Roadmap

The Big One

GW-BASIC 2026 Compiler — ahead-of-time compilation of BASIC programs to native executables. Because nothing says "premature optimization" like compiling a language designed for an interpreter running on a 4.77 MHz 8088. But we've come this far, so why not? Likely approach: translate the token stream to C and lean on GCC/Clang for the heavy lifting.

Completed

Hardware I/O Simulator (v0.15.0)

Implemented in portio.c / portio.h following the virmem.c dispatch pattern. Emulates 8253 PIT channel 2 (speaker frequency), PPI port B (speaker on/off with continuous tone via PulseAudio), CGA mode/color registers, game port (joystick stub), and COM1 serial (transmitter-ready stub). Default: reads return 0xFF (floating bus), writes discarded.

Statements: OUT, WAIT, MOTOR. Functions: INP(), STICK(), STRIG().

Next Up

(Looking for the next major feature — see IDE and Notebook Integration below.)

IDE and Notebook Integration

Jupyter kernel for GW-BASIC — a Jupyter Notebook kernel that runs GW-BASIC programs cell-by-cell, with rich output for PRINT, inline graphics rendering for drawing commands, and interactive INPUT via notebook widgets. Similar in spirit to foxkernel.
JetBrains plugin (IntelliJ/CLion) — full-featured language plugin with syntax highlighting, code completion, line number navigation, run configurations, debugger integration (breakpoints via STOP, variable inspection), structure view (line number outline), and error annotations.
VS Code extension — language extension providing syntax highlighting (TextMate grammar), snippets, run/debug tasks, integrated terminal runner, and Language Server Protocol support for diagnostics and hover info.

Known Limitations

String garbage collection not implemented (uses malloc/free instead)
Maximum 256 variables, 64 arrays, 16 FOR nesting, 24 GOSUB nesting, 16 WHILE nesting

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