I need a free (preferably open-source) BASIC interpreter that can boot itself off of a floppy without need for DOS or any other OS. Is there a such thing?

Booting with no OS is a contradiction in terms.

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If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

M2

DOS-Disk Operating System...

Not being a PITA, but unless it's built into ROM (like the old IBM XT and brethren), something has to control access to the disk (be it floppy, HDD, CD) before anything can begin to function...

You can boot a box without an operating system. Gaming boxes like the Atari 2600 typically used programs written directly to the hardware.

The sort of basic usually embedded in ROM was written by Gates et al, allowed for the sort of file management that one finds in DOS 1, eg 'files', 'kill'. It is typical of the gadgets of the eighties to come with a ROM Basic.

The first computer i used came with no OS, and no file-system. One simply wrote directly to the hardware, keeping tabs on what core was in use. The second had ROM-BASIC and the FAT5 file system (ie could handle 32 files!).

Programs that ran from ROM did so to stop the proggie being modified or dieing on the user. You can run anything that lives in ROM in RAM, for example, so it is not impossible that some-one has made a ROM-BASIC that can boot itself from a floppy, and a matching floppy that boots rombasic.

There are present some compilers that will boot .COM and .CBT files that do not require the interrupt handlers provided by a DOS.

However, i don't know of any one doing ROMBASIC in this manner.

The dream you dream alone is only a dream,
The dream we dream together is reality.

There's always a Commodore 64. . .

Can't you add something like GW-basic to a bootdisk and run it from autoexec.bat? You'd be loading dos first but going straight to basic. I don't think there's any way to run basic from a disk unless you load dos first.

I know IBM kept ROM basic past the XT but I don't know how far. It would default to basic if no drives were detected. You might check the last post here:

http://www.computing.net/answers/do...

(I don't know how accurate that is.) If it is true I think you'd have to disconnect all the drives including the floppy in order to force basic to load.

Thanks for the info, guys.

DAVE, I won't add a basic interpreter to a dos bootdisk for the simple reason that I'm writing an open-source OS independent from dos and other systems and their routines.

You're going to need some kind of bootable system files to load before you can run basic. Otherwise a PC isn't going to do anything once the bios is done with its boot activities. They can be on a ROM chip or a bootable drive but they've got to be there.

I'd imagine the system files necessary to allow basic to run don't need to be very sophisticated but still, they're going to need to perform some of the functions found in dos system files. And they may not necessarily need to be an integral part of the basic interpreter. Using, or modifying, dos system files may be the way to go. Then use one of the dos versions of basic.

Another idea would be to locate the original software that was written to those old ROM basic chips. It might be hard to find and may need some modifying to work by disk but it's something to consider.

Exactly what I'm looking for, is a ROM basic that can boot itself off of a floppy. It can be a .com, since I know how to load programs from good ol' FAT12.

http://www.phystechsoft.com/ptsdos/...

http://www.sdcsystems.com/gensoft.htm

FAT filing system was originally invented for ROM-BASIC. You don't need an operating system to run a computer. You can write apps directly to run on core.

The dream you dream alone is only a dream,
The dream we dream together is reality.

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