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Setting up a development environment for PC-BASIC

These instructions cover the steps needed to install the development source of PC-BASIC and its dependencies.

You won't need to read this file just to install PC-BASIC

General installation instructions for PC-BASIC can be found in README.md. The instructions there cover the most common platforms and use cases. The instructions in this file are for developers only.

Dependencies

The following packages are needed, recommended or optional when installing PC-BASIC:

Package Status Used for
Python 3.6.9 or later required
importlib_resources required for Python <= 3.6
SDL2 recommended graphics and sound
PySerial 3.4 optional physical or emulated serial port access
PyParallel optional physical parallel port access
PyAudio optional sound without SDL2

Once you have a working Python installation, most dependencies can be installed with pip:

    pip install pysdl2-dll pyserial

If pip is not included with your copy of Python, install it with python -m ensurepip or through your system's package manager.

For Windows, Mac, and Linux, it is recommended to use the SDL2 and SDL2-gfx libraries provided by the pysdl2-dll package. Alternatively, you can get the library directly from libsdl.org. Install the library in your OS's standard location for libraries. If this causes difficulties, you can alternatively place the library in pcbasic/lib.

PyAudio is only used if SDL2 is not available. The project only distributes binary wheels for Windows. On Mac or Linux, pip3 install pyaudio will try to compile the module from source; for this to succeed, you need to have the PortAudio library and the header files for your Python version and for PortAudio installed on your system.

PyParallel is only needed to access physical parallel ports, not for printing to a CUPS or Windows printer. Note that most modern machines do not actually have parallel ports. If you have a parallel port and want to use it with PC-BASIC, download and install PyParallel from the link above. Although a pyparallel package exists in on PyPI, at present this does not work as essential libraries are missing.

External tools

PC-BASIC employs the following external command-line tools, if available:

Tool OS Status Used for
notepad.exe Windows essential printing
lpr Mac, Linux, Unix essential printing
paps Mac, Linux, Unix recommended improved Unicode support for printing
beep Mac, Linux, Unix optional sound through PC speaker

Building from GitHub source repository

The following additional packages and tools are used for development, testing and packaging:

Package OS Used for
Git all development
lxml all documentation
markdown all documentation
Prince all documentation
pylint all testing
coverage all testing
colorama Windows testing
wheel all packaging
twine all packaging
toml all packaging
pillow all packaging
cx_Freeze 6.11.1 Windows, MacOS packaging
dpkg Linux packaging
alien Linux packaging

These are the steps to set up the local repository ready to run PC-BASIC:

  1. Clone the repo from GitHub

     git clone --recursive https://github.com/robhagemans/pcbasic.git

  2. Make pcbasic/data/USAGE.txt

     python3.7 -m make local

  3. Run pcbasic directly from the source directory

     pc-basic

Deprecation warnings

The following features are deprecated and will be removed in the near future:

  • Support for end-of-life Python versions 2.7 and 3.6
  • The PyGame-based interface
  • The curses-based interface
  • The option --utf8 (use --text-encoding=utf8)
  • The aliases freedos, univga, and unifont for the default font (use --font=default)
  • Support for sound through the PC speaker