Making use of the built in BASIC interpreter

[Fuzzyzilla]

Hello!

I just accidentally stumbled upon the ESP32's built in BASIC interpreter when my code failed(?) to run. I found it to be very functional and could possibly be useful in my projects. Is there a way to run this interpreter from inside a sketch? To continue on that, would it be possible to implement my own functions into the interpreter (eg. drawing to a screen, SD IO, etc)? It would be very cool if I could run a BASIC program off an SD card!

So, is this possible? I know I could find a BASIC library somewhere, but it would save on space to make use of the built in one!

Thanks!

[ESP_Sprite]

It is not. The idea is that it is very small anyway (<4K) so if people wanted to use it in their own projects, they can just include their own copy in a project. While the source code of the ROM console has not been released, the interpreter is derived from https://github.com/BleuLlama/TinyBasicPlus; you should be able to drop that into your Arduino project with none or only tiny changes.

[Fuzzyzilla]

Ok, thank you!

It is a bit sad that the built in one is not available for use, but 4kB out of 4MB is not much

[ESP_Sprite]

The reasoning was also that there was some pressure on the ROM build... I could justify taking a day to add in the ROM console, but I could not justify more time to make it expandable, especially if that would only lead to a 4K gain in some very specific applications. I agree with your sentiment, but I'm not unhappy with the way it is now.

[WiFive]

What about from a wake stub?

[ESP_igrr]

Well, technically you can use the interpreter from wake stub: copy it into RAM, un-memfrob it, jump to the entry point.

[WiFive]

Well, technically you can use the interpreter from wake stub: copy it into RAM, un-memfrob it, jump to the entry point.

Ah OK, not ideal, but could you then point it to a basic program to execute in rtc fast memory?

[ESP_igrr]

I am tempted to announce a challenge to run some old game written in BASIC, using BASIC interpreter, all from RTC memory. Just worried that we will lose Sprite for a day or two.

[ESP_Sprite]

BRB, porting Doom to Basic

[WiFive]

Yes! Seriously, though, it would be great to be able to have the ability to deploy an interpreted main program, interpreted wake stub, and interpreted ULP program (what kind of interpreter could run there?).