BASIC256 2.1.1 is a maintenance release on top of 2.1.0. Programs run about twice as fast, and what you type in the browser survives a refresh.
Highlights
- Programs run faster — arithmetic-heavy loops are roughly twice as fast. The interpreter now reuses the memory it holds values in instead of asking the system for a new block and handing it back for every value it creates, and it steps from one instruction to the next with less work. Measured at 1.88x overall, fairly evenly across integer maths, floating point, transcendental functions and variable access. Fractals, physics and anything else that loops hard gain the most, and the browser version gains most of all.
- The browser remembers your program. A refresh, a closed tab or a restarted browser no longer loses what is in the editor. Every open tab comes back with its text, its name and whichever one was in front. Saving still downloads the file exactly as before — this is a safety net, not a replacement for saving.
Also in this release
- Windows 11: the menu bar titles — File, Edit, View and the rest — are drawn at the system text size, like everything else in the program, and the bar makes room for them when that size is large.
- The Help / About BASIC-256 box now names the project's own website, https://basic256.org, alongside the documentation site, https://doc.basic256.org.
- The Windows downloads no longer carry Microsoft's Visual C++ redistributable as a file of its own. It has always been, and still is, bundled inside the installer, which offers to install it if the system needs it.
See the ChangeLog for the full list.
Downloads
| Platform | File |
|---|---|
| Windows (installer) | .exe |
| Windows (portable) | .zip |
| Linux x86_64 | .tar.gz / .AppImage |
| Raspberry Pi (ARM64) | .AppImage |
| macOS (Apple Silicon / Intel) | .tar.gz |
Windows SmartScreen will block the installer at first as it comes from an unknown publisher — "More info" then "Run anyway". The macOS downloads are not notarized; see the README for how to open them. Both macOS builds need macOS 15 (Sequoia) or newer.
The browser version needs no download at all: https://run.basic256.org already runs 2.1.1.