You can even use QB64 to compile QuickBasic code into an Android application, though there’s considerable hoops to jump through and it currently only works on Windows. exe that I could give to my friends who are still living in the dark ages. I don’t own a Windows computer anymore, but with WINE I was able to run the Windows version of QB64 and compile an. That meant that not only could I run my old code within the IDE, but I could actually compile it into a binary for my Linux desktop. Oh the games I could have made back in the day with software like this! I had to be content with bleeps and bloops, and even that required you to figure out the timing for the tones yourself.Įven better, QB64 is cross-platform and supports compiling into native binaries for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. Such things were possible with the original QuickBASIC, but existed more in the realm of tech demos than anything else. Displaying a PNG, loading TTF fonts, or playing an MP3 in the background can be accomplished with just one or two commands. This is an open source QuickBASIC development environment that is not only completely compatible with existing programs, but adds in functions and capabilities that were unthinkable back on my 386. The QB64 ProjectĪfter searching around a bit, I found the QB64 project. This was disappointing, but then it occured to me that modern BASIC interpreters are probably being developed in some corner of the Internet, and perhaps I could find a way to run my nearly 30 year old code without having to rely on 30 year old software to do it. Maybe I’m just not well versed enough in DOSBox, but I couldn’t get the IDE to actually run any of the source code I pulled off the floppy. With something like DOSBox I reasoned I should be able to install the QuickBASIC IDE and run them like I was back on my trusty 386. But still, when I found a floppy full of programs I wrote decades ago, I couldn’t help but wonder about getting them running again. The programming languages du jour are worlds more capable than the plodding BASIC variants of the 80’s and 90’s. Of course, that was many years ago, and things are very different now. It seemed too good to be true, how could this technology possibly be improved upon? exe, put it on a floppy, and give it to somebody else to run on their own machine. I could write simple code and compile it into an. At the time, I thought QuickBASIC was more or less indistinguishable from magic. But I did have QuickBASIC installed and a stack of programming magazines the local library was throwing out, so I had plenty to keep myself busy. When I got my first computer, a second hand 386 running MS-DOS 6.22, I didn’t have an Internet connection.
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January 2023
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