A simple interactive BASIC interpreter written in Python 3. It is based heavily on material in the excellent book Writing Interpreters and Compilers for the Raspberry Pi Using Python by Anthony J. Dos Reis. However, I have had to adapt the Python interpreter presented in the book, both to work with the BASIC programming language and to produce an interactive command line interface. The interpreter therefore adopts the key techniques for interpreter and compiler writing, the use of a lexical analysis stage followed by a recursive descent parser which implements the context free grammar representing the target programming language.

The interpreter is a homage to the home computers of the early 1980s, and when executed, presents an interactive prompt ('>') typical of such a home computer. Commands to run, list, save and load BASIC programs can be entered at the prompt as well as program statements themselves.

The BASIC dialect that has been implemented is slightly simplified, and naturally avoids machine specific instructions, such as those concerned with sound and graphics for example.