NS Basic is a family of development tools for the BASIC programming language developed and commercially marketed by NS BASIC Corporation in Toronto, Canada for iOS, Android, BlackBerry OS
BlackBerry OS
BlackBerry OS is a proprietary mobile operating system, developed by Research In Motion for its BlackBerry line of smartphone handheld devices...
The MessagePad was the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple for the Newton platform in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was done in Japan by the Sharp Corporation...
Palm OS is a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants in 1996. Palm OS is designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite of basic applications for personal information management...
Microsoft Windows CE is an operating system developed by Microsoft for embedded systems. Windows CE is a distinct operating system and kernel, rather than a trimmed-down version of desktop Windows...
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
.
History
NS BASIC Corporation was created in 1993 to provide an easy to use development tools for mobile devices. The manufacturers and licensors of the operating systems usually supply a C++
C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
based tool aimed at highly skilled professional developers. NS BASIC provides an alternative using the Basic programming language, similar to Visual Basic
Visual Basic
Visual Basic is the third-generation event-driven programming language and integrated development environment from Microsoft for its COM programming model...
. Key developers include George Henne, Marcus Darden, James Kruth, Eric Pepke and Dan Rowley.
As of 2010, NS Basic's tools are used by almost 20,000 developers in over 80 countries.
NS Basic/App Studio
NS Basic/App Studio was released in December, 2010. It consists of an IDE
Integrated development environment
An integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...
, a programming language and a deploy module. The IDE and programming language are modeled on Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Visual Basic is the third-generation event-driven programming language and integrated development environment from Microsoft for its COM programming model...
VBScript is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It is designed as a “lightweight” language with a fast interpreter for use in a wide variety of Microsoft environments...
syntax is implemented. The runtime environment is based on JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook...
: many of the features of the underlying technologies is exposed to the NS Basic/App Studio environment. The programs produced by NS Basic/App Studio are Web apps.
Apps install themselves as offline web applications. They can run on Apple's iOS devices (iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
) and Android devices running 2.1 or later.
The latest version of NS Basic/App Studio is 1.2.0, released in March, 2011.
Example code
Function OKButton_onclick
MsgBox "Hello World"
End Function
NS Basic/CE
NS Basic/CE was released in 1998. It consists of an IDE
Integrated development environment
An integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...
, a compiler and a device specific runtime. The program is identical across all the supported platforms: only the runtime is device specific. Devices supported include the vast majority of Windows CE devices produced since 1998. See External Links for a complete list on NS Basic's website. Many NS Basic/CE programs can be run using NS Basic/Desktop on Windows desktop systems with little or no changes.
NS Basic/CE also includes a stripped down IDE which runs directly on a Windows CE device. This is of limited use on devices with small screen sizes.
The Handbook is available in English, German and Japanese. The IDE is localized for English, German, Spanish and Japanese.
The latest version of NS Basic/CE is 8.2.0, released in March, 2010.
NS Basic/Newton
NS Basic/Newton was released in 1993. While it is still available, support is limited. It runs entirely on the Newton OS device. The last version released was 3.61 in 1995. It is no longer being developed.
NS Basic/Palm
NS Basic/Palm was released in 2000. It consists of an IDE
Integrated development environment
An integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...
and a compiler. The runtime code can be embedded in the program to create a single executable. The apps it creates will run on any Palm OS device using Palm OS 3.1 or later, including the Palm Treo and Palm Centro
Palm Centro
The Palm Centro smartphone has been marketed by Palm, Inc. since its release on October 14, 2007 — offering the functionality of the larger Treo 755p in a smaller size....
. Programs written in NS Basic/Palm can run on Symbian OS devices once compiled using NS Basic/Symbian OS.
The Handbook is available in English, German and Japanese. The IDE is localized for English, German, Spanish and Japanese, Chinese, Chinese Simplified, French, Hebrew, Portuguese (Brazil) and Russian.
The latest version of NS Basic/Palm is 7.0.0, released in February, 2009.
NS Basic/Symbian OS
NS Basic/Symbian was released in August, 2008. Distribution of the product was halted in January, 2010.
NS Basic/Desktop
NS Basic/Desktop was released in 2005. It is a wrapper for VBScript
VBScript
VBScript is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It is designed as a “lightweight” language with a fast interpreter for use in a wide variety of Microsoft environments...
. It extends the language by adding a full IDE, forms, screen objects and other features, such as support for SQLite
SQLite
SQLite is an ACID-compliant embedded relational database management system contained in a relatively small C programming library. The source code for SQLite is in the public domain and implements most of the SQL standard...
. It also makes the deployed code unreadable and unmodifiable by the user, a major problem with VBScript apps. It creates applications for Windows 2000, XP and Vista. Many NS Basic/Desktop programs can be run using NS Basic/CE on mobile devices with little or no changes.
The Handbook is available in English. The IDE is localized for English, German, Hebrew and Japanese.
The latest version of NS Basic/Desktop is 4.0.0, released in June, 2009.
Example code
Function OKButton_Click
MsgBox "Hello World"
End Function
Mobile Application Development
The company also undertakes custom development for companies who need applications for mobile devices, such as iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Palm OS. Applications can be developed for just one platform or for multiple platforms.
