Talk:IBM BASICA

message: What's about Rom Basic?I bought an IBM PC in 1986 and I found Basica on DOS 2.1 diskette.
But does it need a rom basic to run Basica? —Demetano — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.139.172.94 (talk • contribs) 14:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I clearly remember that the BASICA from PC DOS required the CBASIC (Cassette BASIC) in ROM and would not work on clones. I think it relied on a number of software interrupts being installed in the Interrupt vector table at boot time. Try running it in a console window on Windows, preferably with "START /LOW" given how DOS programs hogs the CPU. I can run any GW-BASIC version fine, because it does not check the DOS version, unlike other DOS components, but am too lazy to locate the DOS 2.1 diskette Adam Mirowski 15:53, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

text: This article doesn't seem right to me;  as I remember, the lineup was regular IBM ROM BASIC (made by MS and invoked with the command "basic" and "basica" (BASIC Advanced) which used more RAM but added extra functions, particularly the drawing functions also seen in GW-BASIC.  BASICA is to PC-DOS as GW-BASIC is to MS-DOS;  while I don't doubt that BASICA requires the IBM rom, functionally GW-BASIC and BASICA were identical.  Presumably the name change was due to IBM holding the rights to the name BASICA.  Certainly worth further investgation 209.202.16.210 (talk) 06:59, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  About ROM BASIC 

message: BASIC and BASICA call routines in the proprietary Cassette Basic ROMS installed on the motherboard of genuine IBM manufacture PCs. GW-BASIC includes those routines in the object code of GW-BASIC. A version of GW-BASIC functionally equivalent to a version of BASICA will be larger, but will run on IBM PCs or generic MSDOS PCs lacking the Cassette Basic ROMs, but BASIC and BASICA will only run on IBM PCs with the Cassette Basic ROMs. While the goal may have been to keep the executable file of BASICA small by calling routines already present in the default Cassette Basic, a goal apparently was to make BASICA proprietary to IBM PC and IBM PC DOS, with the result that many of us using PCs and Basic in those days used GW-BASIC whether we were using IBM PCs and PC DOS or brandless PCs and MSDOS (or having to develop for both). Given a choice between universal and proprietary, universal just makes sense. Naaman Brown (talk) 16:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  GW-BASIC vs. IBM BASIC and BASICA 

message: BASICA is the name of the program for Advanced BASIC for IBM PCs
I would recommend renaming the article IBM BASIC, and including information for all 5 versions of BASIC for the IBM Personal Computer and compatibles.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.232.207.6 (talk • contribs) 18:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Not likely.  There are far, far more than five versions of BASIC for IBM PCs.  This article deals only with the original version of BASIC that was bundled with the IBM PC.  Considering that your incompetent, unsigned edits on this page took a half hour to clean up, such suggestions from unregistered, anonymous editors are difficult to take seriously. —QuicksilverT @ 23:36, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Article rename