BASICODE was a computer project intended to create a unified standard for the BASIC programming language. BASIC was available on many popular home computers, but there were countless variants that were mostly incompatible with each other. The project was initiated in 1980 by Hobbyscoop, a radio program of the Dutch broadcasting organisation Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS). The language implementations were architecture-specific utility applications that executed calls of subroutines for text and audio defined in the BASICODE language standard, adapted according to the abilities of the host computer system. These applications, called Bascoders, also enabled the sharing of data and programs across different computer platforms by defining a data format for the Compact Cassettes that were regularly used as storage media in the 1980s. A BASICODE program stored on cassette could be loaded and run on any computer supporting the language. BASICODE was often called "Esperanto for computers" for that reason. BASICODE The situation at the beginning of the 1980s From the late 1970s to the late 1980s home computers based on 8 bit processors were very popular. Amongst some of the most well-known models in the USA were the TRS-80 by Tandy, the PET 2001, VIC-20, C64, C128 and the Plus/4 by Commodore, the Atari 400/800 (XL/XE), whilst in Europe there were also the Sinclair Research computers (ZX80, ZX81, ZX Spectrum), Acorn/BBC micros, several Amstrad systems, Dragon 32/64 from Dragon Data and the KC85 family popular in the German Democratic Republic. All these computers had a CPU of the MOS Technology 6502 or Zilog Z80, or a variant thereof. Most were supplied with (or could be upgraded to) at least 16 kilobyte of RAM although many were supplied with much more. Most would provide connectors for a cassette drive or have one built-in for data storage, and a BASIC interpreter that was generally stored in ROM. The flat learning curve of BASIC, which had been designed with newcomers to programming in mind, and the instant availability of the language on all these computers led to many users writing and sharing their own programs. A problem was that sharing programs and data across computers by different manufacturers was difficult, because the various BASIC dialects were often incompatible in some areas. Many used different BASIC commands to achieve the same result (such as clearing the screen, drawing a pixel or playing a sound), meaning that for example, a BASIC program written for