Mallard BASIC is a

BASIC interpreter A BASIC interpreter is an Interpreter (computing), interpreter that enables users to enter and run programs in the BASIC programming language, language and was, for the first part of the microcomputer era, the default Application software, applica ...

for

CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/Intel 8085, 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Dig ...

produced by

Locomotive Software Locomotive Software was a small British software house that did most of its development for Amstrad's home and small business computers of the 1980s. It was founded by Richard Clayton and Chris Hall on 14 February 1983. It wrote or contributed sign ...

and supplied with the

Amstrad PCW The Amstrad PCW series is a range of personal computers produced by United Kingdom, British company Amstrad from 1985 to 1998, and also sold under licence in Europe as the "Joyce" by the German electronics company Schneider Computer Division, Schn ...

range of small business

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

s, the

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer developed and marketed by Sinclair Research. One of the most influential computers ever made and one of the all-time bestselling British computers, over five million units were sold. ...

+3 version of CP/M Plus, and the

Acorn The acorn is the nut (fruit), nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'', ''Notholithocarpus'' and ''Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains a seedling surrounded by two cotyledons (seedling leaves), en ...

BBC Micro The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a family of microcomputers developed and manufactured by Acorn Computers in the early 1980s as part of the BBC's Computer Literacy Project. Launched in December 1981, it was showcased across severa ...

's Zilog Z80 second processor. In the 1980s, it was standard industry practice to bundle a BASIC interpreter with microcomputers, and the PCW followed this practice. While the PCW was primarily a dedicated

word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current word ...

for business use running LocoScript, it was running on top of the CP/M

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

. There were many existing implementations of BASIC for CP/M, such as

Digital Research Digital Research, Inc. (DR or DRI) was a privately held American software company created by Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit systems like MP/M, Concurrent DOS, FlexOS, Multiuser ...

's CBASIC and the third-party ZBasic, but they followed the earlier 1970s model of

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...

s that were fed

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

prepared in a separate

text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. An example of such program is "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be used to c ...

. BASIC was not built-in in these cases, the user would prepare a program and then invoke BASIC to run it. In contrast,

home computer Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a s ...

s of the era had moved to using BASIC as the primary interface for the machine. Instead of booting into CP/M or a similar OS, these machines booted directly into a BASIC normally stored on

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

. These also included a built-in screen editor. Mallard was based on this model, with an integrated editor that was tailored for the PCW's non-standard 90-column screen. Although the PCW had excellent monochrome graphics support for its time and specification, closely comparable to the

Hercules Graphics Card The Hercules Graphics Card (HGC) is a computer graphics controller formerly made by Hercules Computer Technology, Inc. that combines IBM's text-only MDA display standard with a bitmapped graphics mode, also offering a parallel printer port. ...

for

IBM PC compatible An IBM PC compatible is any personal computer that is hardware- and software-compatible with the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) and its subsequent models. Like the original IBM PC, an IBM PC–compatible computer uses an x86-based central p ...

computers, Mallard BASIC had no graphics support whatsoever. Instead, Locomotive Software optimised it for business use, with, for instance, full

ISAM Indexed Sequential Access Method (ISAM) is a method for creating, maintaining, and manipulating computer files of data so that records can be retrieved sequentially or randomly by one or more keys. Indexes of key fields are maintained to achieve ...

random-access file support, making it easier to write database applications. It was also optimised for speed — it is named after the LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard

locomotive A locomotive is a rail transport, rail vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, Push–pull train, push–pull operation has become common, and in the pursuit for ...

, the fastest steam locomotive in the world, once again displaying the company's fondness for railway-oriented nomenclature. In fact, the Locomotive Software name came from the phrase "to run like a train" and it was this theme that was used to name Mallard BASIC — no other Locomotive Software product was named after anything railway-oriented. The Acorn version was designed simply to run the Compact Software small business accounting products Acorn was including to target its Z80 second processor at small businesses. Mallard's major innovation designed specifically for Acorn was the addition of the Jetsam

B*-tree In computer science, a B-tree is a self-balancing tree data structure that maintains sorted data and allows searches, sequential access, insertions, and deletions in logarithmic time. The B-tree generalizes the binary search tree, allowing for ...

keyed access filing system to give similar (but superior) features to the Miksam product Compact had originally designed around. Graphics could be implemented by loading the GSX extension to CP/M, but this was cumbersome for BASIC programmers. The lack of graphics support was rectified by several BASIC toolkits, of which the most popular was Lightning Extended BASIC (LEB — see external links). This patched Mallard BASIC, replacing the redundant LET keyword with LEB, which could be followed by a wide variety of parameters to allow sophisticated graphics (for the time) to be drawn on screen, saved to disc, printed, and so on. Probably the most widespread Mallard application ever was RPED, the text editor supplied with the PCW. The name was short for Roland Perry's EDitor, the program having been quickly written by Roland Perry, the Amstrad executive running the computer product development, when it was realised that CP/M-80 came with no usable full-screen editor, but users had a requirement to edit configuration files. The same problem was apparent with

DOS Plus DOS Plus (erroneously also known as DOS+) was the first operating system developed by Digital Research's OEM Support Group in Newbury, Berkshire, UK, first released in 1985. DOS Plus 1.0 was based on CP/M-86 Plus combined with the PCM ...

and

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...

supplied with IBM-compatible Amstrad computers, but the RPED for those machines was written in

Intel 8086 The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit computing, 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-b ...

assembler, and not Mallard BASIC. The IBM PC version of Mallard Basic is still available from LocoScript Software as an MS-DOS program, which will run under Windows as a disc-only version with licence or with the full Introduction & Reference manual.

References

External links

Mallard BASIC
– Mallard BASIC manual from the Spectrum +3 CP/M Plus package

by Geoffrey Childs, author of LEB (PCW-World, 1990) {{BASIC BASIC interpreters CP/M software ZX Spectrum software BASIC programming language family

See also

References

External links