What is a good BASIC compiler for Mac OSX?

Question

What is a good BASIC compiler for Mac OSX?

Solution 1

• REALbasic
• Objective-Basic
• PureBasic
• Basic for Qt (free)
• Chipmunk Basic (free)

Most of these have trial versions that you can check out for at least 30 days before deciding to buy. REALbasic is an awesome tool, and I've wanted to try Objective-Basic for a long time. KBasic looks promising, especially considering the price.

And then there's always the option of running BSD/Unix/Linux-based tools in OS X, as well as Windows programs if you have an Intel-based Mac.

Solution 2

I would have to say REALBasic.

Solution 3

PureBasic is probably the most full featured but it is a lower level language. REALbasic looks good but I've had horrible experience with it trying to do anything "real".

Solution 4

QB64 isn't exactly pretty, but it's a dialect of QBasic, with mac, windows, and linux IDEs, and it can (with tie ins to eclipse) compile for android as well. The results, however, can be very pretty.

http://qb64.net/forum/index.php

It's also worth noting that it has expanded the QB command list, is 64-bit clean, and can do some stunning graphics, network operations, and more.

As a reminder: QBasic is a structured basic with limited variable scoping (subroutine or program-wide), which can optionally use line numbers.

I have compiled old QBasic code unmodified provided it didn't do file access, and that's just a matter of changing the directory separator...

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Comments

[Ben Zotto]

All I can tell you based on personal experience is that The Beagle Compiler (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_Bros) running under Virtual II (virtualii.com) probably works like a champ. :-) 20 GOTO 10

[Mathias]

Chipmunk is an interpreter, not a compiler.

[Eric Sebasta]

kBasic for Mac is gone.

[Cody Gray]

It doesn't appear to be "gone", @Eric. It seems to now be called "Basic for Qt".