WANTED: Vectrex BASIC

[Jess Ragan]

Batari's 2600 BASIC compiler is a great start, but there are a lot of other game systems out there that in desperate need of their own high-level programming language. Of these consoles, the Vectrex deserves it the most. This system is incredibly powerful and versatile, and a BASIC compiler would really bring out its full potential... not to mention give gamers a lot more Vectrex software to play!

 

JR

[ScottHuggins]

Jess,

 

Have you checked out the C compiler library available for vectrex? It takes a bunch of the complexity out of the 6809 assembly stuff. But, C is a whole bunch "lower" level than basic.

 

 

 

Batari's 2600 BASIC compiler is a great start, but there are a lot of other game systems out there that in desperate need of their own high-level programming language. Of these consoles, the Vectrex deserves it the most. This system is incredibly powerful and versatile, and a BASIC compiler would really bring out its full potential... not to mention give gamers a lot more Vectrex software to play!

 

JR

[djmips]

But, C is a whole bunch "lower" level than basic.

 

batari Basic is a compiled language and is just as 'low level' as C, in fact since it is unfettered with the goal of having to adhere to a standard, it could even be considered lower level than C. You may not be able to port code to batari Basic but it certainly has a lot of built in support for the system for which it was designed. Similarly, a compiled language combined with a set of commands and/or libraries for the Vectrex would be pretty nice for a lot of people.

[Richard H.]

A guy on rec.games.vectrex has started work on a Vectrex BASIC. It uses the PS/2 keyboard interface, it's pretty limited at the moment but has math functions and can do stuff like -

 

 

10 PRINT "Vectrex is cool !!!!!!"

20 GOTO 10

 

[ZylonBane]

A Vectrex BASIC would have to be pretty limited in the visual department to generate a stable display. Nevermind racing the beam-- on the Vectrex, you ARE the beam.