
Pete's QBASIC / QuickBasic Site - cardamomo
http://www.petesqbsite.com/index.php
======
ashleyn
There's never been anything quite like Qbasic. Bundled with the OS, providing
clear and relatively foolproof syntax, with an ability to get graphics
onscreen extremely quickly. Plus, an amazing and decently large community of
amateur game makers who grow up to be the next generation of professional
developers.

I struggle to conceptualise a modern form of it - something that's perhaps a
cross of Hypercard, Visual Basic, and Unity.

~~~
ido
Not to mention great "online" (i.e. integrated into the IDE) help with useful
examples and simple explanations.

~~~
craz8
Microsoft help systems were great back then. Which was good, as there was
little online documentation, and what was available was expensive to access
with per-minute dial-up fees

I remember a version of MS C in the late 80s coming with 5,500 pages of
printed documentation! And it was easy to find what you needed

~~~
badsectoracula
And Borland's help systems too.

Sadly today with (internet) online documentation things are still not as good
- even if often there is more information, it is scattered all over the place,
often repeating (parts of) itself and slow to find and access. The main reason
why i prefer to have a WIN32.HLP file from (i think) some Borland product
whenever i need some Win32 function than search Google for it for MS Docs (the
test is 99.9% of the cases the same anyway). Also why i have Zeal[0] installed
with the docs of a few things i use and i download offline copies of whatever
specs and documentation i can find for other things.

But in terms of help systems, i think CHM was the peak (in terms of
functionality - the HTML-based content is a bit of unnecessary overhead and
something like HLP's hypertext should have been good enough, but Microsoft
wanted to shove IE4 everywhere so they can claim it was an integral part of
Windows 98 back then).

[0] [https://zealdocs.org/](https://zealdocs.org/)

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craz8
It’s interesting that QBasic was thought of as a beginners or gaming language

In the early 90s, I worked on a bond trading floor in London, and we used
QBasic for production systems. It was quite fun to work with, and pretty
powerful with the right libraries.

This was all in Dos as it was before Windows 3 was released, and getting
everything to work in 640k was fun (I recall there was a system to page in and
out different parts of the app, but my memory may be faulty on this part)

~~~
ashleyn
Part of the appeal Qbasic had to me as a kid, was that I read that it was
occasionally used in a professional capacity. So this easy-to-learn, easy-to-
use language had the added cool-factor of being "real stuff". I don't think
something like Gamemaker or Scratch would've had the same appeal - they'd just
feel like baby's toys to me, whereas with something like Qbasic you knew you
were actually doing "real" programming.

~~~
craz8
It was certainly real stuff - less than 5 years later I was part of the team
that shipped Windows 95 (but I was a C programmer before QuickBasic, so that
helped)

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vesche
I posted some of the first code I ever wrote on these forums:
[http://www.petesqbsite.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=2357](http://www.petesqbsite.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=2357)

I recovered it on some old hard drives a few years ago and backed it up here:
[https://github.com/vesche/snippets/tree/master/qbasic](https://github.com/vesche/snippets/tree/master/qbasic)

Loved these forums as a young kid with nothing more than a windows 95 computer
and a QBASIC interpreter.

~~~
ashleyn
This is an interesting view into Qbasic's longevity; your posts are from 2007,
long past its release date of 1992.

The suite itself predates popular use of the Web by a handful of years and yet
the community's size seems to have peaked long after its release. I've been
able to trace an active Qbasic community all the way to 2011.

~~~
vesche
It was also a pure accident that I started programming at all. This was 2007,
I had inherited an old Windows 95 computer that was recycled from my Mom's law
office where she was a paralegal. She let me rig it up in my bedroom as a
teenager and I somehow discovered it came with QBasic 1.1 installed on it. I
didn't know anyone who coded or programmed, and I learned everything from
browsing around Pete's. I later discovered Python from the same forum, and
well- I'm still coding 12 years later.

~~~
ashleyn
How I got started: the "big kids" at school showed me how to play Qbasic
Nibbles on our school computers, circa 1999-2000. I remember the first things
I did was try to add "cheat codes" to Nibbles, and then use PRINT/INPUT to
make a joke DOS prompt.

About three years later I get a hand-me-down Windows 95 machine with Qbasic on
it, and I set out to make my own "operating system". This was actually a
pretty popular thing to do at the time...here's an entire website full of 'em,
where I published my own MS-DOS GUI as a teenager:
[http://qbasicgui.datacomponents.net/](http://qbasicgui.datacomponents.net/)

Today, I do very well as a senior developer wearing multiple programming hats
at my company and I'm close to cashing in some of that stock to develop my own
video game. It all started with Qbasic.

~~~
vesche
That's awesome. It seems that Qbasic inspired many, it being included with 95,
98, and Me:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QBasic#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QBasic#History)

I'm a senior cyber security engineer and also a polygot :) Video games sound
more fun, I still make some in my free time.

------
RickSanchez2600
It is no longer maintained or updated. FreeBASIC can take QuickBASIC Code but
it needs to be modified a bit.

[https://www.freebasic.net/](https://www.freebasic.net/)

Visual BASIC is emulated via Jabaco and converted to Java Runtine files.
[http://www.jabaco.org/](http://www.jabaco.org/) but it hasn't been maintained
in a while either. It does VB 6.0 but misses ADO and other libraries needed
for Data access, you have to use Java based ones instead with BASIC syntax.

