About Boriel BASIC
Boriel BASIC is an advanced BASIC compiler that brings modern features to the classic BASIC language. Currently, the compiler is focused on the Z80 CPU, which was a milestone in home computing, especially in the 1980s with the rise of personal microcomputers.
A Bit of History
In 2008, I started this project driven by my passion for compilers and translators, as well as my nostalgia for the ZX Spectrum.
The scene was far from dead, and when I shared the idea, many people liked it. My initial goal was to create a small Python parser that would translate a minimal BASIC into assembly, which would then be assembled into machine code using Pasmo.
The Name
What I didn’t expect was that after trying it, people would ask for more and more improvements (my original plan was to abandon it as a mere curiosity). I named it "ZX Basic Compiler," but this caused confusion. On one hand, many people already referred to "Sinclair BASIC" (the BASIC included in the ZX Spectrum's ROM) as "ZX Basic." On the other, some wanted that name for themselves (I even lost the zxbasic username on GitHub during a period of inactivity), and recently, I gave up the domain zxbasic.com to @em00k, a major contributor to this project.
My username, @boriel, deserves its own article (I’ll write it someday on my personal blog). But I noticed that some people started calling the compiler "Boriel Basic" to distinguish it from the original ZX Basic. At first, I thought it was a bit egocentric to name it that way, as I always wanted it to be a community effort. However, I now see that it was beneficial because it eliminated that confusion.
For a transitional period, we called it Boriel ZX Basic. Now, and definitively, Boriel BASIC is the name by which the project is known.
Supported Architectures
Currently, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum family (48K, 128K) is the most supported, as well as the ZX Next (a Kickstarter project that aims to continue the legacy of our beloved ZX Spectrum).
However, one of the main goals of Boriel BASIC is to become multi-architecture, supporting other machine families—not just Z80, but also other CPUs (including PC).