Skip to main content

ARMbasic and other BASICs

ARMbasic and Visual BASIC have different goals.  Visual BASIC is a general purpose language that includes access to various elements of Microsoft Windows and its application programs. ARMbasic is a small language aimed at controlling hardware with some communication abilities with host systems.   Wherever practical ARMbasic is a proper subset of Visual BASIC.  Some elements of earlier BASICs do not apply to Visual BASIC, but still do in ARMbasic.  These elements include keywords such as RUN and CLEAR. Data Types

  • Visual BASIC has a rich set of data types as well as some object oriented extensions.
  • In ARMbasic the default data type is 32 bits (INTEGER), and also supports arrays of INTEGERS and Strings.

Changed due to ambiguity

  • FOR..NEXT is ambiguous for negative STEP. To clarify negative steps use DOWNTO. Design differences

  • One goal of ARMbasic is to be a simple, easy to use language, but still be a powerful tool for controlling hardware.  For this reason a simple subset of BASIC has been chosen, with extensions for hardware control.

  • The archaic $ suffix for strings is supported but not necessary

  • Only single dimension arrays are supported.