NS Basic/Palm 2

The graphical control supports basic drawing functions and PalmOS bitmaps. The compiler manages the automatic conversion of Windows bitmaps associated with your project. This isn't just to the default monochrome format - colour devices are supported to a colour depth of eight bits. Oddly, the dialog box for appending bitmaps to a project doesn't support long filenames and this can lead to compilation problems.

I found that NS Basic compiled sensibly sized executables (PRC files) and they need only the compact (at 88Kb) run-time library to run on your PalmOS device. This run-time library can be included in your executable to give a single large file to simplify the installation of individual programs.

Existing NS Basic users thinking about an upgrade will find the IDE has improved dramatically and that most of those irritating little bugs and idiosyncrasies have disappeared. The support for bitmaps is excellent, although, sadly, this has seen the demise of the Icon Editor. There's no change to the language itself other than some new function libraries.

Overall, the NS Basic support for the PalmOS is superb, with the notable exception of even a simple error-handling facility. With clear signs of support for the wider range of devices coming onto the market, NS Basic has won a place in my professional toolkit.

Author: Mike Griffiths