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Hi All Dragoneers,

1) Does anyone have a copy of the Sprint Basic Compiler?
2) (More importantly) Is it any good? I've not used it.

Thanks

Davy

Hi Davy,

It works quite well, but you have to write your programs to suit the compiler. Its been more than 20 years since I tried it, so don't ask me to be more specific. Blaby used the Sprint compiler to compile Barmy Burgers, and a few other titles. Invader Cube (aka 3D-OXO) comes with the compiler as a demo.

Regards,
Steve

Hi

I used it quite a lot in one of my own person projects, which was to re-write the '50 games on one cassette' games to be something decent. It was very exact in what you had in your basic program, and I found myself re-compliing lots of times because of syntax rather than logical coding errors. At the end of the day, I preferred DYNAFAST, which promised less but delivery more. Neither Sprint or Dynafast made graphics any quicker, unless your graphical routines used alot of "maths".

Also you'll definately require the instructions for sprint, and a way of removing the orange 'sprint' screen that pops up at the start of your complied programs.

BOL

Paul

vdc300 wrote:I used it quite a lot in one of my own person projects, which was to re-write the '50 games on one cassette' games to be something decent.

Surely the best way to improve those games is to wipe the tape.

vdc300 wrote:Neither Sprint or Dynafast made graphics any quicker, unless your graphical routines used alot of "maths".

I understand that a number of BASIC graphics routines (well at least the paint routine) use routines built into the ROM, so even if you write in assembly language these graphics routines will not show any speed increase.

Thanks everyone - really good to hear your experiences. I understand it came with a £200 runtime fee - maybe that's why it didn't catch on

Anyway it sounds like my time would be better invested in 6809!

Cheers,
Davy

Assembler/machine code is a much better idea really - I recommend using Encoder09 if wanting to use something on the Dragon itself - in the 80's I used DASM/DEMON for ages before switching to Encoder09 and then wished I'd known about it much sooner !