Work · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to I've built a BASIC interpreter with DOS-like features for the web
Hi everyone, When the pandemic started, I put QuickBASIC in front of my kids and could see them enjoy toying with writing some simple programs. Since then, I've been working on a side project to build a similar experience using modern technologies, with the goal of having a tool to teach the foundations of programming to (my own) kids. This is what EndBASIC is: is a retro-looking, BASIC interpreter with DOS-like features -- built for the web. The environment is designed to be minimalist in an attempt to reproduce the computing experience of the 1980s where the computers were simpler to…
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. I've built a BASIC interpreter with DOS-like features for the web launched in 2021; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1

A BASIC interpreter written in golang. Contribute to skx/gobasic development by creating an account on GitHub.
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 2

Ever since I got my first computer, a TI-99/4A, at age 13, I've been fascinated by programming languages. I've written a few interpreters, but this is the first time I've come back to the first language I've ever learned, BASIC. I started ClifferBasic as a way to shake out bugs and find feature weaknesses in another project I'm working on, Cliffer, which is a library for writing CLI applications in .NET using attributed program, but it's taken on a life of its own and has become a rather fun project. I'm planning to flesh out the BASIC implementation over the coming weeks, but I'd like…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3IW
The book page links to a blog post that explains how I got about it (and has a link to sample content), but the TL&DR is that I could not find a lot of books that were on "our" history _and_ were larded with technical details. So I set about writing one, and some five years later I'm happy to share the result. I think it's one of the few "computer history" books that has tons of code, but correct me if I'm wrong (I wrote this both to tell a story and to learn :-)). My favorite languages are Smalltalk and Lisp, but as an Emacs user, I've been using the latter for much longer and for my…
Feb 2026 · berksoft.ca · its alternatives →
- 4PA
GitHub: https://github.com/mayuropensource/PuffinBASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a general-purpose high-level language from the 1960s. PuffinBASIC is an implementation of the BASIC language specification. PuffinBASIC conforms most closely to GWBASIC. The purpose of this implementation is to learn how to write interpreters and resurrect an old programming language to work in modern ecosystem. The interpreter is evolving fast and in near future, I wish to apply modern interpreter building techniques to it. How it works? 1. PuffinBASIC's…
2020 · its alternatives →
- 5

Hello HN! EndBASIC has been featured a few times here before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31651881, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37495166), but today I want to show you something different that I've been working on for the past 6 months: the EndBOX. The idea is to create a toy-like device that: * boots fast into EndBASIC, * feels playful and hackable, * and is focused purely in experiencing (graphical / game) programming in simple terms. Just you and a BASIC command line---with some DOS touches. You'll find pictures and full details in the…
2025 · endbasic.dev · its alternatives →
- 6GI
Hi all! I'm going into my freshman year, and figured that the best way to prepare for the intro to programming Racket course would be to implement my own garbage-collected, dynamically typed, functional programming language in C ;) Anyways... here's the repo: https://github.com/liam-ilan/crumb I started learning C over the summer, so I still have a whole lot to learn... Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! :D
2023 · its alternatives →
- 7

Hey! I’m JC. I’m 17 and part of Hack Club, a nonprofit where we help teenagers ship programming projects with their friends while growing technically. A while ago, I asked myself the question, “How exactly do programming languages work behind the scenes?” It seemed really daunting until I went to a half hour workshop at a high school hackathon about writing a tree-walk interpreter and realized that getting started was actually super fun. This guide is designed in the vein of that - to get people, especially teenagers, started on learning how to build a programming language in a literal…
2024 · easel.hackclub.com · its alternatives →
- 8IC
AntiLang is an interpreted programming language written in Go. The basic idea of this is to keep all the logical parts of a language same, but reverse the structure of it. The idea for this project came when I was having a long midnight conversation with my friend and thought of writing such a weird language. The initial draft was far worse than the current implementation; we thought of reversing the brackets and the language would be read from bottom to top. I'm happy that I dropped that idea Technical details: As the interpreter is written in Golang, I compiled it to WASM, and the whole…
2025 · siruscodes.github.io · its alternatives →
- 9

easy online programming language to learn to programm
2018 · kabas.online · its alternatives →
- 10AE
easyprog.online ist Ihre erste und beste Informationsquelle über easyprog. Hier finden Sie auch weitere interessante Links. Wir hoffen, dass Sie bei Ihrer Suche erfolgreich sind!
2019 · easyprog.online · its alternatives →
- 11

