OK, in another thread it was mentioned than VB is not much fun to use, and recommended XBASIC. I'd be interested, GUI is not important, but the ability to use modern visual and sound formats is, such as JPG and PNG files, or .WAV (just examples, get me to a modern standard, and it can be converted).

It also needs the ability to communicate with memory directly, as in printer ports.

Any thoughts?

 

I was kinda negative about VB because the emphasis is on designing the GUI screen - so much so that the purpose of the program got lost. That may just be my style - I find writing the code to perform the function to be much more interesting than the user screen. And, if you just want do do some control functions, the GUI isn't very helpful.

Having access to the computer at the hardware level is pretty simple with about any of the various flavors of Basic. Some, like Xbasic are freeware. Some, like Power Basic, cost money, but have lots of functionality with Windows systems built in.

Google around and you'll find several kinds of Basic available. Nobody ever made an editor to compare with the one in Qbasic, though.

 

Ah, QBASIC, I still program in both GW and Q. The lack of proper interfaces is a killer for these older languages, if they had upgrades I would be quite happy with them.

But then, I still have a C128 with a 4 Gig hard disk set up and working.

 

Did you ever run down QBX? That id Qbasic with some extensions and the ability to compile code beyond 64K. I've got it, but was just able to run doen some manuals only recently. It's probably too dated to work well, though.

I'd probably fool with the old Apple IIe, but the keyboard died. I had the only clone IIe that made it here before Apple shut that door. Your Commodore sounds pretty good - IIe's never had much for hard drives.

 

I'm a bit of a collector of (free!) programming languages. My BASIC list is:
BASICA
BASm
BasPas
BasicBASIC
CB
Chipmunk
FirstBasic
FreeBASIC-DOS
FreeBASIC-Win
GCBASIC
HLA
Liberty BASIC
MBC
MicroBasic
MoonRock
OBASIC
QBC
SIC
Script
Small BASIC
TSR
WS BASIC
WX BASIC
X11 BASIC
XBASIC
bwBASIC

I find Liberty BASIC to be most useful to me -- in fact, I even PAID for it!

--Rich

 

Turbo Basic any time? I became quite proficient with it.

I've even got paid for some good soft writen with it! It was the whole trim calculation for a freighter vessel including stability calculations with bells and whistles.

Later I did the same for a tanker vessel.

The last I did was adding mouse capability calling DOS functions. For reference I used a book stating every single docummented / or not function in DOS.

O God, I enjoyed doing that!

 

OK, in another thread it was mentioned than VB is not much fun to use, and recommended XBASIC. I'd be interested, GUI is not important, but the ability to use modern visual and sound formats is, such as JPG and PNG files, or .WAV (just examples, get me to a modern standard, and it can be converted).

It also needs the ability to communicate with memory directly, as in printer ports.

Any thoughts?

BASIC is not the best lnguage to write programs in.

Download Microsofts Visual C# express as its free and very powerful.

If yo ureally have to use BASIC then downlaod Microsofts Visual BASIC express.

 

Visual BASIC and the "old" BASIC have, I should say, almost nothing in common. Just the name.

Is rather misleading to compare them when they are actually different languages not varieties of the same thing.

Suffice to read any piece of code written in VB and that would be evident.

The fact that they use SOME, and very few, similar reserved words doesn't make similar languages of them.

 

Actually, in my limited experience with VB you can follow all the old BASIC conventions and it will work, which makes it a true BASIC. They just followed the path HP set for its BASIC to its logical conclusions. Having said this, I don't know VB, but have relied on some experiments with a friend. The question came up whether it could use line numbers (which is an obsolete concept with anything modern), and it did.

Thier is nothing wrong with BASIC as a language, and it is easier to learn a new dialect than a new language.