It has been more years than I want to think about since I did any programming on an Enterprise, but I used to enjoy it and would like to start again. What are my current options?

I don't currently have access to a physical machine, so I would need to use an emulator. I would also prefer to use a PC or possibly a Raspberry Pi to write the code and then cross compile for the Enterprise and other machines.

I prefer BASIC or Pascal style syntax to C style.

I'm hoping to create some text adventures, so any specialised tools that can target the Enterprise would also be useful.

Also, are there any utilities to convert files intended for emulators into audio files that a real Enterprise can load? I'm guessing that people use digital recorders and MP3 files these days.

Interesting. I didn't realise that you could load BASIC programs in text format, as I thought they were tokenised. How are line numbers handled? Are they just typed in as a number followed by a space?

I also didn't know that Turbo Pascal was available for the Enterprise. Is that via CP/M? I never owned a disk drive.

You can use load command to load a basic program from a .txt file. Do not use Start (F1) to load from a .txt file because it can cause problems with the program. You can load and run a tokenized program by pressing F1 (Start). As Geco mentioned press enter at the end of the last line in the .txt file so one more empty line should be seen at the end.
You cannot use merge with a .txt file.
If loading from a .txt file should take a long time press alt+W for max. speed.

In the emulator tick Machine - Configure - Enable File IO, so you can use your PC folder to save and load files.

If you type save "filename" you can save in tokenized format which cannot be read in a .txt editor. If you want to save a .txt file of the program use this:

OPEN #1:"file:filename" ACCESS OUTPUT
LIST #1
CLOSE #1

On UK machines # is replaced with pound sign (shift+3 in the Enterprise) but it will appear as # in the .txt file.

You can set faster CPU frequency to make your editing more effective. You can save your faster and slower config to the key PageUp and PageDown.

Here you will find a short manual for the EP128Emu.

there is a file called Zzzip SRC dated 2010. I didn't think they would still have been sold in those years. Were they officially updated and/or released as freeware?

The author of the Zzzip found this forum in 2010 and shared us what he had had on his computer.

I'm hoping it would be possible to write and test programs using Decimal BASIC and then transfer to the Enterprise for final tweaking.

It sounds interesting. The Enterprise has a lot of special graphic and sound features so tweaking is really necessary.

As I remember Boriel Basic potentially can be used for writing EP software. But I didn't know how current version adapted for EP.

https://enterpriseforever.com/programming/what-about-boriel-s-zxbasic-compiler-targetting-enterprise/
https://zxbasic.readthedocs.io/en/latest/other_architectures/

Old page with test programs: https://web.archive.org/web/20180323233139/http://www.boriel.com/wiki/en/index.php/ZX_BASIC:Released_Programs_-_Enterprise

i think the easiest way if you prefer basic, write the program in IS-Basic on PC and load the text file into the emulator to test, and use ZZZIP to gain speed, it has limitations, ex basic program can use only integers in 16 bit range, but i think for a graphics adventure it is enough

I prefer BASIC or Pascal style syntax to C. The curly brackets in C annoy me and I don't want the hassle of managing memory myself.

Although I would enjoy using IS-BASIC directly (with an emulator), I was also hoping to write for other machines at the same time if possible. Level 9 had a system for that after all.

The Enterprise was my favourite home computer, but the number of users is likely to be very small these days. If I can also create games for other 8-bit machines without too much extra effort, I would like to do that.

With that in mind, I've been doing a lot of research on possible options. Most recently (since my last post in fact), I've found that it should be possible to set up Nim to use SDCC or z88dk as a compiler.

Another option might be to compile for Z80 with FreePascal, although that would take a lot more work to set up as there are very few existing configurations.

There is a tool for Decimal BASIC (which I mentioned before) to convert its BASIC source to FreePascal source, which can then be compiled for multiple platforms.

As I'm only intending to create text adventures (without graphics or sound), I'm hoping that will make the process easier.

I have a crazy idea for a text adventure system that can produce source code for multiple programming languages and platforms, but producing games for the Enterprise has the highest priority.

I'm reasonably sure it's possible, but it will likely need a lot of different tools.

There is also existing IF creation software that targets retro machines, but very few that work for tape-based systems and none of those are for the Enterprise.

Most people these days just use Inform or similar tools to create Z-machine games that need a disk drive. If you're using an emulator, whether software is designed for tape or disk makes little difference.

There is someone at the intfiction forums that is working with Mike Austin to restore and update the Level 9 tools and games, but they do not know how long that will take. The project is currently still active though (I asked yesterday).