BASIC8
Manual | Changelog | Wiki | Gallery | Why BASIC8? | About
Get BASIC8!
| FANTASY | COMPUTER |
|---|---|
 |
BASIC8 is an integrated Fantasy Computer for game and other program development. You can create, share and play disks in a modern BASIC dialect, with built-in tools for editing sprite, tiles, map, quantized, etc. |
It’s been a while since we used to enjoy coding and playing straightforward after a computer bootup. The goal of BASIC8 is bringing a sense of joy back from retro/vintage computing and gaming, also being quick at getting higher level stuff done for modern development.
Technical specifications
- Display: 160x128 pixels
- Audio: 2 music channels, 1 MIDI channel, 4 sound effect channels, 1 speech channel
- Code: BASIC (structured/prototype-based/functional)
- Graphics: up to 65535 drawing commands per cycle
- Palette: 16 colors with transparency support
- Sprite: up to 32x32 pixels per frame, up to 512 frames per sprite
- Tiles: 240 cels
- Map: up to 128x64 tiles per layer, up to 4 layers (including a layer of logic mark) per page
- Gamepad: 6 buttons for each pad (D-Pad + A/B), up to 8 players
- Keyboard and mouse: supported
Creative tools
BASIC8 offers a range of built-in tools for editing sprite, tiles, map, quantized, etc; and extra tools as regular disks, such as the Wave Maker, Player Maker, and HTML Maker. Furthermore it’s possible to bring your own tools, or use plugins.
Shareable disks
See examples, Cosmos Saga, Infinity Fighter, and Boing Ball, for the first image.
BASIC8 disks can be handily shared via the Workshop with built-in tools; saved as “*.b8”, “*.png” file, or text based through other sharing ways.
Redistributing
BASIC8 is productive. Make redistributable standalone player as executable binary with the Player Maker for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and as web based with the HTML Maker for browsers.
Get BASIC8
System requirements
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows 7 or later (32/64bit) MacOS X 10.7 or later (64bit) Ubuntu (32/64bit) |
CosmOS 1.0 |
| CPU | Atom 1.44GHz Core 2 Duo 1.83GHz |
Quantum |
| RAM | 512MB | 38911GB |
| GPU | Intel HD | Dark matter |
| Storage | 50MB available space | 50MB available space |
| Links | |
|---|---|
| Discuss | Forums |
| Chat | #basic8 on Discord |
| @wangrenxin | |
| Roadmap | Tracking boards |