HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hutch@bellman.lanl.gov (John Hutchinson)
Subject: Re: Basic Compiler
Reply-To: hutch@bellman.lanl.gov
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 17:17:10 GMT

In article 1it1kbINNpae@flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU, villalj@prism.CS.ORST.EDU (John Villalovos) writes:
>>
>I was wondering what you mean by "true compiler....no more run-time file
>baggage!"?  I'm pretty sure in Visual Basic for DOS that I created an EXE file
>that did not need a run-time file included with it.  It was a stand-alone EXE
>file.

Ah, forgive if I "know not from which I speak."  I was under the impression that
VB for DOS also required a similar run-time library as does VB for Windows.  But
without the Windows overhead, it's logical that such a DLL-type file would not
be necessary. My comments were primarily directed towards the Windows versions.

>Also, do you have any figures on speed differences between the compilers.  You
>said that GFA is faster then VB even if GFA is running interpreted and VB is
>compilied.

No, I don't have any benchmark data.  My comments are based on personal experience
and the reviews published recently in Byte, Computer Language and PC Magazine.
Again, I'm not knocking VB.  It's an outstanding product.  I just wanted to make
sure folks were aware of another alternative which may, or may _not_, be better
suited to a given task or programmer's needs than VB is.

Thanks for the clarification about VB for DOS's compiler.

---

___________________________ John "HUTCH" Hutchinson _________________________
_________________ Fair Dinkum Technologies     Member - IAAD  _______________
________________ "No worries, mate... it's from Fair Dinkum!" _______________
____________ email: hutch@bellman.lanl.gov   GEnie: FAIR-DINKUM _____________
From: cs_a175@ceres.kingston.ac.uk (Terenas S D M)
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
Subject: GW-BASIC memory details
Date: 10 Jan 1993 22:24:11 -0000
Organization: Kingston University, Kingston-upon-Thames
NNTP-Posting-Host: ceres.kingston.ac.uk

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some information on memory and GW-BASIC.  I'm looking
for the memory address where the GW-basic program starts.  Also on what
address is the simple variables storage area, array storage area and
strings storage area ?
Any information about this is much appreciated.  Please reply to my
email address and I'l summarize it to the group.

Cheers,
Sergio Terenas
From: villalj@xanth.CS.ORST.EDU (John Villalovos)
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
Subject: Re: Basic Compiler
Date: 11 Jan 93 00:53:03 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Oregon State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: xanth.cs.orst.edu

In article <104238@netnews.upenn.edu> patchen@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Michael Patchen) writes:
>Hi, I despertely need some help.  I wrote a large program in basic and I would really like to make an executable from it.  I have used both C and Pascal and
>they come with compilers but both GWBasic and QBasic do not.  At the very
>least I would like to be able to hide the code in QBasic like I can do in 
>GWBasic using the ,o option.
>
>Does anyone know of any BASIC compilers that I am able to download.  I would 
>really don't want to make a large investment for a compiler that I will use
>only once.

I would recommend you buy a copy of Visual Basic for MS-DOS standard edition.
This will allow you to generate an EXE file from your BASIC source code.  It
also has some really cool features for setting up interfaces.  I just bought my
copy (I previously had the Professional Development System 7.1) and I really
like it.  I want to get the Professional Edition later when I have more money.

I got an educational copy at my book store for $34.95.  Which seems very
reasonable for what it is.  C compilers where around $50.

Later,
-- 
John Villalovos
Certified Netware Engineer
villalj@xanth.cs.orst.edu
(503) 753-7883
Xref: sparky alt.lang.basic:1032 comp.sys.mac.programmer:21172
From: rgonzal@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Ralph Gonzalez)
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic,comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: How to get contents of folder in Mac QB?
Keywords: quickbasic
Date: 11 Jan 93 14:58:42 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


Sorry if this is a FAQ...

How can I get a list of the files and folders which are contained
within a given folder, using Macintosh QuickBASIC? (I need this
list to be able to search the contents of the files in the list.)

Thanks for any info!

