Been thinking.
A programmable word processor.
Something like the Canon Cat but programmable in a very terse but powerful BASIC.
Think:
- Inclusion of LINE INPUT
- A nice simple syntax of FUNCTION(ARGS,ARGS)
- Support for markdown
- Everything runs in a portable VM
- I have been inspired by @akkartik , so perhaps I will do this in Lua (or fennel) for a fantasy console? TIC-80?
I will elaborate on this over time.
I really like the idea of having something shippable within maybe 4KB ROM... Minimalism will be the main inspiration!
@akkartik I think this idea has legs, and can be written in Tiny BASIC...
Opcodes would look like --
Insert line, append line, search string, replace line...
The VM would be modular, ie, it would be accessed through a 'client' that would be displaying the text.
It's probably going to be slow and complicated, but I am really enjoying this thought experiment!
...and then after I would do what I always do, and rewrite it all in Common Lisp 😇
@akkartik I think this Tiny BASIC that I have been using is powerful enough to do quite a few things.
I will have a think about what I want this little VM written in BASIC to do...
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@vidak What are you thinking about for a character display scheme? The text rendering engine could potentially be as complex as the entire rest of the system if you want to handle languages like Arabic or even do ligatures correctly.
@freakazoid this is the hardware I will be targeting--
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mMq8DWZ
https://lilygo.cc/products/fabgl-vga32
So much of the graphics will depend on the commands that it will accept from the Tiny BASIC I will be using.
It does have all the BASIC graphics keywords you would expect, like PLOT, FILL, etc
