Talk:QBasic

message: This article is starting to accumulate too many external links.  I've seen this before in Mozilla and Firefox -- a clear case of fan syndrome.  The solution is to remove all 'non-notable external links, but what links are considered notable are an open question.  I haven't programmed in QBasic in years, so I haven't been following the scene closely.  --Ardonik.talk() 03:30, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)
: I checked the sites for activity and got rid of hype in their descriptions. I didn't remove any site as I do not follow QBasic (I guess some sites will disappear over time). Pavel Vozenilek
::This is becoming a problem again -- people just keep adding external links to their favorite QBasic tutorial/example/game site.  The purpose of external links is to support the article, not necessarily direct people to other resources.  I suggest they be trimmed (I may do so when I have the time).  --Chris (talk) 17:20, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I had a look at all the linked sites. I removed all external links, none of them pointed to any valuable information, just tutorials, forums, code downloads and the like. These do not belong in an enclyclopedic article. --85.83.121.6 22:58, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links 

message: An IP addressed user added the following, which I removed because it is non-encyclopedic in style. Perhaps someone could turn this into a sentence or two, if it is accurate (are there enough people still using QBasic to be called a "comunity"?):
:QBasic has grown and developed a culture and community around it (yes, the phrase "the qbasic community" is an actual phrase, and has a lot of meaning to it!) You can't write a professional program in it, with everyone using Windows and Linux and Mac, although at one time there was such a thing as professional and, yes, even commercial, programs written in QB. QB is still a very popular programming language, because it is easy to use, and is very user friendly, and because there is such a community for it people are happier to learn to program in QB than to program in a language with only a very small community, such as Python. Yes, the QB community has grown quite large! And QB has become more than a programming language. It has a history, a culture, and is quite well-known. Critics scoff, but QB is truly a great language!
--Fastfission 03:51, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: QB community

message: I tried adding this, but the enters got messed up. Anyone feel like posting it with lines correctly returned?
The following code asks the user for their name and age. It then shows them a number of dots equal to their age.
'Code start
CLS: SCREEN 12
LINE (0,0)-(639,479), 2, B
LINE (2,2)-(637,477), 2, B
INPUT "Enter your name:", name$
INPUT "Enter your age:", age
PLAY "cdedl4c"
PRINT "Hello, " + name$ + "!"
PRINT "Your age is:"; age
FOR x = 320 - (age * 2) TO 320 + (age * 2) STEP 4
PSET (x, 240), 4
NEXT
LOCATE 20, 10: PRINT "Number of dots equals your age."
'Code end
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.30.36.100 (talk • contribs) , 15 November 2005
I see some issues with this code...
:CLS: SCREEN 12
:LINE (0,0)-(639,479), 2, B
:LINE (2,2)-(637,477), 2, B
:'LOCATE 2, 2 'should move the caret inside the box
:INPUT "Enter your name:", name$
:'LOCATE 3, 2 'should move the caret away from the side
:INPUT "Enter your age:", age
:PLAY "cdedl4c" 'actually, i'd play the notes after the output...
:PRINT "Hello, " + name$ + "!"
:PRINT "Your age is:"; age
:'and the following loop draws too many points, since it does age*2/4 negatives, 1 zero, and age*2/4 positives, totalling age+1...
:FOR x = 320 - (age * 2) TO 320 + (age * 2) STEP 4 'possible fix: 322- TO 318+
:PSET (x, 240), 4
:NEXT
:LOCATE 20, 10: PRINT "Number of dots equals your age."
But, personally, i don't know if this really belongs in an encyclopedic article... -- Jokes Free4Me (talk) 09:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Code example: Renew occasionally? 