-Ralph
-- 
Ralph Gonzalez, Computer Science, Rutgers Univ., Camden, NJ
Phone: (609) 757-6122; Internet: rgonzal@elbereth.rutgers.edu
--
From: ardtlong@adam.adelaide.edu.au (Dale T. Long)
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
Subject: How do I read Windows Icons into QB45?
Date: 12 Jan 93 04:43:22 GMT
Organization: The University of Adelaide
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: adam.adelaide.edu.au


How do I read a Windows Icon into Quick BASIC 4.5? I want to be able to PUT them
to the screen. As a result I need to store them in an array (INT).
Failing any answer to this, what is the storage format of Windows Icons?
Are they similar to BMP files?

Dale Long.
From: sabo@girtab.usc.edu (Jim Sabo)
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
Subject: Re: Visual Basic
Date: 8 Jan 1993 02:21:47 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: girtab.usc.edu

hong@cs.arizona.edu (Ke George Hong) writes:
>  A friend of mine asked about Visual Basic. Does anyone ever hear of that?

Yes. Visual Basic is a programming environment designed by Microsoft in an
attempt to allow a "non-programmer" to be able to write programs with a
softisticated graphical user interface. The basic package consists of a
language, based mostly on Q Basic, a form designer, and the necessary linkers,
loaders and debuggers that you would want. The package was released for
Windows about 2 years ago, and for DOS last year. Available in Standard and
Professional kits (the professional kits add built in DB capacity, amongst
other things), the windows version is up to rev 2.0, the DOS version is still
at rev 1.0. Any other questions?

Jim
-- 
Jim Sabo                          |"Women are like a beer. They look good,
University of Southern California | they taste good, and as soon as you've
sabo@scf.usc.edu                  | had one, you want another." -Homer Simpson
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
From: kochem@levers.enet.dec.com (Bob Kochem)
Subject: RE: 132 Columns Screen In QBasic
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 12:35:29 GMT


There is a widely distributed public domain program that allows approx.
106-column-wide by 34 rows text under QBasic. It provides some subs that operate
in B/W-CGA graphics mode and translates ascii characters into the appropriate
pixel-maps. Its rather slow and has several limitations, such as only dealing
with a subset of the alpha-numerics (i.e. no lower-case letters).

I wrote an (allegedly) improved version that operates in VGA mode, allows
colors, and covers a wider portion of the usual alpha-numeric set.

If someone is interested, send me mail and I will (try to) send you
info on the original PD "CGA" version, or if you're adventurous I'll try
to clean up my VGA version.

This isn't 132 mode - but in some applications its an easy way to get
more on the screen without having to muck with the hardware.

Bob  

Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
From: dont@klic.rain.com (Don taylor)
Subject: Visual Basic dBase III access source, substring matching dll wanted
Organization: KLIC
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 04:12:24 GMT

Has anyone seen a hundred or so lines of public domain Quick Basic source that
I could mash into Visual Basic to provide dBase III record access and update?

Is there any existing dll that would provide substring matching that I could
access from Visual Basic?  "Find this string in that string" would be a start
but regular expressions would be a definite plus.

Please reply by email if possible.

Thanks
Don Taylor
503-235-6853
dont@klic.rain.com
dont@pdaxs.techbook.com
From: patchen@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Michael Patchen)
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
Subject: Basic Compiler
Date: 10 Jan 93 21:23:34 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

Hi, I despertely need some help.  I wrote a large program in basic and I would really like to make an executable from it.  I have used both C and Pascal and
they come with compilers but both GWBasic and QBasic do not.  At the very
least I would like to be able to hide the code in QBasic like I can do in 
GWBasic using the ,o option.

Does anyone know of any BASIC compilers that I am able to download.  I would 
really don't want to make a large investment for a compiler that I will use
only once.

Thanks in advance.

- Mike Patchen
From: g.landini@uk.ac.bham (Gabriel Landini)
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
Subject: Palette & width in Qb4.5
Date: 8 Jan 93 10:38:06 GMT
Organization: The University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
NNTP-Posting-Host: ibm3090.bham.ac.uk

==============================================================================
In QB 4.5 I cannot set the PALETTE values for all the colors (just the first
6 or so, when using 60 lines. The colors for the rest are the default! HELP!
This is VGA screen 12 (640x480) in 16 colors.

