QBasic/QuickBasic Uses and Usages 3

[dilettante]

As a long-time but unsophisticated user of QBasic I continue to be surprised by it's lingering popularity. I wonder though how most people make use of this family of development tools for MSDOS, meaning QB through VBDOS.

Do most people use it under one version of Windows or another? Are people still running a lot of DOS machines? Is dual-booting back into DOS still popular? Is it important to create QB programs that run under Windows, or are native-DOS programs that fail under Windows still accepted?

What sorts of applications are common?

I see:
[ul][li]Learning simple programming.[/li]
[li]Game programs.[/li]
[li]Simple graphics programs.[/li]
[li]Simple BBS and terminal serial port programs.[/li]
[li]Alternate command shells.[/li]
[li]Device control programs.[/li][/ul]

But I don't seem to see many:
[ul][li]Database or data processing programs.[/li]
[li]Internet programs: chat, web, mail, misc. servers.[/li]
[li]Cool utilities.[/li]
[li]Embedded device, robotics programming.[/li]
[li]In general the stuff other programmers seem to be writing.[/li][/ul]

The games seem to be single-player RPGs or shoot-em-ups. Surely some QB games are Internet-enabled? Where is that web site running under MSDOS on a web server written in QB/QuickBasic/VBDOS? Surely somebody's done this?

Most of the QB sites I find are sort of hackish and primitive, and links pages point mostly to dead sites. There must be at least a few out there dealing with tutorial information beyond "how to code a loop" and such. I've found a few but they seem rather fragmented, dealing with some one aspect of QB programming - usually some graphics tidbit. Of course without a stream of income supported by QB projects I can see where maintaining a substantial QB site would pale as other projects come along.


This is just a rambling sort of question, I know. Sort of "What is the state of QB in 2004?"

Any opinions?

 

[MiggyD]

I, too, use quickbasic for small projects mainly. Especially at my current job, where they still have Win 9x machines.

For completely new programs, I use VB.

--MiggyD

 

[Buff1]

Nice thing about powerbasic for windows. Small compiled exes or dlls and no runtime modules.

 

[dilettante]

Well, VBDOS does give you the option to create your own subset libraries and of course link them in as desired for a single EXE.

Early Delphi releases are similar. Delphi 2 is still pretty usable here, and you can always fall back to Delphi 1 or the Turbo Pascal products for DOS. Many of the DOS compilers (Turbo C, Turbo C++, Turbo Pascal) are available for free from Borland.

Museum

I managed to acquire Delphi 2 (CD only, includes Delphi 1) for 99 cents from one reseller awhle back.

 

[tankerz]

Hi, this article might interest you, it's about different Basic Clones, perhaps you know them already and prefer to stick to QBasic, but it seems like you might find good information about database application servers and such. (REALbasic being the one you might find more useful).

http://www.theopensourcery.com/vbclones.htm

 

[QuiteBill]

I am trying to a to get my Hp Officejet to print out
in Qbasic ASCII code,by using HP PCL codes have not been
able to do so,How do you key in command line within QBasic
could you provide me with a small sample of the coding.
this is the way I have been doing it.
LPRINT chr$(27)+027,040,115,051,084,(116)
LPRINT How Deep is my valley in Shadow Printing.
any help would be appreciated.
BIll;

 

[Buff1]

Qbasic and QuickBasic will print on LPT1,LPT2 or LPT3 if
opened that way (LPRINT defaults to LPT1).

If your printer is a windows-only printer (bad choice),
You will need to print through a windows program of some sort.

DOSPRINT may help in this respect. search for it or go to my site for a link to Lance's site DOSPRINT/DLLPRINT.

You can try using the shell command to invoke another program to print it.

You could also, write an html file within Qbasic, then call I.E. with the name of the html file then have the user
print it from there.

Also, if it is not a windows only printer, check your settings for the printer. If you have the ability to either
bypass the driver or capture dos then try one of those.

 

[CubeE101]

or go to my site for a link

...Which would be where? ;-)

Have Fun, Be Young... Code BASIC
-Josh

http://cubee.topcities.com

PROGRAMMER: Red-eyed, mumbling mammal capable of conversing with inanimate objects.

 

[Buff1]

http://thunder.prohosting.com/~oasys/frameex1.htm

 

[CodeHunter]

Well, I've read all this and took it in well. I just wanted to add something to that last part about printing from qbasic. The LPrint isn't the only way to send data to the printer. There is also the nice COM on off stop. Just by playing around with these on off stop I realizing that this can send data to my printer when it started spitting out a page.

I'm talking about an HP inject one, not one of those old dot matrix printers. I don't know alot of programming, however I am trying to learn and maybe when I advance to others, I doubt I'll dump older ones. I've found that even ASM is still used for many mathmatical aspects for games and such; debug is a helpful too. I even learn to write a small program that turns on mouse just like the one used in qbasic with it's asm interface; exported .com etc.

All I'm saying is, just because something is old, doesn't mean it is dead; there is always a use for it. Heck even NT still has some rude interface to a DOS cmd and supports debug which is very old and limited. So old is still cool and good in my book. Programs like old dos basic is here and will remain as long as there is an intrest in it even for educational reasons. As for writing games in qbasic... You can write 3d games in qbasic. It isn't outstanding like Quake etc which you could pull off with Darkbasic Pro or C/C++ and ActiveX programming. However I'm not saying can't be done either. But, you could do a nice old Wolfenstine 3d game. Check out this book called Revolutionary Guide to Qbasic, it shows what I'm mean and backs up what I'm saying as well.

To end this, all I want to say is programming is grate no mater what language one plans to start learning from or decides to end with useing. Last every programming language I've found allows direct poking to Hardware Devices. How else could you trick qbasic to have more than 2 modem com ports for a 4 modem com port setup? PowerBasic is nice too even the dos version which I still own. Anyhow, what everyone has said holds truths and it was well worth reading.

 

[Buff1]

If you can write a pcl file for your hp deskjet and send it
to the printer, it should print fine.

I now dont have a working jet printer here, and still use
lasertwin to check my pcl to view it without having to
print it out.