NaaLaa

[Marcus]

Hi there,

In this first post I just want to introduce myself and my BASIC dialect. I assume some people already know me from basicprogramming.org.

My name is Marcus, and I'm developing a BASIC style language named NaaLaa (Not An Advanced Language At All). It's not a language meant for "general" programming. Instead it's focused on retro game development. The current version of NaaLaa is 5 (I prefer integers) - the first public version was number 3. Currently it's only available for Windows, but I'm working on a Linux port.
   NaaLaa is interpreted (interpreted bytecode), but it's still quite fast compared to other interpreted languages. You can create executable programs and Java applets with it.
   I realize most people don't give damn or just find it stupid. But NaaLaa uses homemade software rendering for 2D and 3D graphics, no OpenGL or DirectX is involved. Computer graphics algorithms is simply my biggest interest.

NaaLaa is a Friday night project. In real life I'm a programmer/developer at a company that produces games for PC, Mac and iPhone. I've got three kids and am a grown up man without a beard

[SteveA]

Hey Marcus,
I'm not very familiar with gaming, and the programming involved (except for simple console mode stuff).
Is Naalaa a console mode program or a gui program? If you get my drift.
Thanks.

[Marcus]

It's a minimal GUI program.

I do wish there was a cross platform minimal windowing system. When I say minimal, I mean a system that allows you to create a window and snap mouse and keyboard input - nothing more, no widgets. If you ever hear of something like that, don't forget to tell me
   Even if it's meant for games, you can create GUI stuff in NaaLaa, but that GUI system is written in NaaLaa and has got nothing to do with Windows.

[John]

Thanks guys for joining the AllBasic developer's forum.

@Marcus - What is NaaLaa written in? Is your port to Linux going to be a console (curses) based language?

[Marcus]

Thanks guys for joining the AllBasic developer's forum.

@Marcus - What is NaaLaa written in? Is your port to Linux going to be a console (curses) based language?

I'm looking forward to many interesting discussions here, perhaps a bit more in depth than at basicprogramming.org.

NaaLaa is written in Borland's free command line c compiler and and old version of tasm (but I have begun using mingw lately). The (old) Linux version uses gcc and glut for windowing (it's the most minimal windowing system I've seen, but I'd like something similar that hasn't got anything to do with OpenGL).
   The Linux port will not have a console mode. There are better languages for that.

[John]

If you looking for cross platform compatibility, you may want to check out TDM-GCC for 32/64 bit Windows.  James has used this compiler and has ported his UBX Linux BCX to C translator to Windows and using wxWigets as his GUI toolkit.