By the way, Does anybody know how to get 256 colors in 640x480?!!
Thanks!
Gabriel <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
From: hutch@bellman.lanl.gov (John Hutchinson)
Subject: Re: Time restriction on data entry
Reply-To: hutch@bellman.lanl.gov
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 21:25:43 GMT

In article 1@acad.drake.edu, jr2921r@acad.drake.edu () writes:
>I am writing a short program in QuickBasic 4.5 which requires the user to input
>an answer to a question.  However, I only want to give the user a few seconds
>to perform the data entry.  Is there an easy way to do this using the 
>INPUT statement?

I don't believe you can use INPUT for this as it ties up the system until the
user presses Return.

Rather, I think you would have to write a routine for scanning the keyboard
inside your timer loop, exiting when a keystroke is detected.  This would
work fine for single character replies, but not if the user had to type in
multiple characters.

Any other ideas from someon else?

---

___________________________ John "HUTCH" Hutchinson _________________________
_________________ Fair Dinkum Technologies     Member - IAAD  _______________
________________ "No worries, mate... it's from Fair Dinkum!" _______________
____________ email: hutch@bellman.lanl.gov   GEnie: FAIR-DINKUM _____________
From: tachyon@cats.ucsc.edu (Tane' Tachyon)
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
Subject: Is there a Visual Basic mailing list?
Date: 12 Jan 1993 19:18:46 GMT
Organization: Tachyon Labs
NNTP-Posting-Host: am.ucsc.edu


Or any archives of note?


-- 
 ____________________________________________________________________________
|  tachyon@cats.ucsc.edu  \        /__    Big glitter-slob weirdo bisexual   |
|   tachyon@ucscb.ucsc.edu  \    /   /  feminist vegan homeschooling parent  |
| tachyon@deeptht.armory.com  \/   /  science fiction computer bum i.n.p.o.  |
 -------------------------------\/-------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
From: hutch@bellman.lanl.gov (John Hutchinson)
Subject: Re: Basic Compiler
Reply-To: hutch@bellman.lanl.gov
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 15:19:25 GMT

In article 104238@netnews.upenn.edu, patchen@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Michael Patchen) writes:
>Hi, I despertely need some help.  I wrote a large program in basic and I would really like to make an executable from it.  I have used both C and Pascal and
>they come with compilers but both GWBasic and QBasic do not.  At the very
>least I would like to be able to hide the code in QBasic like I can do in 
>GWBasic using the ,o option.
>

Visual Basic is undoubtedly the most popular and widely used of the "new" PC
BASICs, but it is _not_ your only choice.  For a more structured, command
oriented type of BASIC (which is easier to port to from older BASICs, IMHO)
I strongly suggest you take a look at GFA BASIC (DOS or Windows versions).
Even in interpreted mode it's considerably faster than VB and has the potential
to be quite a lot more capable for larger, more complex programs.  Like VB it
comes with a pseudo-compiler that requires a PD run-time file accompany the
EXE for it to work.  However, unlike VB they have announced a true compiler to
be available by the end of this month... no more run-time file baggage!

VB still has the upper hand, IMHO, for superior documentation and ease of use,
especially for beginners.  But GFA is worth a look, especially at $99 retail.

---

___________________________ John "HUTCH" Hutchinson _________________________
_________________ Fair Dinkum Technologies     Member - IAAD  _______________
________________ "No worries, mate... it's from Fair Dinkum!" _______________
____________ email: hutch@bellman.lanl.gov   GEnie: FAIR-DINKUM _____________
From: phle@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca ("Phat H. Le")
Subject: (none)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 02:37:59 GMT

     I don't know if this is the right newsgroup to post this question but I
thought I'd try. I'd appreciate your help.

     The problem that I am having is that I have written a program using BASIC
for MS-DOS.  I can run this program through the BASIC Interpreter of DOS 3.31
and QBASIC of DOS 5.  However, I can't seem to run my program under DOS 4!.
I tried to run the program using BASICA of both DOS 4.0 and 4.01.  The PC
hangs every time I invoke the interpreter (ie. executing the BASICA file).


     My question is does BASICA works under DOS 4 that is installed on an IBM
compartible?



Thanks
Phle
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
From: kheuer@gwdu03.gwdg.de (Konrad Heuer)
Subject: Tool for Automatic BASIC -> C Translation?
Organization: GWDG, Goettingen
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 10:09:18 GMT


Imagine the following problem, please:

An old-fashioned BASIC program of about 3,500 lines has to be converted
to C. Maintenance of the resulting C code should be possible.

