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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Thoreau BASIC - UEFI BASIC

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Frank N. Furter
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Joined: 28/05/2012
Location: Germany
Posts: 1150

Posted: 09:21am 21 Aug 2026

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Have you heard of Thoreau BASIC yet? It's a pretty interesting development.

https://tarjan.itch.io/thoreaubasic

It runs entirely without an operating system under UEFI and is modeled after GWBASIC. Many features don't work yet, but some already do.

- "Secure Boot" must be disabled in the BIOS.
- On a FAT32 USB flash drive, you must create a folder named "EFI" with a subfolder named "BOOT."
- Copy the BASIC.efi file there and rename it to BOOTX64.efi.
- When you start the computer, press F12 and select the UEFI stick to boot from - BASIC will start immediately.

I think this is a great project, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops.

Frank

Mixtel90

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Joined: 05/10/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 9068

Posted: 09:52am 21 Aug 2026

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So pretty much like MMBasic but for bigger hardware then. :)
Yep, interesting concept. I hope to goodness it doesn't get developed to the point where it can introduce insecurities into UEFI. That would be "a bad thing".

Mick

Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini
Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs

llovhaug
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Joined: 07/07/2026
Location: United States
Posts: 7

Posted: 01:10pm 21 Aug 2026

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While the concept is interesting, and of course it is early in its lifecycle, to compare this to MMBasic is kind of like comparing a talented primary school athlete to a world class professional one.

I mean the sophistication of MMBasic and its documentation go so far beyond this GWBasic clone they are not really comparable.

Sure, they both are examples of "boot to BASIC" emblematic of the early microcomputers many of us cut our teeth on, but I for one do not want to ever go back to line number driven programming, short variable names, the lack of a network stack, limited I/O etc.

Now if someone with a lot more talent than I were to port MMBasic to use this UEFI approach, then I personally get a lot more interested.

But yes, the notion is clever.

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