RetroBASIC
Offtopic => Offtopic => Topic started by: wang renxin on August 03, 2016, 05:47:52 AM
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I began to collect devices which run BASIC since months ago, particularly stuffs with builtin BASIC rom only. Most of them were made one or more decades ago, they all have a retro futurism style for now. It's a lot of fun. Would you like to post your BASIC devices?
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Palm IIIxe runs SmallBASIC with keyboard
Made in Mexico at 2000
CPU: 16 MHz Dragonball
RAM: 8MB
Typing feeling on the keyboard is damn good.
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paladin-t/managed/master/Show%20your%20BASIC%20devices%200.jpg)
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paladin-t/managed/master/Show%20your%20BASIC%20devices%201.jpg)
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paladin-t/managed/master/Show%20your%20BASIC%20devices%202.jpg)
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文曲星 (WenQuXing), a English-Chinese electronic dictionary with stylus input runs GW-BASIC
Made in China at 2003
CPU: 6502
RAM: Unknown
I used this during my highschool time.
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paladin-t/managed/master/Show%20your%20BASIC%20devices%203.jpg)
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Sharp PC-1500A Pocket Computer runs a BASIC
Made in China at 1982
CPU: LH5801, similar to the Z80
RAM: 8KB internal + 16KB extended
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paladin-t/managed/master/Show%20your%20BASIC%20devices%204.jpg)
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Sinclair ZX Spectrum runs Sinclair BASIC
Made in UK at 1983
CPU: 3.5MHz Z80
RAM: 16KB
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paladin-t/managed/master/Show%20your%20BASIC%20devices%205.jpg)
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LAMBDA-8300 runs a Sinclair ZX-81 compatible BASIC
Made in Hong Kong at 1985
CPU: 3.25MHz NEC D780C-1 (Z80A clone)
RAM: 2KB
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paladin-t/managed/master/Show%20your%20BASIC%20devices%206.jpg)
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Apologies for no pictures of my first BASIC device that ran GW-BASIC in DOS, that is long gone...
But even before that I had this: Radio Shack EC-4019 programmable calculator.
I still have it, it still works with the original battery! This was "programmed" by memorizing the order of keys pressed. It had 6 variables and 4 program capacity.
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(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51RUuHwwEOL.jpg)
EDIT It was pretty slow. Calculating Mandelbrot Set would take about 2^786 years (still faster than Aurel Basic, though ;)).
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For some reason, I can't paste images - perhaps an issue with Edge on Windows 10...anyway...
In my collection, I have:
2 Sinclair ZX Spectrum's (just like the one in your picture Wang)
2 Sinclair ZX81's
Made in the UK 1981 to 1984
runs Sinclair ZX BASIC
CPU:Z80 at 3.25 MHz
RAM: 1K
BBC Micro
Made in the UK 1981 to 1994
runs BBC BASIC
CPU:2 MHz MOS Technology 6502
RAM: 32K
Oric 1
Made in the UK 1983
runs Microsoft BASIC
CPU: 1 MHz 6502A
RAM: 48K
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Wow, there are so much more interesting ones to collect for a personal museum, guys.
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i own this one called pecom 32
it was a beast and 5 times faster than c64 & ZXspectrum
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Another collection arrived.
In early 1980s, Nintendo released its BASIC programming language on a cartridge along with a keyboard for FC (Asia version NES), to compete with other family computers at that era.
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paladin-t/managed/master/FC%20BASIC%201.JPG)
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paladin-t/managed/master/FC%20BASIC%202.JPG)
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paladin-t/managed/master/FC%20BASIC%203.JPG)
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paladin-t/managed/master/FC%20BASIC%204.JPG)
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paladin-t/managed/master/FC%20BASIC%205.JPG)
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paladin-t/managed/master/FC%20BASIC%206.JPG)
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paladin-t/managed/master/FC%20BASIC%207.JPG)
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i own this one called pecom 32
it was a beast and 5 times faster than c64 & ZXspectrum
Um, no. It was not.
The ZX Spectrum had a z80 clocked at 3.5MHz (3.54Mhz in later models) which is in no way 5x slower than a 5Mhz RCA1802 in the Pecom 32. The RCA CPU had a minimum instruction timing of 8 clock cycles (with most instructions taking 16 or more due to the 16bit registers) vs the majority of z80 instructions coming in at 4 cycles excepting memory accesses that could take a further four cycles, which renders the speed on an instruction by instruction case of roughly half that of an equivalently clocked z80.
The C64 was clocked at 1MHz but had the advantage of zero-page register usage which meant that it could almost (but not quite!) compete with the z80 for 8bit operations - but 16bit operations were a lot slower as the z80 had native 16bit opcodes built-in.
The RCA CPU also had a single 8bit accumulator (as opposed to the z80's 16bit AF register pair) which meant that although it had a 16bit address bus, it only had an 8bit data bus which further slowed it down.
Compared to the dominant 8bit CPUs of the time (6502 and z80) the RCA in the Pecom 32 was a real sloth. It did have some nice features from a programming perspective, but they didn't make up for the fact that it was so very, very slow.
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Processor is Cosmac CDP 1802
Well i dont talk here about internal processor specifications.
...you probably never use this computer ?
i own ZXspectrum and this one Pecom-Basic is really faster i mean in games
but because this was just computer for schools it was not very popular
also pecom was used in technical processes in EiNis electronic industry where
work whole days
and do you know where is zxSpectrum used ?
After few hours (2-3) of work you cannot touch the case ;D
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and do you know is where is zxSpectrum used ?
Well D will know more about this than me, but the Spectrum was (and still is) used mainly for game development / playing and for learning to program; but it had / has many other uses. See this example:
http://www.pitcalc.com
The Spectrum is still incredibly popular and programs / games are still being developed for it; and now there is the Vega spin off too :)
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Processor is Cosmac CDP 1802
Well i dont talk here about internal processor specifications.
...you probably never use this computer ?
A local computer club had one. It was ... an interesting machine. Graphically, it was not really very good :)
i own ZXspectrum and this one Pecom-Basic is really faster i mean in games
but because this was just computer for schools it was not very popular
also pecom was used in technical processes in EiNis electronic industry where
work whole days
and do you know is where is zxSpectrum used ?
After few hours (2-3) of work you cannot touch the case ;D
Sinclair BASIC is very slow due to the nature of the floating point calculator being an emulator :)
But once you drop into asm (which anyone wanting to write serious games did) then there's no comparison. The Spectrum was light years ahead of the Pecom (and other RCA variants).
The Spectrum is still in use today, as Richey pointed out - many, many new games yearly of rather amazing quality and the BASIC has been revived for teaching in schools. And as Richey also points out, there are new Spectrums coming out now too - ARM rather than z80, but still retaining compatibility with software written for the original machine.
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Yeah Pecom wasn't popular like ZX and C64 in europe
anyway pecom is prouct of Serbia and i am in Croatia ;D
also that freakin processor is used in NASA crafts...