Raspberry PI booting into BASIC

Hi
I have been trying to get a Raspberry PI to boot into BASIC.

After looking at the boot sequence for quite some time :-)
I found the file Boot.Utils.BootRun which contains the line

/Choices:Boot.Desktop which I removed
I replaced that with *BASIC -chain “1234”

I changed the language to 13 (Basic) using
*CON. LANGUAGE 13

It sort of works but BASIC starts up using the full memory in the
system 189,17012 bytes and some programs crash with an abort on error.

if I go back into the desktop and then
type BASIC from the command line BASIC the starts up using 520,444 bytes
and everything works fine.

Can I boot directly into BASIC?

TIA

Terry

As this looks like it could be useful in future, & I know next to nothing about RiscOS (yet) I tried your 2 * lines in:

SDFS::RISCOSPI.$.Boot

& RPI booted up with:

Run SDFS::RISCOSPI.$.Boot

in the window title bar

& the > prompt &

File ‘1234’ not found

but I’m unsure if a “Basic” window is what you’re expecting?

ISTR that you can do a *configure language [module number] where module number is the number of the module you want to start. Usually it is 10, as “Desktop” is the module number 10. Look what number “BASIC” has, and everything should work.

Hi Steffen

That’s what I tried at first expecting it to work.
BASIC on my PI is module number 13 but if I configure *configure language 13
The start up banner is not shown but the desktop is still run?.

See this thread – you need to unplug bootfx

Hi just to let you know that I have now got this working many thanks to everyone.

How?

Hi Chris

I did the following:-
*CON. LANGUAGE 13
*Unplug BootFX (only need to do these once as its remembered across re-boots)

In the file !boot.Utils.Bootrun I changed / added

BootResources:!fonts (I am using fonts in my program so needed this to make it run)
/Choices:Boot.PreDesktop (changed /Choices:Boot.Desktop to /Choices:Boot.PreDesktop
*BASIC -chain 1234 (start basic chain file 1234)

In my basic program I added :-
SYS"Hourglass_Off" (hourglass was left on / so switch it off when starting my program)

Regards

Terry

Oh FFS, first I get the markup systems mixed up, then I discover I’ve posted in the wrong thread…

Thanks Terry for the solution to this. I have my PI booting directly in to BASIC. I found that in the Bootrun file, you can change the line HON to HOFF to deactivate the hourglass.

…or forget all that, and use !Edit to ‘Create’ a ‘BASIC’ file containing the line ‘*BASIC’ (no return necessary), then rename the !Boot folder (e.g. to ‘Boot’) and ‘Save’ (F3) the file in its place (i.e. as ‘$.!Boot’) :-)

That way a simple renaming of files/folders (You can enter ‘*Desktop’ whilst in BASIC) returns you to the original state.

Of course, the BASIC file can always be used to load other resources, contain your complete program, etc.

I’d already unplugged BootFX as described above (and I’m now finding it impossible to *RMReInit it!), so you might still need to do that.

You can always add ‘*Unplug BootFX’ as the first line of your !Boot BASIC file (so BootFX will be ‘Unplugged’ for future boot-ups).

If you need to use display modes other than the default, you’ll need to add e.g. ‘*LoadModeFile $.Boot.Resources.Configure.Monitors.Others.Generic’, with the relevant MDF (Monitor Definition File).

Renaming the !Boot folder doesn’t appear to cause problems with ‘Loader’ (Where ‘Config.TXT’, etc. resides).

and what about RISC OS PICO ?????