BASIC for Amiga
4 messages in this thread
Betty,
I'm sure that will be the case. But after all we do have HiSoft,
A/C Basic, and I forgot about F-Basic, which is now in version 3.0 which
includes an integrated editor and source level debugger. F-Basic is super
fast. The new version also fully supports 68020/030 processors and 881/882
co-processors. F-Basic is more Pascal-like than Basic, it has rigid
variable typing and a RECORD structure, like Pascal. It has extremely
powerful string manipulation instructions, and the new version claims to
have new instructions for matrix manipulation and complex numbers. Sounds
pretty good. I just sent my upgrade order, so haven't anything specific to
report about it. I have a 68020 coprocessor and HiSoft works fine with it.
I have a patch program which came with the coprocessor which patches
AmigaBasic, and believe it or not it works.
Steve
Steven,
I just got my upgrade offer too. F-Basic has to be the real "sleeper"
language for the Amiga. It keeps quietly getting better and better.
Other features of 3.0 (for thread readers):
Play a complete IFF sound file (digitized sounds) with a single F-Basic
command.
User Defined Operators on RECORD (data) Structures.
More speed improvements. 2.0 is already pretty close to "C" in execution
speed. MUCH faster than other "BASIC" Compilers. Course, it has already
been mentioned that F-Basic is more a hybrid of BASIC and Pascal.
Lloyd
Lloyd,
I like it as a language concept, but I have had great trouble
learning it. It is not a Basic you adapt to quickly, it's more like
learning a new language. I wish they had merely extended Basic with the
many new features they added, rather than creating a nearly different
language. It would have been nice had they added features to simplify the
use of menus and submenus, requestors and gadgets, built in a file and list
requestor and other features as extensions to a more standard Basic. But
it certainly is a good crossover language because it takes less time to
learn it than C, since at least half the language would already be familiar
to a BAsic user. BTW I found in my benchmarks that F-Basic was even faster
than C for strings and single precision math. I never did benchmark 2.0's
double precision math.
Steve
I have the instructions (thanks to Bob Rakosky) for patching AmigaBASIC,
but I always use HiSoft, so I've not yet done it. But I will – RSN, I
will. 🙂
……Betty