I'd greatly appreciate if anybody knows about a tool helping
to do that more or less automatically.

Thanks, K. Heuer.
From: tachyon@cats.ucsc.edu (Tane' Tachyon)
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
Subject: Possibly stupid question on VB and printer escape sequences, etc.
Date: 10 Jan 1993 20:10:44 GMT
Organization: Tachyon Labs
NNTP-Posting-Host: am.ucsc.edu


So I have a program written in regular BASIC that among other things
downloads some fonts to the LaserJet, and uses escape sequences to
position things and set up the LaserJet page.  I was using VB to make
a new version that would run under Windows and have a nice interface
and so on, but when I got to the printing part I hit a wall.
 
Is there any way I can get the Print Manager to accept and pass on
just plain raw data (the fonts, graphics, escape sequences), instead
of having to completely rewrite the printing part of the program?  I'd
much prefer that it work the way it already does for people with
LaserJets, without them having to take any extra steps like explicitly
adding the fonts via the control panel.  But at the same time it would
be really nice if it were able to go through the Print Manager -- I
want it to be able to peacefully coexist with other programs, rather
than pulling something like opening the port as a file, or copying a
file to the port.
 
Trying to download fonts with Printer.print produces "overflow"
errors (I thought that setting Printer.width would solve that, but
it's read-only), looking through at least the 3.0 SDK manuals has not
given me any clue to how this could be done, ditto for looking through
the Windows-programming newsgroups and archives.  Any ideas, or am I
just being very bad here by trying to get around rules for well-
behaved programs?

-- 
 ____________________________________________________________________________
|  tachyon@cats.ucsc.edu  \        /__    Big glitter-slob weirdo bisexual   |
|   tachyon@ucscb.ucsc.edu  \    /   /  feminist vegan homeschooling parent  |
| tachyon@deeptht.armory.com  \/   /  science fiction computer bum i.n.p.o.  |
 -------------------------------\/-------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
From: phle@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca ("Phat H. Le")
Subject: Testing...
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 02:39:00 GMT

Please ignore, this is only a test.
From: steffen@mbcr.bcm.tmc.edu (David Steffen)
Newsgroups: alt.lang.basic
Subject: Re: Time restriction on data entry
Date: 7 Jan 1993 23:16:29 GMT
Organization: Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tx
NNTP-Posting-Host: mbcr.bcm.tmc.edu


jr2921r@acad.drake.edu () writes:
>I am writing a short program in QuickBasic 4.5 which requires the user to 
>input an answer to a question.  However, I only want to give the user a few
>seconds to perform the data entry.  Is there an easy way to do this using
>the INPUT statement?

hutch@bellman.lanl.gov writes:
>I don't believe you can use INPUT for this as it ties up the system until the
>user presses Return.
>
>Rather, I think you would have to write a routine for scanning the keyboard
>inside your timer loop, exiting when a keystroke is detected.  This would
>work fine for single character replies, but not if the user had to type in
>multiple characters.
>
>Any other ideas from someon else?

I have never done precisely this, but frequently I need to accept
input while doing something else at the same time.  For this purpose,
the INKEY$ function of the Microsoft BASICs is the answer.  INKEY$
returns immediately, with the null string if nothing was typed, or
with the character typed.  Thus, just collect characters with INKEY$
until your time is up.  How you monitor the time is, I think, machine
dependent.  In a pinch, I suppose you could even substitute a FOR/NEXT
loop for the WHILE/WEND loop I describe below, hand calibrating the
number of passes through the loop to give the desired time.

This gets more or less complex, of course, depending on what you are
inputting, and if you want to allow editing (e.g. backspace).  In the
example below, I have assumed that you want to input a carriage return
delimited string, and that no editing is allowed.  (Editing is machine
specific, as it requires knowing the codes for removing characters and
backspacing on the screen - commonly <backspace - space - backspace>.)

Example code below:

FALSE% = 0: TRUE% = NOT FALSE%

finished% = FALSE%
buffer$ = ""
WHILE NOT finished%
        Temp$ = INKEY$
        IF Temp$ = CHR$(13) THEN
           finished% = TRUE%
        ELSE
	   buffer$ = buffer$ + INKEY$
        END IF
        {check the time}
        IF {you are out of time} THEN finished% = TRUE%
WEND

End Example Code:

I have not tested above code itself - it is derived from memory of
routines I have done like this (on the MAC - which shouldn't matter).
Use at your own risk.

