Thursday, October 18, 2012

Referral Campaign - Win a free copy of Liberty BASIC!

Until the end of October 2012 we are running a word of mouth referral campaign. For a free copy of Liberty BASIC, refer at least 5 friends with an interest in programming. If you want to qualify for the free copy, your friend need to send an email to freeoffer@libertybasic.com and mention that you referred them. They must include your name and email address. We will send you a download link and registration code. Please try to refer friends that you think would be interested in Liberty BASIC. Thanks!

Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Regarding How to Teach Programming

Andres Valloud posted "...The goal of this improved teaching is to allow everyone to take advantage of programming, not just CS oriented people..." http://blogten.blogspot.com/2012/10/regarding-how-to-teach-programming.html

Friday, April 27, 2012

Before Make Magazine

In the corner of the factory there was a rather large machine sitting there unused. There was a sort of hodgepodgeness (if that's a word) about it. My boss Bob explained to me that this was a CNC machine that he had built himself. Wow! So before the company had money to purchase the industry standard Excellon drilling and routing machines he had decided it was possible to build his own, and it worked. I think that's really impressive!

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

BASIC for the Raspberry Pi?

What's Raspberry Pi? It is a cool new single board computer about the size of a credit card. It runs Linux (it can run other things) and it only costs $35, or $25 if you don't care about networking. You only need a micro USB charger or batteries to power it, a keyboard and mouse, and an HDMI compatible monitor or TV set.

This new device is aimed at schools, but the appeal of such a device is obviously very broad. I went to their forum and mentioned the idea of producing a version of BASIC for the RP. The reactions were mixed. Seems like that crowd is strongly committed to Python. That's okay, I've got my hands full right now with Liberty BASIC and Run BASIC.

Perhaps in the future I will have a chance to do something. It would probably be my first open source project, based on Squeak Smalltalk.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The Arduino Phenomenon

Seems like there is a lot of interest lately in using microcontrollers such as the BASIC Stamp and the new Arduino products. To my surprise, even a long retired electrical engineer friend knew about Arduino when I asked him. I get email from users of these products asking if they can use Liberty BASIC to program them. The answer is no, and yes.

These devices come with their own programming tools. Liberty BASIC is a Windows only (and soon also Mac and Linux) language, so it cannot be used to program microcontrollers. However I've been told that they have found a use for Liberty BASIC with microcontrollers. Some people have created a GUI control panel (including running graphics for example) for their microcontroller projects using Liberty BASIC because Liberty BASIC can be used to monitor devices using serial, parallel and network ports.

For more information about this, see the following link (you will need to register with the forum to read the posts).

http://libertybasic.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=comport