message: I removed the following stuff from the History section, because:
1. It's not history.
2. It is confusingly written.
3. It is imprecise.  The % suffix does not indicate a "number"; it indicates a 16-bit signed integer.  There are other suffixes for 32-bit integers and single and double precision floats.
:Variables can be declared with % to represent a number, or $ to represent a string.
:j%=5
:r%=9.1
:text$="Hello."
:go$="Wassup."
:Strings are always surrounded in quotes, cannot be numbers (unless in quotes), and numbers (%) cannot be surrounded in quotes.
Equalpants 04:00, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: I learned of this trick years ago from http://www.eeggs.com (currently down?). It does indeed work, but it seems impossible on really fast computers. If anyone wants, I've got a text screen capture of it. Should I post it here or let everyone try the key combo themselves?  
Armslurp 22:53, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Easter Egg 

message: I can run QBASIC 1.1 on XP.  Doesn't seem to need DOXBox, at least not to just open it up and have it running.  Anyone else?
:MSTCrow 01:39, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I run QuickBasic 4.5 without using DOSBox inside Windows 2000. The article doesn't specify that one needs to use DOSBox on NT-based Windows platforms in order to run QBasic - only that, by using DOSBox, it can be run under those platforms. I'll rephrase it to make it clearer. Someone42 05:59, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  DOSBox Not Needed for NT-Line 

message: Does anyone think a simple "Hello, World!" program should be included in the Code Example section? (RCX 22:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a whole article on Hello World program. QBasic's entry is PRINT "Hello World!". Hardly seems worth it to repeat it here. Camillus (talk) 23:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Technically, the ENTIRE program of Hello World for QBasic in a well-written (proper, not necessary) form would be
 REM Hello World
 CLS
 PRINT "Hello World!"
 END
Just saying here JONJONAUG 22:05, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Most other Hello, world! programs do not clear the screen. Also, CPMcE/Camillus, I did not see QBASIC's entry... Michael 19:51, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The article has moved to List of hello world programs (which is up for deletion). Although QBasic is not mentioned specifically, it describes "variants of Microsoft BASIC", which includes QBasic - see List of hello world programs#General. Camillus (talk) 22:17, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hello World Code Example 

message: Regarding the text: "QBasic came complete with a couple of pre-written example games. These were Nibbles (a variant of the Snake game), Gorilla, an explosive-banana throwing game and RemLine, a GW-BASIC code line number removing program."
Why not change "games" to "programs", and add reference to money.bas. Besides, remline.bas isn't a game either.
Also, does anyone want to say anything about msherc.com? It seemed to be specifically for QBASIC, although I'm not sure if it was for both versions. Also, the original MS-DOS Editor (not the one with Win95) relied on qbasic.exe, as did MS-DOS 6.22's Help system, if I remember right. You would want to verify this before adding it. MCalkins 18:26, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Regarding "Games"

message: I moved some /Non-article discussion (about QBASIC programming) off this page, since it didn't disucss the article itself.  Discussion pages are not a bulletin board.-Bdoserror 08:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Non-article comments removed

message: I've been really ashamed of this article for a long time. Many times, some crazed QBasic fan would come along and add their own stuff to the article and generaly made it look like crap (links to their own worthless QBasic pages and whatnot). I figured that it would work itself out overtime, but I was wrong. So today, I decided to make some major changes. Most notably, I removed the unescessarilly large example programs, they don't really look like encyclopedia material to me, but more like something out of a tutorial, so I hope someone can fit them into the QBasic Wikibook or something. I also added some information about QBasic and MS-DOS edit which I thought was important.
Nick Warren 05:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major Overhaul 

message: Please provide some references and citations. Otherwise I might have to add  to the article, which I'd rather not do. Shinobu 15:37, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  References please 

message: Why is it that like, 80% of the vandalism on this page is directed at the hello world example? Don't you vandals have other ways to waste my time? Nick Warren 02:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  You know what I don't get? 

