The first betas should be available before the end of the year. In the S60 version a virtual mouse will be used to emulate touch screen capabilities and to allow the user to interface with the application.
There is, of course, a comparison to be drawn with OPL. OPL was Psion's much loved BASIC like language that struggled to survive the transition to Symbian (it was open sourced, but is not available for the more recent devices). It will be interesting to see what the level of demand for this amongst developers.
From the NS Basic website:
NS Basic/Symbian is a complete, easy to use BASIC development environment for Symbian OS devices, with a look and feel similar to Visual Basic. NS Basic/Symbian provides a full, modern implementation of BASIC, with proper subroutines, user defined data types and no line numbers. The development environment runs on a Windows desktop.
NS Basic/Symbian includes over 150 statements and functions. Support is provided for file handling, TCP/IP, graphics and more. A full set of standard screen input and output objects and dialog boxes are included. Applications you create are freely distributable and are write-once, run anywhere.
The environment features a Visual Designer, which allows you to graphically lay out your objects, set their properties and write code that responds to and controls them.
Here's an extract from the press release:
October 16, 2007 -- NS BASIC Corporation today announced NS Basic/Symbian, an an easy to use rapid application development tool. With a look and feel similar to Microsoft's Visual Basic, it will allow many new developers to create applications for Symbian OS devices.
"The ability to create apps for Symbian has been a frequent request.", said George Henne, President of NS BASIC Corporation. "There are a large number of developers that would like to create applications for Symbian OS that are not interested in learning C++. By leveraging on the work we have already done for Palm OS and Windows CE devices, we've created something that will let them get up to speed quickly."
NS Basic/Symbian is a complete, easy to use BASIC development environment for Symbian OS devices, with a look and feel similar to Visual Basic. NS Basic/Symbian provides a full, modern implementation of BASIC, with proper subroutines, user defined data types and event driven execution. The development environment runs on a Windows desktop.
NS Basic/Symbian includes over 150 statements and functions. Support is provided for file handling, TCP/IP, graphics and more. A full set of standard screen input and output objects and dialog boxes are included. A 150 page spiral bound Handbook and lots of sample code is included.
The environment features a Visual Designer, which allows you to graphically lay out your objects, set their properties and write code that responds to and controls them.
NS Basic/Symbian runs on all Symbian smartphones based on UIQ 3 or S60 3rd Edition.
A release date has not been announced. Pricing details are to follow.