Windows Installer
RecommendedThe ordinary way to install. Run it and you get BASIC-256 in your Start menu, and an entry in Add or Remove Programs for when you want it gone again.
Download
BASIC256-2.1.0_Win64_Install.exe
52.7 MB
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Download
BASIC-256 for Windows
Two ways to install: a normal Windows installer, or a .zip you unpack wherever you like. Both give you exactly the same BASIC-256.
Choose your download
Windows .zip (portable)
No installation at all. Extract the folder anywhere you like — your home directory, a USB stick, a machine where you are not allowed to install software — and run basic256.exe from inside it. The full TestSuite runs on this build without issue.
BASIC256-Windows.zip
29.4 MB
You need: Windows 10 or newer, 64-bit.
Windows will warn you the first time
SmartScreen blocks both downloads on first run with “Windows protected your PC”. Click More info, then Run anyway.
This is not a virus warning. It means the file carries no code-signing certificate SmartScreen recognises, which is true of every build here: a certificate costs money the project does not have. A signed build may come later through SignPath’s free programme for open-source projects — whether BASIC-256 qualifies depends on how the project grows, and GitHub stars are part of what they look at.
Which one should you take?
The installer, unless you have a reason not to. Take the .zip when you cannot install software — a school or library machine, a locked-down work laptop — or when you want BASIC-256 on a USB stick to carry between computers.
They contain the same program. Nothing you write is tied to either one: .kbs files are plain text and open in both.
Somewhere else to run it?
BASIC-256 runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, the Raspberry Pi and in a browser tab — the same language on all of them.