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BeginnersGuideToBasic
Basic, or more properly BASIC, stands for Beginner's All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code and first showed up in 1964 as a project headed by J. Kenemy and T. Kurtz for the G.E.225 computer. In the 1970's, when M.I.T.S.' Altair PC was being designed, Paul Allen and Bill Gates decided to design their own version of Basic for it. This version of Basic took a whopping 4K, including code and data for source code. By the late 70's, Basic had been ported to Apple, Commodore and Atari. Bill Gates designed his DOS and included a Basic interpreter with it, which were called MS-DOS and GW-Basic respectively. When Microsoft realized how popular Basic was, they came up with a compiler to produce executables that wouldn't need an interpreter. They called it QuickBasic and made it through version 4.5. Later versions were called PDS (Professional Development System) Basic and ran through version 7.1.
What Can Basic Be Used For?
What can't it be used for? Basic has been used to write games, phone books, modem communications software, encryption utilities, GUIs and much more! Almost the only thing it can't be used to write is an OS (Operating System) because it lacks some of the low level commands that you would need to do this. Even though Basic is sometimes seen as an amateur language, it has been used to build many great and popular programs.
What Is The Syntax Like?
The commands are almost all plain English words. The syntax is very much like the way you would think while writing it.
An Example Basic Program
This is an example of some Basic code.
The code itself can be written in any plain text editor such as Edit (MS-DOS), E (PC-DOS), Notepad (Windows), etc. However, since most compilers/interpreters include an editor, syntax checker, syntax highlighter, etc., unless you just don't like the built-in editor, you might as well use it. By far the most popular, QuickBasic is not freely available except for version 1.1, which is included on the Windows installation CD for Windows users. However, there are many free alternatives available that are just fine. Some can be found on the Programmers Heaven site, including:
PowerBASIC
Dark Basic
IBasic
What Does Programmers Heaven Offer Me?
Visit the Basic section of the site to see articles on Basic as well as source code, developer tools and links to many sites, including tutorials pitched at many different levels. If you need assistance, why not post your question on our friendly and lively Basic message board.
What Is Basic?
Further Reading: Amazon.com offers quite a few books on Basic for you to read. A few that may interest you are:
Programming in Quickbasic
Using Quickbasic 4.5
Common-Sense Basic: Structured Programming With Microsoft Quickbasic
There are also quite a few tutorials available on the internet. Here are a few of them:
Qbasic / Quickbasic News - Downloads - Tutorials
The QP7 Programming Page: Qbasic Tutorial
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BeginnersGuideToBasic
Beginners Guide To Basic
What Is Basic?Basic, or more properly BASIC, stands for Beginner's All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code and first showed up in 1964 as a project headed by J. Kenemy and T. Kurtz for the G.E.225 computer. In the 1970's, when M.I.T.S.' Altair PC was being designed, Paul Allen and Bill Gates decided to design their own version of Basic for it. This version of Basic took a whopping 4K, including code and data for source code. By the late 70's, Basic had been ported to Apple, Commodore and Atari. Bill Gates designed his DOS and included a Basic interpreter with it, which were called MS-DOS and GW-Basic respectively. When Microsoft realized how popular Basic was, they came up with a compiler to produce executables that wouldn't need an interpreter. They called it QuickBasic and made it through version 4.5. Later versions were called PDS (Professional Development System) Basic and ran through version 7.1.
What Can Basic Be Used For?
What can't it be used for? Basic has been used to write games, phone books, modem communications software, encryption utilities, GUIs and much more! Almost the only thing it can't be used to write is an OS (Operating System) because it lacks some of the low level commands that you would need to do this. Even though Basic is sometimes seen as an amateur language, it has been used to build many great and popular programs.
What Is The Syntax Like?
The commands are almost all plain English words. The syntax is very much like the way you would think while writing it.
An Example Basic Program
This is an example of some Basic code.
'Declare a String variable DIM Message AS STRING 'Declare a Long variable for the counter DIM I AS LONG 'Store Hello World in the variable named Message. Message = "Hello World" 'Print Hello World ten times. FOR I = 1 TO 10 PRINT Message NEXTWhat Do I Need To Get Started?
The code itself can be written in any plain text editor such as Edit (MS-DOS), E (PC-DOS), Notepad (Windows), etc. However, since most compilers/interpreters include an editor, syntax checker, syntax highlighter, etc., unless you just don't like the built-in editor, you might as well use it. By far the most popular, QuickBasic is not freely available except for version 1.1, which is included on the Windows installation CD for Windows users. However, there are many free alternatives available that are just fine. Some can be found on the Programmers Heaven site, including:
PowerBASIC
Dark Basic
IBasic
What Does Programmers Heaven Offer Me?
Visit the Basic section of the site to see articles on Basic as well as source code, developer tools and links to many sites, including tutorials pitched at many different levels. If you need assistance, why not post your question on our friendly and lively Basic message board.
What Is Basic?
Further Reading: Amazon.com offers quite a few books on Basic for you to read. A few that may interest you are:
Programming in Quickbasic
Using Quickbasic 4.5
Common-Sense Basic: Structured Programming With Microsoft Quickbasic
There are also quite a few tutorials available on the internet. Here are a few of them:
Qbasic / Quickbasic News - Downloads - Tutorials
The QP7 Programming Page: Qbasic Tutorial
[Edit this page] [Page history] [What links here] [Discuss this topic] [Printer Friendly]
