Modern Text Editor Amstrad BASIC

[jonesypeter]

Hi,


There are various tools for the ZX Spectrum which allow you to type BASIC into the text editor of your choice, then create a TAP file to load into an emulator or a real Spectrum. Is there anything similar for the CPC?


Many thanks


Peter

[Gryzor]

Screw that, I want a CPC-themed text editor, period.

[m_dr_m]

At some point Drill was considering a basic BASIC IDE, in particular reusing Orgams Editor with all its features: fast navigation, go to definition + go back, next occurence of label/variable, smart search...
In a second step, adding labels (GOSUB compute_3d) shouldn't be too difficult.


If enough people show interest, it might motivate him!

[jonesypeter]

Thanks for the replies. I found that WinAPE has the option to Paste in plain text, so that solves my problem.

[GUNHED]

Most emulators have such a 'paste' feature. 

[MiguelSky]

Thanks for the replies. I found that WinAPE has the option to Paste in plain text, so that solves my problem.

Trickier than this but quite faster is the ability of CPCE of loading an ASCII file with a BASIC listing inside as a tape file by using Options/Tape bypass selected. Then you can run it or save it easily to a cdt of dsk.


This option also lets you quickly save a BASIC program to a file (by using the SAVE"name",A of course). I use this feature to work with BASIC listings without waitings.

[ronaldo]

What I do particularly is:

• Use a Sublime Text plugin for BASIC syntax highlighting. This is the most comfortable editing I could find.
• I save BASIC file as a .bas text file.
• With the .bas file I use some tools (idsk, cpc2cdt) included in CPCtelera to insert it into CDT and DSK as ASCII.
• I run CDT/DSK with RVM or WinAPE and autorun.

Steps 2-4 are all automated in a script file. I edit my BASIC fail, save it and run the script: the emulator launches and I can see the result directly. This is my most comfortable setup for BASIC.

I have shown how I elaborate this setup in the series of vídeos AmstradGameDev Challenge: BASIC vs C. Starting on the second video I show how to use the tools and elaborate the script for automatically generating CDT/DSK with the BASIC file and run the emulator.

We have shared everything in a Github repository. Fell free to use anything you like in there if you like the setup or parts of it.

[jonesypeter]

Hi @ronaldo


Thank you, that looks excellent.  Unfortunately I don't speak any Spanish, but the videos do look very informative.


It would be great to have an English tutorial using z88dk

[ronaldo]

Yes, I know that many Amstrad users/developers do not speak Spanish. For that reason we decided to code in english. So, the code you can find in the Github repository is in English.

Also, you may try with translated subtitles. They are far from being perfect, but are an intermediate solution to the problem.

In any case, you may find the code we use and comment useful, even if you don't understand us speaking .

And, of course, you can ask me anything you need. As long as I have enough time, I will be here able to help if needed .

Note: In the same videos we also program in C using SDCC with CPCtelera .