ACT Apricot: Was there ever a BBC BASIC implementation?

[stephen_usher]

Was there ever an implementation of BBC BASIC for the ACT Apricot series of computers?

The Apricot was an early, British 8086 based MSDOS (2.11) but not IBM PC compatible computer system. The display sub-system is roughly equivalent to a CGA one though memory mapped, as with most 8 bit micros of the day.

I've managed to get the MSDOS version partly working on my F1 using the pseudo-IBM-PC compatibility program but it understandably can't do graphics. If you use AUTO then it crashes after you his ESCape. Text positioning and printing to screen works (and is hugely faster than GWBASIC) but you can't save or load anything from disk (floppy).

So, if anyone knows, I'd be interested as i could do with a decent BASIC.

[Deleted User 9295]

Was there ever an implementation of BBC BASIC for the ACT Apricot series of computers?

There was certainly a version for the ACT Sirius 1 / Victor 9000 but I'm not sure about the F1. In fact support for BBC BASIC on the Sirius was very strong for a while because of the enthusiasm of the user group ISSUE and its founder Simon Sheppard (he owned the domain bbcbasic.com for a long time).

[danielj]

If emibm is running on the apricot, I'm thinking it's fairly Sirius compatible - might well be worth trying the Sirius version. I've got it archived if you have a way of getting it onto a disc?

d.

[Pernod]

I've got it archived if you have a way of getting it onto a disc?

I could try it in MAME if you want to post your archived copy. Not sure how well the F1 and Sirius are emulated, but the Sirius looks fairly complete.

[Deleted User 9295]

[BigEd]

Most wonderful and famous! Is that from a Practical Computing perhaps?

[danielj]

Let's not get too hung up on SS's outputs. They frankly make my skin crawl. (wikipedia does a fairly good job of filling in for the uninitiated).

Meanwhile:

ib-basic.zip

(61.21 KiB) Downloaded 49 times

[Pernod]

Meanwhile:
ib-basic.zip

Hmm, as with a lot of stuff 'archived' from this era, and especially CP/M stuff, how to get it onto a floppy image.

[Soruk]

Meanwhile:
ib-basic.zip

Hmm, as with a lot of stuff 'archived' from this era, and especially CP/M stuff, how to get it onto a floppy image.

The original post mentions it runs MSDOS 2.11 so hopefully unpacking on a blank DOS-formatted disc ought to do the trick.

[BeebMaster]

Wow, the Apricot F1 was the first computer I ever used! This would have been in about 1984ish when we had one at home for a while, and I used to use it for creative writing, using either Word Perfect or Word Star I think.

[stephen_usher]

If emibm is running on the apricot, I'm thinking it's fairly Sirius compatible - might well be worth trying the Sirius version. I've got it archived if you have a way of getting it onto a disc?

d.

The problem with all the ACT machines was that every iteration had a different (and incompatible) graphics sub-system. They used GSX to abstract all graphics functions for applications.

The Apricot series is very different from the re-badged Victor which the Sirius was.

I can easily read images as I have a Gotek connected. (I've also got a daughter board which allows the F1 to use more standard floppy drives which run at 300RPM.)

[stephen_usher]

Let's not get too hung up on SS's outputs. They frankly make my skin crawl. (wikipedia does a fairly good job of filling in for the uninitiated).

Meanwhile:
ib-basic.zip

Unfortunately that crashes as soon as it starts up. The F series display circuitry isn't compatible with the Apricot PC/Xi or the portable, let alone the Sirius. Unless it uses GSX-86 to interface with the display then there's no hope.

[paulb]

I never used any ACT/Apricot models, although I did get the chance to use the ACT Sirius 1 on one occasion, but on the matter of BBC BASIC compatibility, I just noticed a mention of a program in an article:

Also available is a £30 program called B-Tran, which enables the Apricot F series and PC models to run virtually all programs written in BBC Basic.

"Scraping for profits", Personal Computer World, July 1985.

However, I seem to recall the F-series being rather more PC-compatible than the earlier Apricot models, which had more of a claim to be "Sirius-compatible", Apricot's adherence to trends and de-facto standards being rather haphazard over the years.

[stephen_usher]

Well, there is a translator, which attempts to translate the code to GWBASIC but it's not very good and GWBASIC is really pretty slow.

With regards to "standards", there weren't really any back in 84/85. There were XT clones, but you couldn't really call it a standard at that point and the XT architecture wasn't the greatest either. This was also a time of innovation and many evolutionary dead ends, e.g. the Amiga, but also slow burning things in the background which eventually flourished, such as the ARM processor.