"BASIC stamp" as a BASIC interpreter for homebrew "retro" computers

vladk

Sorry in advance - if the discussion has/had already been then please lead me to the URL.

The question is:
Is it possible to use/utilityse "BASIC stamp" as an external general-purpose BASIC interpreter for a newly constacted "retro"-computer?
To be clear - I'm in process of designing Z80-based CP/M computer for myself. No compatibility is required, but it would be interesting to use an external BASIC machine instead of waste Z80 address space.

The idea is to let a user to enter a BASIC program, send it off from the Z80, receive the results and display that results at Z80-computer console for the user (some kind of external BASIC-processor).
The goal is to eliminate the need to adapt retro-BASICs to my architecture.

Is it possible to load BASIC programs in a RAM to be accessible by BASICstamp?

If yes, is it possible to forbid non-allpurpose directives of the language?


Regards, Vladislav

Mike Green

A Basic Stamp won't do what you want. The Basic interpreter is stored in flash memory on the microcontroller chip on the Stamp module and can't be modified. The program to be interpreted is stored in very compact compiled form in a serial EEPROM on the Stamp module that's not completely accessible.

There are some great compilers and interpreters available for the Z80 under CP/M. You can create very sizable Basic programs in the standard 64K of RAM.

Have you looked at Cluso99's RAMBlade module and the ZiCog Z80 interpreter? This is a tiny module that has a Propeller along with 512K of RAM and an SD card socket. It runs CP/M at nearly hardware speed with files on the SD card used to emulate multiple floppy and/or hard disk drives.

David Betz

If you're looking for a chip that contains a Basic interpreter, what about the Micromite?

http://micromite.org