JBasic
A little bit of BASIC for the rest of us...

JBasic is a BASIC interpreter, written entirely in Java.  It operates in “console” mode which means you run it from the command line of a shell.  JBasic can run on most Unix systems including Mac OS X, the Windows command shell, or a VMS DCL command line.

Visit the development project summary page here .

JBasic is entirely open source, and you are free to explore the project, download pre-constructed packages, or use the most current version of the source.  JBasic development is hosted by SourceForge, and the source code and collateral materials are all stored in the CVS repository at cvs.sourceforge.net .

You are more than welcome to contribute if you wish.   Contact me if you are interested in adding to the project, or if you just have questions about what JBasic is all about.  There are also standard SourceForge mechanisms for reporting bugs, requesting features, etc. all available from the project page .

 

Super Simple “Getting Started” Notes

 

Start by making sure you have Java 1.4.2.  It is entirely likely that JBasic works on earlier versions of Java, but I haven’t tried it out.  If you do, please let me know how it works out!

Download the jbasic.jar file.  This file contains the application, sample and test programs, and the (currently weak) online help.

Start up a suitable command-line window or shell.  Most of my work is done on Mac OS X, so I use the Terminal utility to open a window with a Bash shell.

Start up JBasic with the command   java -jar jbasic.jar.

You can get help by typing HELP at the prompt.  Have fun!

                                    Tom Cole
                                    January, 2006