MCXi Basic vs BASIC

MCX Basic is a BASIC interpreter for iPhone and iPad in the style of the home computers of the 1980s. Type numbered program lines, type RUN, and your program prints, draws, moves sprites and plays music. WRITE AND RUN • A console like a home computer's: direct commands, numbered lines, LIST in colour, AUTO and RENUM. • A key bar above the keyboard gives Esc, the arrow keys, Space, Return and F1–F10, so programs and games can be played by touch. Hardware keyboards work too. • The whole language: IF … THEN … ELSE, FOR … NEXT, GOSUB, ON … GOTO, DATA and READ, DEF FN, PRINT USING, arrays, strings, integer and floating-point numbers, error handling and files. • Programs are plain text files (.bas): open them from the Files app, save, share and print them. GRAPHICS AND SOUND • Graphics screens with up to 256 colours: LINE, CIRCLE, PAINT, DRAW, PSET and POINT. • Sprites with collision detection, a colour palette, pages, and COPY to move parts of the picture. • Music with PLAY on three voices, plus SOUND and BEEP. LEARN FROM EXAMPLES • 47 sample programs that load with one tap: first steps, loops, arrays, strings, files, drawings, and games such as Snake, Bricks, Road race and Lander. Play them, then read how they work. • A help page for each of the 122 commands and functions, with an example and what it shows. • A 69-page user manual (PDF) that introduces programming in BASIC. GOOD TO KNOW • Commands for the hardware of the original machines (memory and ports, joysticks, the printer, machine code) are not included. • MCX Basic is also available for Mac.

BASIC: THE FEELING OF THE GOOD OLD TIMES ! 10 INPUT A 20 B = SIN(A) 30 PRINT "ANSWER: ", B 40 END BASIC USER'S GUIDE: • PRINT 10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD !" 20 END • INPUT 10 INPUT “A=”, A 20 PRINT A 30 END • IF...THEN... Number Comparison: 10 INPUT A 20 IF A＞90 THEN B=“A” 30 PRINT B 40 END Conditional Operators: ＞ greater than ＜ less than ＞= greater than or equal to =＞ equal to or greater than ＜= less than or equal to =＜ equal to or less than = equal to == equal to ＜＞ not equal to != not equal to THEN can be followed by GOTO, GOSUB, INPUT, PRINT. String Comparison: 10 INPUT A 20 IF A=“TOM” THEN PRINT “BOY” 30 END Conditional Operators: = is == is ＜＞ is not != is not • FOR...NEXT... 10 FOR I=1 TO 4 STEP 2 20 PRINT “HELLO”, I 30 NEXT I 40 END STEP specifies the counter increment for each loop. If STEP doesn’t exit, the default increment is 1. FOR...NEXT... loop can be nested. 10 FOR I=1 TO 5 20 FOR J=1 TO 4 30 PRINT I, J 40 NEXT J 50 NEXT I 60 END • GOTO 10 ... 20 ... 30 ... 40 GOTO 10 50 ... • GOSUB 10 PRINT “H” 20 GOSUB 100 30 PRINT “L” 40 END 100 PRINT “A” 110 RETURN • SOUND 10 SOUND C, M, 0.5 The line 10 plays Middle C piano note for 0.5 seconds. Note: C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B Pitch Range: L (low), M (middle), H (high) Lasting Time: specifies how long a note lasts. C, D, E, F, G, A, B can also be labeled as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. (C# as 1#). • TEXT 10 TEXT “HELLO”, x, y, size (x,y): position of the string “HELLO”. • CIRCLE 10 CIRCLE x, y, radius (x,y): the center of the circle. • RECTANGLE 10 RECT x, y, width, height (x,y): top-left point of the rectangle. • LINE 10 LINE x1, y1, x2, y2 (x1,y1): the starting point of the line. (x2,y2): the ending point of the line. • POINT 10 POINT x, y (x,y): the position of the point. • CLR: clear the edit window. • CLS: clear the graph window. • DELAY 10 DELAY 0.5 0.5:lasting time in seconds This function is used to suspend execution of a program for a particular time. • CURVE 10 CURVE x, y, radius, 0, PI 0: starting angle PI: ending angle The curve draws clockwise with center (x,y). • Mathematical Functions: SIN(X), COS(X), TAN(X), COT(X), ASIN(X), ACOS(X), ATAN(X), SINH(X), COSH(X), TANH(X), ASINH(X), ACOSH(X), ATANH(X). SQR(X): square root of x. ABS(X): absolute value of x. FCT(X): x factorial. LOG(X): natural logarithm of x. LOG10(X): base-10 logarithm of x. LOG2(X) :base-2 logarithm of x. EXP(X): base-e exponential of x. ERF(X): the error function of x. ERFC(X): the complementary error function of x. ROUND(X) :integral nearest to x. CEIL(X): the smallest integral that is not less than x. FLOOR(X): the largest integral that is not greater than x. TGAMMA(X): the gamma function of x. LGAMMA(X): the natural logarithm of the absolute value of the gamma function of x. • Reserved Variables: INKEY : once a key is pressed, the value of INKEY changes. RND : a random number. PI : π • Some Tips: 1. Undo & Redo typing on iPhone with a shake. 2. Copy an Emoji or some character from other places (like Notes), then paste them on the edit window. 3. Exponentiation is expressed as X^Y.