MBASIC Interpreter Documentation¶

Documentation for the MBASIC 5.21 interpreter implementation.

Getting Started¶

Getting Started Guide - Installation, first steps, and quick start
Features - Complete list of interpreter capabilities
Compatibility Guide - MBASIC 5.21 compatibility and differences

Implementation Details¶

Architecture - Interpreter design, compiler backend, and optimizations
String Allocation and Garbage Collection - How CP/M MBASIC managed string memory

For Developers¶

Looking to understand or modify the MBASIC interpreter?

Design Documents: docs/dev/ - Implementation notes and design decisions
Project Rules: .claude/CLAUDE.md - Development guidelines
Installation Guide: docs/dev/INSTALLATION_FOR_DEVELOPERS.md - Developer setup

Quick Links¶

By Topic¶

Installation & Setup - Getting Started → Installation instructions - Compatibility → What works, what doesn't

Using MBASIC - Features → What you can do - UI Guides → How to use the interface

Language Reference - Statements → BASIC-80 statements - Functions → Built-in functions - Operators → Arithmetic, logical, relational

Advanced Topics - Architecture → How it works - File I/O → Working with files - Error Handling → ON ERROR GOTO/RESUME

About This Implementation¶

This is a complete Python implementation of MBASIC-80 (MBASIC) version 5.21 for CP/M.

Key Features: - 100% MBASIC 5.21 language compatibility - Choice of user interfaces (CLI, Curses, Tkinter) - Advanced semantic analyzer with 18 optimizations - Cross-platform (Linux, macOS, Windows) - Zero dependencies for core functionality

Version Information: - Target compatibility: MBASIC 5.21 for CP/M - Implementation language: Python 3.8+ - License: See project repository

Documentation Structure¶

This documentation is organized in three tiers:

📗 MBASIC Implementation (this section)
How to install and use the interpreter
What features are supported
Compatibility information
📕 BASIC-80 Language Reference (Language Docs)
Language syntax and semantics
Statements and functions
Common to all MBASIC interpreters
📘 UI-Specific Guides
Interface-specific help
Keyboard shortcuts
UI features and workflows

Contributing¶

This is an open-source project. For contributing: - Report issues on GitHub - Follow coding guidelines in .claude/CLAUDE.md - See developer documentation in docs/dev/