AmigaBASIC to QB64pe question out of left field

[CharlieJV]

All of this got me thinking about metaprogramming macros to help convert statements/functions from one BASIC implementation to code that is GW-BASIC/QBasic/QB64PE (and BAM) compatible .

It nothing really has to be compatible with GW-Basic and QBasic (beyond the compatibility of QB64pe). Maintaining compatibility with QuickBasic and QBasic is OK, but it really doesn't need to be more.

It reminds me of Netscape. Websites should also be compatible with Netscape, although its market share lay been around 1%. Pointless work for people who were unable to break away from outdated ideas but still demanded an "extra soup".

GW-BASIC compatibility became a top priority for a couple of reasons: first because I can give a whole bunch of old GW-BASIC programs a new lease on life for anybody with a web browser.

But a biggie: whatever GW-BASIC thing BAM doesn't handle, getting BAM to handle it, means pretty much having done something that also improves compatibility with QBasic and QB64PE, so that's well spent time/leveraging.  Improving compatibility for the whole line-up in one shot: sweet.  

And access to all of that source code from all of those BASIC Games source code books from the 80's at the internet archive?  I love that kind of stuff.  Takes me right back to the fun of the home computer revolution.  And also doing programming, at least graphics programming, that's more inline with QB64PE capabilities.  Heading towards the best of all worlds.

But then, unrelated, being able to easily take AmigaBASIC programs (and other different BASIC's) and porting them easily to BAM with semi-automated code conversion to code that matches QBasic/QB64PE, that gets me super-excited.