![]() ![]() Chipmunk Basic, while hardly modern, has been and continues to be updated for use today. Most of the other BASIC languages I’m seeing on the app store are recreations of specific computers of the past, such as Commodore BASIC, or don’t even look like BASIC any more. If you’re one of those people who look back fondly on BASIC, or if you have some BASIC programs you’d like to run on your iPhone or iPad, take a look at it. It does not support iCloud, which means that programs written on the iPad do not automatically transfer to HotPaw BASIC on your iPhone or other devices. You can also save it using the “save” command, load new ones using the “load” command, and view all programs using “dir”. HotPaw automatically saves your current program in “tmp.bas”. The iPad itself experienced no slow-down and I was able to easily exit HotPaw Basic and restart it. Unlike the old days, however, one rogue program is less likely to lock up the entire system. Some statements work only in the GUI-version, other via the command line interface or both. This allows code from multiple files to be loaded simultaneously. Chipmunk Basic pocketManual as supplied to freeware interpreter for Basic programming language called Chipmunk Basic (release 3 version 6 update 6 patch 0) for Mac OS X ( Snow Leopard) or newer by Ron H Nicholson. Unlike the load command, the current program, if any, is not closed before merging. ![]() My initial circles program just drew random circles at random locations on the screen it locked up HotPaw Basic-the Stop button failed to work. Chipmunk Basic has a merge command which loads the specified program file’s lines into memory. Just like in the old days, it is very easy to program an endless loop however, even these tiny computers we carry in our pockets are so fast that an endless loop can be impossible to break out of. Type just the line’s number to delete that line. This is more like the old interactive BASICs where you replaced a line by retyping that line number you can also edit a line by typing “edit” and the line’s number. It has one-line-at-a-time editing pretty much just like I remember it from the early eighties-but even toward the late eighties, I was using a full-screen BASIC editor on OS-9. Compared to the other programming environment I have on my iPad, Pythonista, the built-in editor is archaic. ![]()
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