[ANN] decb, the DEC-20 BASIC interpreter in retired

[Antonio Maschio]

Hi all,

Sadly, I must retire the project, because it has too many
inconsistencies, too many faults in some compilations, with some Linux
distributio.

A very great tester, David, tried to compile the program on Linux and on
OpenBSD, and while compilation goes smoothly (though not immediate),
execution differs too much from what I experimented on my Mac OS X 10.4.11.

I have no Linux to test on, but I thought that a program written in C
for the gcc, and using only library calls, could be completely portable.

It is not.

My fault, obviously. I'm not a professional, I program in my spare time
on a single computer (the only one I can afford, bought in 2005), and I
cannot stand a deep testing on various machines.

For the present, the project is suspended, until I find a way to
override all this.

Thanks to all who tried and tested the project: their efforts are a
great experience I can count on.

-- Antonio

[Fred McKenzie]

Post by Antonio Maschio
Hi all,
Sadly, I must retire the project, because it has too many
inconsistencies, too many faults in some compilations, with some Linux
distributio.
A very great tester, David, tried to compile the program on Linux and on
OpenBSD, and while compilation goes smoothly (though not immediate),
execution differs too much from what I experimented on my Mac OS X 10.4.11.
I have no Linux to test on, but I thought that a program written in C
for the gcc, and using only library calls, could be completely portable.
It is not.
My fault, obviously. I'm not a professional, I program in my spare time
on a single computer (the only one I can afford, bought in 2005), and I
cannot stand a deep testing on various machines.
For the present, the project is suspended, until I find a way to
override all this.
Thanks to all who tried and tested the project: their efforts are a
great experience I can count on.

Antonio-

It won't solve your problem completely, but you might look into getting
a Raspberry Pi computer as a Linux platform. If you are comfortable
with OpenBSD on the Mac, you will feel at home with the Raspberry Pi's
Linux.

The basic computer is under $50. Your Mac keyboard and mouse will
probably work with it, and you may already have a TV with HDMI input you
can use for a monitor. Add a 5 Volt power supply with micro-USB
connector and an SD card, and you are in business.

There are Raspberry Pi "images" available for download, adapted from
several versions of Linux. The most common may be Raspbian, adapted
from Debian. The Mac's terminal can transfer an image to the SD card
using the DD command.

There is also the "NOOBS" (New Out Of Box Software) system that can be
drag-copied to the SD card and will boot. It allows you to select from
several flavors of Linux.

I got started with Radio Shack's starter kit because it was locally
available and comes with a nice introductory book. However it was quite
expensive, and did not even include an SD card!

There is a Tiny BASIC available for the Raspberry Pi, although it is
somewhat primitive.

Fred