Return to BASIC, or RTB is a programming language inspired by the BASIC programming language that was used on the microcomputers of the late 1970s and 1980s.
As well as having an interactive environment allowing program entry, debugging, listing and so on in the same way as traditional BASIC has with line numbers, it also takes a more modern approach with a full-screen syntax highlighting editor which allows easier program entry without line-numbers, a unified looping construct, multi-line if/then/else statements, named procedures and functions and many more features to list here.
It currently runs on various Linux systems.
I always like to demonstrate by example, so…
| Old BASIC | RTB |
10 REM TOSS A COIN 20 c = RND (2) 30 IF c = 0 THEN GOTO 100 40 PRINT "Tails" 50 PRINT "Try again "; 60 INPUT t$ 70 IF t$ = "y" THEN GOTO 20 80 END 100 PRINT "Heads" 110 GOTO 50 |
// Flip a coin cycle coin = rnd (2) // gives 0 or 1 if coin = 0 then print "Heads" else print "Tails" endif print "Try again "; input try$ repeat until try$ <> "y" |
The push today is to teach or learn coding – and yes you can use AI, but how much do you learn from that? So, the question is: “how”. I think that RTB makes an ideal environment to help people young and old to learn the principles of computer programming. I’m not advocating its use in the real-world, but as a step to learn the concepts of programming. It’s fast, interactive, features a full compliment of graphical functions (including turtle and sprites), sound and many other features – hopefully enough to stop anyone becoming bored at home, in the office or classroom.
Lets also not forget that in the late 1970s Microsoft and Apple both started with computers running BASIC and how many people started there and went on to have a full and rewarding career as a computer software engineer?
RTB is currently a private project although source code licenses are available. Get in-touch for more details and if you want to help support it, then please consider Buying me a Coffee Thanks.