Hey, does anyone tinker with these modern BASIC languages?

Back in the day, BASIC was not 'viable' for many projects, because only machine language had the speed required. Then C++ was created, and as computers got faster, people were able to program all kinds of things with it.

But now that computer speed is not a limitation to BASIC anymore, you can do almost anything with it, at least 2D-wise.

Some people's brains can't handle the abstraction overload of programming, but BASIC language gives them an opportunity to dabble with it anyway. I am one of those people. Without BASIC, I couldn't program.

I started with the Commodore 8-bit computers, and their easy-to-understand BASIC syntax and user-friendliness of the I/O stuff (on the Atari, you have to actually load a separate DOS to be even able to see what's on a floppy!).

Of course, back in the day, the BASIC was slow, and the computers had limitations. But nowadays I am able to more freely express myself in programming.

Modern BASIC languages basically (no pun intended) allow me to do what I did back in the day, but without all those limitations, AND 'fast enough'.

Some BASICs even allow wonderful things, like alphablend, that helps when trying to create Westwood-like moody atmospheres (Eye of the BEholder II intro, for example).

Modern BASIC languages are, for me, a dream come true. They allow me to continue the 'programming path' I started with the eight-bit computers, and to realize everything I was dreaming of realizing back then.

Are there any other people here, whose brain is more of the 'absent-minded-artist'-variety rather than the programmer-typical 'super-efficient-miracle-mathprocessor', and who appreciate the modern BASIC languages?

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Re: Modern BASIC languages
By: Gorkh to All on Sun Sep 23 2018 04:25 am

I haven't used any BASIC variant in a decades... but thumbs up for your custom avatar!

digital man

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Re: Modern BASIC languages
By: Gorkh to All on Sun Sep 23 2018 04:25 am

Hey, does anyone tinker with these modern BASIC languages?

I didn't think there was really a modern BASIC programming language.. Can you give an example of a "modern BASIC"? And I'm wondering if Microsoft's Visual Basic even counts, since that language is fairly well-featured and ties into .NET now, so it shares a lot of features with the other .NET languages..

Back in the day, BASIC was not 'viable' for many projects, because only machine language had the speed required. Then C++ was created, and as computers got faster, people were able to program all kinds of things with it.

They didn't go directly from machine language to C++.. There was a language called C in between there, which came before C++. C has sometimes been called "portable assembly" since it builds for many platforms but is still a language for making fairly fast software (including operating systems).

Nightfox

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Re: Modern BASIC languages
By: Gorkh to All on Sun Sep 23 2018 04:25:57

Hey, does anyone tinker with these modern BASIC languages?

Are there any other people here, whose brain is more of the 'absent-minded-artist'-variety rather than the programmer-typical 'super-efficient-miracle-mathprocessor', and who appreciate the modern BASIC languages?

I, for one, whole-heartedly accepted FreeBASIC to write DOS programs in. The dialect is different, but FreeBASIC can be compatible with QBasic programs well, amomg the FreeBASIC compiler, FBC, has a parameter set.

Believe or not, Cobalt (an open source ANSI art program I've written mostly on my phone with Magic DOSBox and FreeDOS editor) was written in FreeBASIC.

http://github.com/jagossel/cobalt if you're interested. <grin>

-jag
Code it, Script it, Automate it!

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Re: Modern BASIC languages
By: Jagossel to Gorkh on Sat Sep 22 2018 08:24 pm

I, for one, whole-heartedly accepted FreeBASIC to write DOS programs in. The dialect is different, but FreeBASIC can be compatible with QBasic programs well, amomg the FreeBASIC compiler, FBC, has a parameter set.

I remember using QBasic to write some fairly simple programs for DOS back in the day. I wrote a couple screen-saver like things that would do things like draw circles in expanding/contracting sizes and with different colors and such.

And with MS-DOS 5, I remember compiling the 'Gorilla' game with QBasic and having fun playing it (that was the artillery-like game where you had a gorilla character and had to throw bananas at the other players).

Nightfox

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Re: Modern BASIC languages
By: Nightfox to Jagossel on Sat Sep 22 2018 11:37 pm

I remember using QBasic to write some fairly simple programs for DOS back in the day. I wrote a couple screen-saver like things that would do things like draw circles in expanding/contracting sizes and with different colors and such.

And with MS-DOS 5, I remember compiling the 'Gorilla' game with QBasic and having fun playing it (that was the artillery-like game where you had a gorilla character and had to throw bananas at the other players).

I remember typing that game in an compiling it.
that brought back basic memories.

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Digital wrote:

Re: Modern BASIC languages
By: Gorkh to All on Sun Sep 23 2018 04:25 am

I haven't used any BASIC variant in a decades... but thumbs up for your custom
avatar!

I've with you. I last used BASIC since the mid 1990's. I actually wrote a
BBS for my 5th year computer science project. So I'd have been 16 at the
time. I did snag some machine code to deal with the modem interrupts and the communications back end but everything else was my own work. It was a dual regular 8N1 and Viewdata (7E1) known as Videotext or teletext type data. It
had dynamic graphics, mailbox system, sysop chat with wordwrap! I never
really hit the big time with it since I ran up a big phone bill and my
parents cut my phone line, literally! :) When I found out, that was the day
I officiall moved out haha.

Oh the days.

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