Hope this is of some help.




-- 
David Steffen
Department of Cell Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston TX 77030
Telephone = (713) 798-6655, FAX = (713) 790-0545
Internet = steffen@bcm.tmc.edu
From: robart@agora.rain.com (Joe Bob)
Newsgroups: alt.fishing
Subject: Re: What new innovation, software or products do you want to see?
Date: 7 Jan 93 05:02:52 GMT
Organization: a gora

In article <sehari.726196537@lisa.ecss.iastate.edu> sehari@iastate.edu (Babak Sehari) writes:
>
>What type of new innovation, software or products do you want to be
>introduced to the market place.  No answer is stupid.  The things
>that might be unachievable to you, might be very easy to produce
>by others.  You could become part of history by initiating the process of
>innovation.


  Beats me.  In fact, I didn't even know anybody was putting out
fishing software.
Newsgroups: alt.fishing
From: keith@clodii.Columbia.NCR.COM (Keith Boyd)
Subject: Re: natural fish poisons
Keywords: death
Organization: NCR E&M Columbia SC
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 15:01:25 GMT

In article <10758933.5.726719154@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au> 10758933@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au (BRUCE GIBBENS) writes:
>Here is an interesting bit of info that I recently picked up on a sojourn
>into the interior of Australia, with an army unit of mine.
>
>Australian aborigines use the crushed bark of  the 'EMU APPLE' tree to
>take out the oxygen in still bodies of water.  The fish then float upside 
>down on the surface where they are collected.  
>	I wonder if a company will ever market this stuff, in distilled or 
>synthetic form.


There is already a type of chemical available that will have the same effect.
The name of it escapes me right now.


>	My unit was unable to find this relatively rare tree, but found  the
>very 20th century method of lobbing in detonators equally effective, and 
>somewhat more fun. 


Very, very unsportsman like. I hope you didn't do this just for the "fun"
of it. The aborigines did it, I am sure, for their sustenance but I wonder
if you and your buddies made use of the aquatic life (not just fish) that you
killed. 

>	cheerio!
>	A wizard in oz.


More like an asshole in Australia.




-- 
| Keith M. Boyd  (NCR MCPD Cola.) | Nothing could be finer than huntin' and  |
| 3325 Platt Springs Rd.          |    and fishin' in South Carolina! -Me-   | 
| West Cola., S.C. 29170 |  Go Volunteers!   | keith.boyd@columbiasc.NCR.COM |
| Vp: 803-791-6419 or 6455    | From uunet: uunet!ncrcom!ncrcae!clodii!keith |
From: johnf@Auspex.COM (John Fereira)
Newsgroups: alt.fishing
Subject: Re: What new innovation, software or products do you want to see?
Date: 8 Jan 93 20:15:39 GMT
Organization: Auspex Systems, Inc.

In article <C0Gwot.Lut@agora.rain.com> robart@agora.rain.com (Joe Bob) writes:
>In article <sehari.726196537@lisa.ecss.iastate.edu> sehari@iastate.edu (Babak Sehari) writes:
>>
|>What type of new innovation, software or products do you want to be
|>introduced to the market place.  No answer is stupid.  The things
|>that might be unachievable to you, might be very easy to produce
|>by others.  You could become part of history by initiating the process of
|>innovation.
|
|
|  Beats me.  In fact, I didn't even know anybody was putting out
|fishing software.

In an attempt to turn this thread into something constructive (the original
was posted to *a lot* of groups) there are a few pieces of fishing software
available.  

First there is the Basstour fishing simulation game.  It's a shareware 
program which runs on a PC (and Mac?) that simulates fishing in a bass
tournament.  It's mildly entertaining.

I've also seen a fishing log program to keep track of your outings.  In the
back pages of Flyfishing magazine (I think) there is a guy that offers
some sort of fly pattern database.  He wan't something like $50 for the
software.

Something like this could be real handy for the fly tier, especially if it
included full color "gif" files to show what the fly actually looks like.
However, it would almost require a CD to if it included enough patterns to
be useful.

Newsgroups: alt.fishing
From: eng10165@nusunix1.nus.sg (TAY CHOON SENG)
Subject: Re: fish food
Organization: National University of Singapore
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 12:34:36 GMT

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