Editing Acorn Archimedes (section)

====BASIC====
Acorn had always emphasised its implementation of [[BBC BASIC]] in its earlier machines, and the Archimedes was delivered with an enhanced version, BASIC V, that provided additional control-flow structures such as [[while loop]]s, [[Switch statement|case statements]], and multi-line [[Conditional (computer programming)#If–then(–else)|if statements]]. Graphics primitives and operations were also accessible via special-case keywords such as <code>ELLIPSE</code>, <code>CIRCLE</code>, <code>RECTANGLE</code> and <code>FILL</code>, and the specification of colours was extended to access the broader colour palette supported by the hardware. Various commands were also added for [[Sprite (computer graphics)|sprite]] plotting and manipulation and to enable, confine, disable and read the position and state of the mouse pointer.<ref name="pcw198708"/> [[Assembly language]] support was included, as it had been in the BASIC provided by Acorn's 8-bit models, with the language updated to describe instructions for the ARM processor instead of the 6502 (or other processor families) familiar from the earlier machines.<ref name="acornuser198709_archimedes"/> Access to operating system functionality was provided from BASIC, with some of the demonstration programs provided with the Arthur operating system employing the font and window manager operating system modules,<ref name="pcw198708"/><ref group=note>Pountain mistakenly identified the three-dimensional "Lander" game as being written in BASIC, which was not the case.</ref> including the rudimentary desktop environment.<ref name="acornuser198803_windows">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser068-Mar88/page/n96/mode/1up | title=Arc Windows without Pain | magazine=Acorn User | date=March 1988 | access-date=4 July 2022 | last1=Adie | first1=Chris | pages=95,97–99,101 }}</ref>

The arrival of RISC OS brought the possibility of developing desktop, or [[WIMP (computing)|WIMP]], applications in BASIC and other languages. Being available as standard, BASIC was a natural choice for many developers of desktop applications, although "the complexity of the Wimp" and the need to defer to operating system functionality described in the ''RISC OS Programmer's Reference Manual'', this consisting of "a staggering 52 Wimp calls", required some mitigation by tutorials seeking to guide programmers through the mechanisms and techniques involved.<ref name="riscuser198909_wimp">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/Risc_User_Volume_2_Issue_9_1989-09_BEEBUG_GB/page/n22/mode/1up | title=Mastering the WIMP | magazine=RISC User | date=September 1989 | access-date=3 July 2022 | last1=Calcraft | first1=Lee | pages=23–25, 27 }}</ref> To ease the development of such applications, various products offering toolkits or libraries were announced, one of the earliest being Archway,<ref name="acornuser198902_archway">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser079-Feb89/page/n10/mode/1up | title=Windows without pain | magazine=Acorn User | date=February 1989 | access-date=3 July 2022 | pages=9 }}</ref> this providing tools to define different aspects of an application, including window layout design and menu editing, along with BASIC library routines.<ref name="archive198907_archway">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/Archive_1989-07_OCR/page/n33/mode/1up | title=Archway - WIMP Tools | magazine=Archive | date=July 1989 | access-date=3 July 2022 | last1=Forster | first1=Richard | pages=31–32 }}</ref> More ambitious attempts were later made to extend BASIC to access desktop functionality. For instance, HelixBasic added extra keywords to BASIC V whilst also making it possible for traditional BASIC programs, including graphical programs, to run in the window-based environment transparently and concurrently.<ref name="acornuser199204_helix">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser117-Apr92/page/n116/mode/1up | title=Back to Basics | magazine=Acorn User | date=April 1992 | access-date=3 July 2022 | last1=Acton | first1=Dave | pages=115 }}</ref>

Although the performance of the supplied BASIC interpreter had been regarded as competitive,<ref name="pcw198708"/> various BASIC [[compilers]] were produced for the system, such as Dabs Press' Archimedes Basic Compiler (ABC) and Silicon Vision's RiscBASIC.<ref name="acornuser198911_basic">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser088-Nov89/page/n127/mode/2up | title=BASIC on Speed | magazine=Acorn User | date=November 1989 | access-date=3 July 2022 | last1=Acton | first1=Dave | pages=126–127 }}</ref> Both products focused on improving the performance of the input programs, but Silicon Vision subsequently introduced a separate product, WimpGEN, as an accessory for desktop application developers.<ref name="acornuser199406_wimpgen">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser143-Jun94/page/n13/mode/1up | title=WimpGEN Release | magazine=Acorn User | date=June 1994 | access-date=3 July 2022 | pages=14 }}</ref> This product provided window and menu editors that would generate BASIC source code implementing the functionality required to support operation in the desktop environment. Specific application functionality would then be added, and the resulting program could also be compiled using RiscBASIC before being run.<ref name="acornuser199503_wimpgen">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser153-Mar95/page/n68/mode/1up | title=WimpGEN | magazine=Acorn User | date=March 1995 | access-date=3 July 2022 | last1=Matthewman | first1=David | pages=69 }}</ref>

BBC BASIC on the Archimedes was considered as a vehicle for cross-platform game development by [[David Braben]] and other developers before the Archimedes was released, Braben being the author of the three-dimensional Lander game supplied with the machine. Since the BBC Micro had been used as a development host for the Commodore 64 version of Elite and reportedly by Commodore to assist Amiga development "in the early days", a similar role was anticipated for the Archimedes in game development, this role also having the potential to expose games developers for established platforms (such as the Amiga, Atari ST, and the [[Sega]] and [[Nintendo]] consoles) to the Acorn machine. The ability to [[Assembly language#Cross assembler|cross-assemble]] code in the BASIC assembler for processors other than the ARM was devised, and support from key individuals at Acorn was secured, but the company's management were reluctant to incorporate support for other systems in its product, thus curtailing the effort.<ref name="acornuser199903_elite">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser205-Mar99/page/n52/mode/1up | title=Being elite | magazine=Acorn User | date=March 1999 | access-date=11 August 2022 | last1=Bailey | first1=Alasdair | pages=53 }}</ref>