MSX BASIC


MSX BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language. It is an extended version of Microsoft's MBASIC Version 4.5, adding support for graphic, music, and various peripherals attached to MSX microcomputers. Generally, MSX BASIC is designed to follow GW-BASIC, released the same year for IBM PCs and clones. During the creation of MSX BASIC, effort was made to make the system flexible and expandable.
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Distribution

[Image:Msxbasic.png|right|thumb|384px|MSX BASIC version 3.0]
MSX BASIC came bundled in the ROM of all MSX computers. At system start-up MSX BASIC is invoked, causing its command prompt to be displayed, unless other software placed in ROM takes control.
When MSX BASIC is invoked, the ROM code for BIOS and the BASIC interpreter itself are visible on the lower 32K of the Z80 addressing space. The upper 32K are set to RAM, of which about 23K to 28K are available for BASIC code and data.

Development Environment

MSX BASIC development environment is very similar to other versions of Microsoft BASIC. It has a command line-based Integrated [development environment|Integrated Development Environment (IDE)] system; all program lines must be numbered, all non-numbered lines are considered to be commands in direct mode. The user interface is entirely command-line-based.

Versions of MSX BASIC

Every new version of the MSX computer was bundled with an updated version of MSX BASIC. All versions are backward compatible and provide new capabilities to fully explore the new and extended hardware found on the newer MSX computers.

MSX BASIC 1.0

Note that the Brazilian MSX "clones" by Sharp and Gradiente show other versions of MSX BASIC, but they're basically just unlicensed MSX BASIC 1.0.

MSX BASIC 2.0 / 2.1

  • Bundled with MSX2 computers
  • 32 KB in size
  • Added support for new available screen modes, including graphic modes with 212 progressive or 424 interlaced lines:
  • * Updated Screen 0
  • * Screen 5
  • * Screen 6
  • * Screen 7
  • * Screen 8
  • Added support for multicolored sprites
  • Added support for hardware accelerated graphics functions
  • Added support for using the lower 32K RAM of the computer as a limited RAM disk. MSX BASIC 2.1 supports using the memory mapper to expand this RAM disk to almost 90 KB.
MSX BASIC 2.1 exists on computers like the Philips MSX2 machines, the Yamaha YIS-805 and Sanyo MPC-2300.

MSX BASIC 3.0

  • Bundled with MSX2+ computers
  • 32 KB in size
  • Added command SET SCROLL for smooth, hardware based scrolling in BASIC
  • Added support for new available screen modes:
  • * Screen 10
  • * Screen 11
  • * Screen 12

MSX BASIC 4.0

  • Bundled with the Panasonic FS-A1ST MSX turbo R model
  • Added _PAUSE command to make delays in BASIC independent of the current CPU and clock
  • Added extra commands for the PCM device

MSX BASIC 4.1

  • Bundled with the Panasonic FS-A1GT MSX turbo R model
  • Added MIDI extensions

Extensions of MSX BASIC

Since MSX BASIC was meant to be expandable from inception, it was possible to write add-on modules quite easily. Support for specific hardware was commonly added by means of expansion cartridges, which also served as the interface to the hardware in question. MSX Disk-BASIC is an example, bundled in the cartridge that provides the hardware interface to the disk drives, it adds commands to access the floppy disk drives.