Extras > White Paper > Tibbo BASIC

Can you elaborate on this last statement? What makes your Tibbo BASIC different?

Several aspects. First of all, what we offer is a BASIC compiler. This means, your program is compiled into an "executable binary file" and then loaded into the Tibbo device for execution. Original BASICs were "interpreted" languages and this really slowed things down.

This said, I want to note that we do not compile your BASIC program into the "native code" of our device's CPU. Instead, we produce a "pseudo-code" (p-code) executed by the Virtual Machine (VM) that is a part of our embedded Operating System called TiOS.

This is getting heavy! What is a Virtual Machine?

Virtual Machine is a "simulated" processor. Just like a real hardware processor, it executes "machine code". The name comes from the fact that the execution is not handled by some sort of hardware, but, instead, is implemented as a software process.

And why is this important?

Being a part of the OS, the VM cannot take full control of the CPU and "overpower" the OS. Basically, your BASIC program is running in a sort of "sandbox" — it can freely do things within certain limits but it cannot affect the operation of the system in general.

The main advantage of this is that even when your BASIC program is running astray, this won't cause any major disruptions in the system. You will still be able to control it from TIDE, start and stop execution at will, set breakpoints, etc. This kind of "complete control" would be impossible had we not chosen to run your compiled BASIC application on the VM.