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RGC BASIC — install & platforms

Official builds for Windows, macOS, and Linux are attached to GitHub Releases:

  • Latest release — versioned builds (e.g. 1.5.x).
  • Nightly — built automatically from main each night.

Each archive typically includes:

Binary Role
basic / basic.exe Terminal interpreter — stdin/stdout, SYSTEM, PETSCII flags
basic-gfx / basic-gfx.exe Graphical interpreter — Raylib window, POKE/PEEK, sprites, gamepad
examples/ Sample .bas files

Extract the archive and run from a terminal or Explorer/Finder:

./basic examples/trek.bas
./basic-gfx -petscii examples/gfx_colaburger_viewer.bas

Web IDE (same .bas names as the IDE preset): trek.bas · gfx_colaburger_viewer.bas

On Windows use basic.exe / basic-gfx.exe and path separators as usual.

Build from source

Clone github.com/omiq/rgc-basic and use the Makefile. You need a C99 toolchain.

git clone https://github.com/omiq/rgc-basic.git
cd rgc-basic
make              # terminal interpreter: basic (or basic.exe on Windows)
make basic-gfx    # requires Raylib (headers + lib) — see repo README

Common make targets (upstream)

Target Output (typical)
make basic (terminal)
make basic-gfx basic-gfx (Raylib)
make basic-wasm web/basic.js, web/basic.wasm (Emscripten / emsdk)
make basic-wasm-canvas Canvas PETSCII + gfx-oriented features (web/canvas.html, etc.)
make basic-wasm-modular Modular WASM for embedded tutorial (tutorial-embedding.md)
make clean Clean build artifacts

Raylib: Install per OS (brew install raylib on macOS, distro packages or source build on Linux, bundled DLLs often ship with Windows release zips). Full dependency notes: README — Building.

Emscripten: Use emsdk current SDK — avoid stale distro apt install emscripten for this project (upstream warns builds may not match CI). After toolchain changes: make clean and rebuild .js + .wasm together.

macOS Gatekeeper (unsigned binaries)

Downloaded binaries may be blocked until allowed:

  1. Finder: Control-click the binary → Open → confirm once.
  2. System Settings → Privacy & Security: Open Anyway when listed.
  3. Terminal: xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/basic (one-time).

What runs where

Platform basic (terminal) basic-gfx (Raylib)
Linux Yes Yes
macOS Yes Yes
Windows Yes Yes
Browser Web IDE WASM Canvas host — see Graphics + upstream **gfx-canvas-parity.md

Use PLATFORM$() in a program to see the host string (browser in WASM, linux-gfx, etc. — see Web IDE).

See also