Matrix Brandy BASIC VI for console and SDL1.2: V1.22.13 released

[Soruk]

Some better news, I've got networking working on the SharedCLibrary RISC OS build. I have therefore rebuilt my standalone Telstar/Viewdata/Teletext client on this as it's a third of the size of the SharedUnixLib build, and gives me a single application build that runs on anything from a RISC OS 3 Archimedes all the way to a Raspberry Pi.

[Soruk]

Very much an aside and an observation - Debian Bookworm has made the switch from upstream to Matrix Brandy. This should eventually filter down to Ubuntu and Raspian Raspberry OS.

[mike12f]

That's great to hear. Do you have any more details?...
1. Is it replacing the old Brandy BASIC debian package (i.e. replacing it by matrix-brandy) or is it in addition to the old Brandy BASIC?
2. Do you know what the new package will be called / where we can find out?
Thanks.
Mike

[Soruk]

It's replacing it entirely, and as of the build I installed a couple of weeks back, it's just 'brandy'. I found it by randomly googling "Matrix Brandy" and ignoring the alcohol-related results, then had a go at installing Bookworm in a VM.

[mike12f]

I see there's some info on it here: https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/brandy

Also, I see that the latest long-term support version of ubuntu (version 22.04) is based on "bookworm", so Matrix Brandy should have hit ubuntu already.

[Soruk]

I see there's some info on it here: https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/brandy

Also, I see that the latest long-term support version of ubuntu (version 22.04) is based on "bookworm", so Matrix Brandy should have hit ubuntu already.

Downloading the ISO now. According to https://packages.ubuntu.com/jammy/brandy it indeed looks like it has been picked up. Not sure how Debian tracks updates though, perhaps I need to email the package maintainer when I put out an update? (I'm a Red Hat / AlmaLinux / former CentOS man)

[mike12f]

Does it all work? The ubuntu link you sent seems to indicate it is the latest version of MatrixBrandy that they've packaged up, is that right?

[scruss]

Yes, I just tried this on Ubuntu Jammy, and it's Matrix Brandy BASIC VI version 1.22.13 that runs.

Nice work!

[Soruk]

Does it all work? The ubuntu link you sent seems to indicate it is the latest version of MatrixBrandy that they've packaged up, is that right?

It did work, yes. But, it is the latest release version, not the latest available in git with fixes that I've added since 26th January.

[scruss]

True, but to see an Ubuntu package with source even from the current year is pretty amazing. The 26 January release can't be that bad, can it?

They don't seem to package tbrandy or sbrandy, only the graphical version

[mike12f]

What are tbrandy and sbrandy?

[Soruk]

What are tbrandy and sbrandy?

These are the text-only console-mode builds. 'sbrandy' has a very limited VDU driver, but great for running as a scripting language, 'tbrandy' has a somewhat more feature-rich VDU driver, and can optionally emit Tektronix codes for graphics functions.

[mike12f]

Hi Soruk, that sounds interesting.

I couldn't find tbrandy or sbrandy after running make. Should they have?

Also, I couldn't find any documentation on them. Is there any? Do these products need publicising a bit more?

Thanks!

Mike.

[Soruk]

To build all, do:

Code: Select all

make cleanall; make text; make clean; make

[Grasshopper]

This sounds like an interesting alternative to running a BBC MIcro emulator, if you only want to mess around in BBC BASIC.

Can someone tell me whether the graphical version of Brandy BASIC will run in a virtual terminal i.e. the terminals you access by pressing CTRL-ALT-F1, CTRL-ALT-F2, etc?

I'd rather avoid the overhead of X-Windows when running Brandy BASIC, and having the graphics output appear in a separate window on a GUI desktop would kill the illusion that I'm using a BBC Micro.

Also, I'm a bit confused about the tbrandy and sbrandy variants. Are they completely separate programs? Or does Brandy BASIC work like gvim i.e. there is a single executable that can run either on the desktop, or in a terminal, by setting different command line options (or renaming the executable)?

[scruss]

No, Matrix Brandy requires X.

I don't run it to pretend to be a BBC Micro, I run it to write software. It won't look like a Beeb because it shells out to a separate editor, typically vi (or I use micro, because it is a text editor). The window you type immediate commands in in Matrix Brandy is a graphical window, but the editing is done in the calling terminal window.

tbrandy and sbrandy are separate executables, yes. They have different dependencies from Brandy

[Soruk]

You can edit your programs in "immediate mode", but you don't have the BBC Micro cursor copying. Instead, you can do EDIT <line number> to edit a line like you would edit a line in a text editor.

[Grasshopper]

I'm perfectly fine with editing programs using a regular editor like vi.

But it's a shame that graphics can't be displayed directly on the framebuffer without needing X-Windows. I though that was possible with SDL1.2, but I could be wrong.

[Soruk]

It can be, but your user needs write permissions to the framebuffer or SDL will fail to initialise.

[mike12f]

Soruk,
I tried sbrandy and tbrandy - thanks they worked.

1. Is there any documentation for them?
2. What's the difference?

3. Why not bundle tbrandy into the brandy executable but it runs with a command-line argument flag instead e.g. "./brandy --tbrandy". Then tbrandy would be automatically get bundled into the next release of the brandy package on Debian.

4. Also, unrelatedly, if I install brandy using "apt get", will I be able to run a text-file BBC basic program from linux by double-clicking on it if I put a header comment at the top of the file, e.g. something like "#!/bin/bash", but adapted for brandy?

Sorry to pile the questions onto you today!