On Sun, 21 Sep 1997, Peter Cousens wrote:

> Does anyone have any experience with Pic basic compilers
> that they would like to share with me
> 
> I need a compiler to write small simple one-off programs
> quickly, similar to basic stamp
> 
> I have looked at a few demo programs
> but most don't run properly (on my machine/win95)
> or require hardware (for the demo!!)
> 
> I will be using 16*84 mostly
> 
> peter@cousens.her.forthnet.gr
> 
PTM: I have tried PBASIC in my frieds system enough to have an opinion.
I have written code about 15 years with various Basic systems: VIC20,
Commodore64, APPLE II, ZBASIC, BASICA, GWBASIC, QBasic 2.0..4.5,
VisualBasic, TrueBasic, TinyBasic, 68HC11 and made one Basic-like
environment myself. I have of course used some other languages too: 
FORTH, C, Pascal, Cobol, Comal, Fortran, Logo...

And now this PBASIC.
I like it. It has nice syntax, it is easy to edit and makes clean enough
code that is rather fast and tight. I have not yet found any errors.
My frieds have written timers«, counters and other laboratory machinery
without a line of ASM with PBasic.

Something is missing. I would like to write my own commands, but it is
possible only with In Line assembler or include files. I Would like to
have an program emulator so that I could test run my code in PC. And I
would like to have a programming environment, where I could write the code
as a project and program the stone in situ. Now we have QuickEdit as an
editor and PIP as a programming program and a homebrew LPT-prommer. 

Manual is rather good. Some things concerning include files and their
syntax could have been written in more depth. The same goes with
documentation of INC-files. They are written in rather nice self
explanatory style, but I would like to make my own changes there. 

All put together this PBasic is very near optimal system for me.  I don't
know the price, but if it costs between 0..200$, I'll buy it from my own
moneys if my boss wouldn't :)

BTW: Wasn't this nice advertisment. Donations are welcome from the
writers of PBC ;)
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