shows that the demands on system resources are not great.

[Richard Russell]

./bbcbasic: /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libm.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.29' not found (required by ./bbcbasic)

That's to be expected when running a pre-compiled binary on an entirely different machine!  You must compile it from source.

[John Spikowski]

Thanks Richard for the hints. I assumed if you got Pico going the Zero was already done.

[Richard Russell]

Thanks Richard for the hints. I assumed if you got Pico going the Zero was already done.

They are quite different devices, with very little in common except the name 'Raspberry Pi'!  I think the Zero runs some variety of Linux doesn't it?  The Pico is a microcontroller and doesn't have an OS as such (just a C runtime library).

Anyway I didn't make the version for the Pico - that's way beyond my skill - it was done by 'Memotech Bill'.  I kept telling him it couldn't work, because my BBC BASIC wasn't designed to run on such a tiny machine with so little memory, but he persevered:

 https://github.com/Memotech-Bill/PicoBB

[John Spikowski]

Richard,

Can you ask Bill to join the RaspberryBASIC forum?

The RPi and Orange Zero 2W boards are running 64 bit Ubuntu Linux 24.04. (see $10 PC thread)