message: Here are the header of the 4 example programs of Qbasic.
;GORILLA.BAS
'                         Q B a s i c   G o r i l l a s
'
'                   Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1990
'
' Your mission is to hit your opponent with the exploding banana
' by varying the angle and power of your throw, taking into account
' wind speed, gravity, and the city skyline.
'
' Speed of this game is determined by the constant SPEEDCONST.  If the
' program is too slow or too fast adjust the "CONST SPEEDCONST = 500" line
' below.  The larger the number the faster the game will go.
'
' To run this game, press Shift+F5.
'
' To exit QBasic, press Alt, F, X.
'
' To get help on a BASIC keyword, move the cursor to the keyword and press
' F1 or click the right mouse button.
'
;NIBBLES.BAS
'
'                         Q B a s i c   N i b b l e s
'
'                   Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1990
'
' Nibbles is a game for one or two players.  Navigate your snakes
' around the game board trying to eat up numbers while avoiding
' running into walls or other snakes.  The more numbers you eat up,
' the more points you gain and the longer your snake becomes.
'
' To run this game, press Shift+F5.
'
' To exit QBasic, press Alt, F, X.
'
' To get help on a BASIC keyword, move the cursor to the keyword and press
' F1 or click the right mouse button.
'
;MONEY.BAS
'
'                    Q B a s i c   M O N E Y   M A N A G E R
'
'                   Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1990
'
' The Money Manager is a personal finance manager that allows you
' to enter account transactions while tracking your account balances
' and net worth.
'
' To run this program, press Shift+F5.
'
' To exit QBasic, press Alt, F, X.
'
' To get help on a BASIC keyword, move the cursor to the keyword and press
' F1 or click the right mouse button.
'
;REMLINE.BAS
'
'   Microsoft RemLine - Line Number Removal Utility
'   Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1985-1990
'
'   REMLINE.BAS is a program to remove line numbers from Microsoft Basic
'   Programs. It removes only those line numbers that are not the object
'   of one of the following statements: GOSUB, RETURN, GOTO, THEN, ELSE,
'   RESUME, RESTORE, or RUN.
'
'   When REMLINE is run, it will ask for the name of the file to be
'   processed and the name of the file or device to receive the
'   reformatted output. If no extension is given, .BAS is assumed (except
'   for output devices). If filenames are not given, REMLINE prompts for
'   file names. If both filenames are the same, REMLINE saves the original
'   file with the extension .BAK.
'
'   REMLINE makes several assumptions about the program:
'
'     1. It must be correct syntactically, and must run in BASICA or
'        GW-BASIC interpreter.
'     2. There is a 400 line limit. To process larger files, change
'        MaxLines constant.
'     3. The first number encountered on a line is considered a line
'        number; thus some continuation lines (in a compiler-specific
'        construction) may not be handled correctly.
'     4. REMLINE can handle simple statements that test the ERL function
'        using  relational operators such as =, <, and >. For example,
'        the following statement is handled correctly:
'
'             IF ERL = 100 THEN END
'
'        Line 100 is not removed from the source code. However, more
'        complex expressions that contain the +, -, AND, OR, XOR, EQV,
'        MOD, or IMP operators may not be handled correctly. For example,
'        in the following statement REMLINE does not recognize line 105
'        as a referenced line number and removes it from the source code:
'
'             IF ERL + 5 = 105 THEN END
'
'   If you do not like the way REMLINE formats its output, you can modify
'   the output lines in SUB GenOutFile. An example is shown in comments.
-- LeeSI (talk) 03:00, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  4 examples (header only) 

message: Some old page history that used to be at the title "QBasic" can now be found at Talk:QBasic/Merge. Graham87 04:57, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some old page history 

message: Only some of the basics mention Qbasic in their article page. Those without such a mention could be removed, as the See Also list should not be just a list of any basics. 92.15.25.92 (talk) 12:37, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  See Also list could be pruned 

message: I don't believe the additional END statement is necessary, running the program as written runs fine. - SudoGhost (talk) 21:37, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Not if you enter anything other than Y or YES when asked if you want to play... (see above under 'Game Code') -taras (talk) 21:39, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I just ran it both ways, you're right.  My apologizes.. - SudoGhost (talk) 21:48, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No worries, I am fixing it in a better way anyway (having just tested it in QBasic :) ) -taras (talk) 21:51, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I took out the un-needed code that changes the user input to upper-case, as the test immediately below it was converting it to lower-case as part of the actual 'if' test loop anyway. Simply testing for the lower-case of the input has exactly the same result in one less line of code. MrZoolook (talk) 01:16, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional END statement 

message: 103.166.172.228 (talk) 13:46, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  To input your name and school name, display them on the screen