Becker BASIC Review
Randy Winchester

Becker Basic - An Extended BASIC with GEOS Features

Becker BASIC is advertised as a way for programmers to easily write GEOS applications in BASIC. It consists of 273 new BASIC commands which augment BASIC 2.0. Included are utilities for creating GEOS menus, dialog boxes, and windows.

The manual describes Becker BASIC as "one of the most complicated products ever released for the C64." It is also complicated to use. Documentation quality varies from good to unclear and insulting: "The Becker BASIC system will help you to learn structured programming: After about the 15th or 20th error message, you'll learn to be much more careful in your program development." All BASIC 2.0 commands are available, but some use different syntax. Many 'plain vanilla' BASIC programs need doctoring before they will run under Becker BASIC. If a program uses PEEK, POKE, or SYS, chances are that it will require extensive modification in order to run.

Three different interpreters are provided. The Input System resembles the C64's screen editor. Programs can be run from the Testing System. You can switch between the Input and Testing Systems without losing a program. Once your program is debugged, it can be run from the Run-Only System, which can be distributed along with your programs.

Becker BASIC's appeal will be to programmers familiar with BASIC who want easy access to GEOS routines. Despite Abacus's claims, the manual states that Becker programs are not true GEOS applications. Although GEOS graphics and text routines are easy to use, only a few GEOS features are supported. There doesn't appear to be any way of accessing icons, disk turbo, or alternate fonts. Each GEOS menu and dialog box require a separate file. A simple program with one menu and two dialog boxes requires five files.

Some bugs in early copies may be fixed in later versions. Minor but annoying problems with the menu and dialog box utilities make it difficult to exit without saving a file, even if you decide you don't want to save your work. Returning to the deskTop from Becker BASIC is unpredictable. Most of the time the only way back into GEOS is to reboot.

Becker BASIC excells at structured programming commands and various types of overlays. Structured programming includes commands like SELECT...CASE...OTHER, and REPEAT...UNTIL. GOTO and GOSUB use names. Subroutine-like procedures can be saved as separate files and loaded as required. Useful examples are provided on disk and in the manual.

While it can be a fun addition to a BASIC programmer's library, Becker BASIC programs don't measure up to true GEOS applications. It is recommended for it's structured programming commands, which are some of the best available.

Berkeley Softwork's GEOS operating system is undoubtedly the single most significant software development for Commodore computers during the last few years. Programmers can now take full advantage of GEOS with GEOPROGRAMMER, a powerful assembly language development system.

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