Introduction
Great Cow BASIC can be used with the Apple macOS operatimg system.
These instructions are for Apple macOS only (not Windows).
You have a choice to make. You can either:
- download a macOS installer which will install a precompiled binary for Great Cow BASIC along with support files and some optional components; or
- download, compile and install Great Cow BASIC from the source files.
There are instructions below for both choices. If I was you, I would use the Great Cow BASIC Installer and save valuable programming time :-)
Instructions for using the Great Cow BASIC Installer
- Download the Great Cow BASIC - macOS Installer disk image (.dmg) file from https://sourceforge.net/projects/gcbasic/files/GCBasic-macOS-Installer.dmg/download
- Double click the .dmg file to mount it on your Desktop and a window will open which contains the Installer.
- Double click the Great Cow BASIC icon and follow the installer prompts.
Instructions for building your own Great Cow BASIC binary
Complete the following steps to compile and install Great Cow BASIC:
- Download the FreeBASIC 1.06 macOS 10.4 binary compilation from: http://tmc.castleparadox.com/temp/fbc-1.06-darwin-wip20160505.tar.bz2
- Download the Great Cow BASIC macOS Source Distribution from SourceForge at https://sourceforge.net/projects/gcbasic/files/GCB-macOS-src.tar.bz2/download
- Unfortunately Apple replaced the gcc compiler with the clang compiler and FreeBASIC needs the real gcc due to a certain use of goto… so, you can compile your own version of gcc following the instructions at: https://bitbucket.org/sol_prog/macos-gcc-binary or you can take the low road and just download the pre-compiled binary version from https://bitbucket.org/sol_prog/macos-gcc-binary/raw/38724f2d24aa5b7944d2227d8098b1d30ac5d7b5/gcc-8.1.tar.bz2
- Open a Terminal window (Terminal can be found in Applications > Utilities).
- Move gcc-8.1.tar.bz2 from your Downloads directory to your Home directory by typing the following command in your Terminal window:
mv ~/Downloads/gcc-8.1.tar.bz2 ~/
- Unpack the gcc-8.1.tar.bz2 compressed tar file by typing the following comamnd into your Terminal window:
gzcat gcc-8.1.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -
This will produce a new directory called gcc-8.1.
- Move the gcc-8.1 directory to the /usr/local/ directory by typing the following commands into your Terminal window:
sudo mv gcc-8.1 /usr/local
Note: You will be asked for your password to execute the above command.
- Ensure that the Apple Developer Xcode app is installed. Xcode can be downloaded and installed from the App Store for free.
- Ensure that the Xcode command line tools are installed by typing the following command in your Terminal window:
xcode-select --install.
- Move the FreeBASIC compressed tar file from your Downloads directory to your home directory by typing the following command in your Terminal window:
mv ~/Downloads/fbc-1.06-darwin-wip20160505.tar.bz2 ~/
- Unpack the FreeBASIC compressed tar file by typing these commands in your Terminal window:
gzcat fbc-1.06-darwin-wip20160505.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -
This will produce a new directory called fbc-1.06.
- Move the Great Cow BASIC compressed tar file from your Downloads directory to your home directory by typing the following command in your Terminal window:
mv ~/Downloads/GCB-macOS.tar.bz2 ~/
- Unpack the Great Cow BASIC compressed tar file by typing these commands in your Terminal window:
gzcat GCB-macOS.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -
This will produce a new directory called GreatCowBasic.
- Change to the GreatCowBasic/Sources directory by typing this command in your Terminal window:
cd ~/GreatCowBasic/Sources
- Compile the Great Cow BASIC binary (gcbasic) by typing the following command into your Terminal window:
DarwinBuild/build.sh
Note 1: If you did not install the various files with the same names as in the instructions above into your Home directory, you will need to edit the build.sh script file and change the file paths and filenames to the appropriate values.
Note 2: You may need to alter the library and include paths in the build.sh script depending on your version of macOS (it is currently setup for the Xcode High Sierra 10.13 and Mohave 10.14 versions of macOS).
- Confirm the proper execution, and the version, of Great Cow BASIC by typing the following command in the Terminal window:
gcbasic
Now you should be able create GCB source files with your favourite editor and compile those files with the gcbasic compiler.
Programming microcontrollers
To program your microcontroller with your Great Cow BASIC-created hex file, you will need additional hardware and software.
- For Microchip PIC microcontroller programming, you might find what you need at: http://www.microchip.com/DevelopmentTools/ProductDetails.aspx?PartNO=pg164120 and the programming software pk2cmd v1.2.
- For Atmel AVR microcontroller programming, you will need the avrdude programming software. Check here: http://www.nongnu.org/avrdude/ for it.
Help
Great Cow BASIC Help documentation is installed in the Documentation subdirectory in your GreatCowBasic directory.
If at any time you encounter an issue and need help, you will find it over at the friendly Great Cow BASIC discussion forums at https://sourceforge.net/p/gcbasic/discussion/