I built LunarBasic because I wanted a modern recreation of BlitzBasic from back in the day. I wanted it to have good step debugging features, and I wanted it to compile down to a native binary with no external dependencies. I do know there's an open source BlitzBasic out there but I wanted something simpler and more concise. It does have a "pro" feature set, but for the foreseeable future, anyone joining up will have the pro version in perpetuity (eg I'm not trying to sell anything here). It's early (v0.8.0). Would love feedback on the language design and compiler output, especially from…
Aug 2026 · lunarbasic.com · its alternatives →
- 12
Bindly▲76Hi HN, I’m a product designer by background, not a traditional software engineer. Over the last year, tools like Claude and ChatGPT completely changed how I work. I started with small internal tools, and now I’m “vibe coding” multiple highly personalized apps. As I iterated between Claude Code (implementation) and ChatGPT (ideation / thinking), I kept running into the same problem. To think clearly, I had to repeatedly re-explain: - what the code currently does, - what changed recently, - and why certain decisions were made. That re-summarization step became a real bottleneck. So I…
2016 · bind.ly · its alternatives →
- 13LP
Hi! I am doing a learning project, attempting to build an imperative language (and interpreter). The end product will be useless for others, I just want to learn and better understand how to build imperative languages. :) If someone else shares this interest and want to give some good hints on good resources I would be grateful. Currently I am looking at an awesome text by Bob Nystrom. All suggestions and tips on resources are most welcome. I am very much a beginner in this, but I find this topic very fascinating. Mail me or post links here! Cheers! You can try a beta version Online at…
2020 · its alternatives →
- 14

My implementation of Thorsten Bell's book (Writing an Interpreter in Go) - actuallyachraf/monkey-giggle
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 15

I've been presenting at local meetups about Context Engineering, RAG, Skills, etc.. I even have a vbrownbag coming up on LinkedIn about this topic so I figured I would make a basic example that uses bedrock so I can use it in my talks or vbrownbags. Hopefully it's useful.
Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 16IM
just a wack systems dude tbh
2018 · h313.info · its alternatives →
- 17IB
Hey all! I wanted to share this project I've been working on that can maybe help you or your developer friends out. I built a RAG system for our product a while back and didn't realize how easy they were to get started. So I put together my learnings into this online course. It's not quite ready but if you sign up and mention HackerNews, I can get you early access. I'm looking to get feedback on the following: (1) materials — is it engaging & did you learn something? (2) UI/UX of the platform — did you have any issues that prevented you from starting or finishing the tutorial? (3)…
2024 · takehomes.com · its alternatives →
- 18

I've been working on a browser-based programming game where you write bots to explore procedurally generated dungeons in any WebAssembly-compatible language. It's like a minimalist roguelike where your character's brain is a program you write. There are pre-made libraries for C, Rust, Zig, Go, and AssemblyScript. The game mechanics are intentionally simple for now, but the challenge comes from building up your bot's understanding of the world from limited local information. Your code needs to handle mapping, pathfinding, and strategy while dealing with monsters and potentially hostile other…
2025 · shaneliesegang.com · its alternatives →
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A BASIC interpreter written in golang. Contribute to skx/gobasic development by creating an account on GitHub.
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 21

heylo! open sourcing a plugin that I've been daily driving for a month. And I promise, I can't go back to vanilla Claude Code. I'm a heavy Claude Code user, and a couple of things kept bugging me. Claude really likes to jump into code. And its responses are too long. I'd skim past walls of text just to find the recommendation. Plan mode helps, but it didn't go deep enough. The questions it asked were still implementation questions, when what I actually needed was alignment on the problem. So I made it stop. Relay is a different output style and two Python hooks. When you describe what you…
Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22

Dev's offline page is fun and we did implement it with Rust and WebAssembly. Go is simple. Can we d... Tagged with go, webassembly, showdev.
2019 · dev.to · its alternatives →
- 23LA
Hello HN, I am building a devtool to understand existing codebases. The idea originates from my time at big tech as well as various attempts to get involved in open source projects. When I was in college I wanted to improve my coding skills by contributing to opensource projects. I would pickup a bug or feature request but I always found myself stuck at the very first step. I did not understood where and how to begin contributing. I once submitted a patch in firefox which was labeled "Good first issue" but that was still very handheld. The assigner told me exactly which files I need to…
2024 · lucidcode.ai · its alternatives →
- 24

Hi all! I built FlipJump, a programming language with just 1 opcode, yet capable of any computation. It started with thinking of the idea of the minimalistic language, but it's more than that - I had to set up the whole environment for it: I have written a macro-assembler, an interpreter for the binary, and a very extensive standard library. I also written about ~30 programs in it. Also, the standard library is tested. I also wrote an esolangs page: https://esolangs.org/wiki/FlipJump Tell me what you think!
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- I wrote a BASIC interpreter in Go alternatives
- ClifferBasic, a simple BASIC interpreter as a .NET REPL alternatives
- I wrote a technical history book on Lisp alternatives
- PuffinBASIC – A cross-platform modern BASIC interpreter written in Java alternatives
- EndBOX – A toy-like retro computer for EndBASIC alternatives
- Going into freshman year, figured I should build an interpreter alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →