MSX BASIC
| Paradigm | imperative |
|---|---|
| Developer | Microsoft Corporation |
| First appeared | 1983 |
| Stable release |
4.1
|
| OS | Optional; Any suitable OS is O.K. |
| License | MS-EULA |
| Website | www |
| Influenced by | |
| GW-BASIC | |
| Influenced | |
| Vilnius BASIC | |
MSX BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language. It is an extended version of Microsoft Standard BASIC Version 4.5, and includes support for graphic, music, and various peripherals attached to MSX Personal Computers. Generally, MSX-BASIC is designed to follow GW-BASIC, which is one of the standard BASICs running on 16-bit computers. During the creation of MSX-BASIC, a major effort was made to make the system as flexible and expandable as possible.
MSX BASIC came bundled in the ROM of all MSX computers. At system start-up MSX BASIC is invoked, causing its command prompt to be displayed, unless other software placed in ROM takes control (which is the typical case of game cartridges and disk interfaces, the latter causing the MSX-DOS prompt to be shown if there is a disk present which contains the DOS system files).
When MSX BASIC is invoked, the ROM code for BIOS and the BASIC interpreter itself are visible on the lower 32K of the Z80 addressing space. The upper 32K are set to RAM, of which about 23K to 28K are available for BASIC code and data (the exact amount depends on the presence of disk controller and on the MSX-DOS kernel version).
MSX BASIC development environment is very similar to that of the Dartmouth Time Sharing System associated with Dartmouth BASIC. It has a command line-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) system; all program lines must be numbered, all non-numbered lines are considered to be commands in direct mode (i.e., to be executed immediately). The user interface is almost completely command line, except for the function key shortcuts at the bottom and an initial copyright notice at the top of the screen.
Every new version of the MSX computer was bundled with an updated version of MSX BASIC. All versions are backward compatible and provide new capabilities to fully explore the new and extended hardware found on the newer MSX computers.
Note that the Brazilian MSX "clones" by Sharp and Gradiente show other versions of MSX-BASIC (on the Sharps even called HOT-BASIC), but they're basically just unlicensed MSX BASIC 1.0.
MSX BASIC 2.1 exists on computers like the Philips MSX2 machines (except for the VG 8230), the Yamaha YIS-805 and Sanyo MPC-2300.
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