Developer Builds BASIC Interpreter That Boots Straight From UEFI
A developer has released ThoreauBASIC, a BASIC interpreter designed to run as a bootable UEFI application rather than as a program inside an operating system. Instead of installing Windows, Linux, or any OS, users can boot straight into a BASIC prompt from a USB drive or disk image, similar to how old microcomputers powered on directly into BASIC decades ago.
The project taps into UEFI's own runtime services for things like screen output and basic I/O, letting the interpreter operate with essentially no software stack beneath it. It's posted on itch.io, framed more as a fun retro-computing experiment than a production tool, and has drawn a solid discussion on Hacker News from developers interested in low-level firmware programming.
It's a niche project, but a clever one: it strips computing down to its bare minimum, evoking the instant-on simplicity of 1980s home computers using thoroughly modern boot infrastructure.