~~~
jasonjayr
[http://www.qb64.net/](http://www.qb64.net/) <\-- IIRC that's supposed to be a
fully backwards compatible + a bunch of modern enhancements to build
QuickBasic/QBasic on modern platforms.

UPDATE: .... And, I should read the link before commenting, because QB64 is
mentioned right there nearly above the fold.

~~~
rzzzt
I used Pyxia's IBasic IDE (looks to be defunct) back in the day to build a
game in Windows:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20070630082925if_/http://www.pyxi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070630082925if_/http://www.pyxia.com/index.php?option=content&task=section&id=5&Itemid=32)

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klez
Heh, this brings back memories :)

I'm another one of those who learned their ropes in QBasic, circa 2001.

A substitute teacher told us about logo and my 13-year old mind thought you
just need to type the commands on the windows desktop to make it work. Imagine
my disappointment when it didn't work.

So one day we're at my dad's friend home. Their son puts a floppy in, starts a
weird blue application, loads a file called GORILLA.BAS and starts the
program. Then I understand what's going on: that's something you can write
your programs in! Copy that floppy and give it to me!

One of my school books had a basic BASIC tutorial so I started typing useless
code.

Then I discovered RapidQ which was superficially like VisualBasic but didn't
cost a dime (at least, that's how I remember it...). So I could make GUIs
using a drag&drop interface.

Good times :)

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analognoise
I'm reading Anders E. Zonst's "Understanding the FFT" second edition, and the
programs were originally in GW-BASIC.

I have since installed qb64 and PCBASIC, and find the book really amazing;
consequently I find the language superior for simple exposition - there's an
insane amount of positive things you can say about taking a supposedly complex
subject and breaking it down with a language that is that simple - if you
truly understand a thing, you can implement it in a language as simple as
BASIC in a clear way, taking the mystery out of it.

How hard can it be if it you can implement it on something with a Z80, right?

Brilliant, and odd timing that this is on HN right now.

~~~
beetwenty
There are a few rough edges in old BASICs(and they have been smoothed out in
pretty much every one that's shipped since 1990 or so) but the practical truth
is, to implement most code in a readable form, you don't need a great deal of
expressiveness, syntactical sugar, or structured flow control, but you do need
a few common data types and features to work with them, and even vintage BASIC
does that much.

This is what people mean when they say that languages haven't progressed that
much. There are places where they have(e.g. dynamic memory allocation features
really do matter to large-enough, featureful-enough programs) but almost all
the features can be dispensed with for the base case of solving one problem
well. The tooling and ecosystem matter a great deal more since they make the
difference between having a finished solution in hand and having to fight to
get something built and deployed. I/O and protocol compatibility are major
sticking points everywhere.

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teilo
I was using QuickBasic before there was a QBasic. (QuickBasic compiled to an
executable for those who are unfamiliar with it.) Made some money with it as a
teen programmer. I built a menuing system modeled after Automenu (by Magee
Enterprises), but with an easier to follow config format and more flexibility.
It ended up being popular enough to sell in my little corner of the DOS
universe. Sold it on floppy disk at a local computer store.

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elderK
Man, does this bring back memories :)

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tomduncalf
Ah man, QBasic makes me feel nostalgic! My first experiences of programming
were with ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro BASIC when I was 5 or 6 or so but that was
just simple IF this PRINT that type stuff, or copying listings from books.
QBasic was where I first started realising you could do some really cool
things with the combination of your brain and programming!

I remember a teacher at school used to let us use the computers at lunch to
play with QBasic and being very proud of working out how to draw a BMP file
(in the days before we had Internet access)... and then a pupil in the year
above blowing that completely away with a demo he’d written with pseudo-3D
graphics and everything. He later got expelled for writing some kind of boot
sector virus and installing it on the school computers. Wonder what he is up
to now!

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rzzzt
I used to visit the QBasic.com website around the early 2000s, it was also a
trove of information. Was fun to dissect snippets that did raycasting or 3D
wireframe animations.

Interestingly, it seems that the website was re-purposed briefly in 2002:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20020524053704/http://qbasic.com/](http://web.archive.org/web/20020524053704/http://qbasic.com/)

...but in 2003, it returned to its regularly scheduled content:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20030207131457/http://www.qbasic....](http://web.archive.org/web/20030207131457/http://www.qbasic.com/qbindex.shtml)

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JaDogg
First of all, Thanks. Hats off! Learning BASIC made me a better human. I
learned x86 ASM, Win32API all thanks to freeBASIC and VB6. I think the best
decision I've made in young life (13-14 years old) is learning BASIC, which
made me the developer today.

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neandrake
I was introduced to QBasic by a friend in the mid/late 90's and spent a great
deal of time on a community called NeoZones. The site allowed people to
showcase their work, tutorials for learning, forums for talking with everyone
else -- there was always something to dig into and such fun. I've never
experienced a developer/programming community like that since. I hope there
are still communities like that out there and would love to find some to be
part of again.

~~~
IndigoFox
At some point there was a fork of NeoZones into NeoBasic. Last I checked,
NeoBasic.net still had forums, but only long time regulars barely post. It
looks down today, sadly.

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carl8
Back in the late '90's there was the All BASIC Code (ABC) repository, which
was a large collection of the best Basic code at the time. Some of my code
made it there. Found this copy here:
[https://github.com/qb40/abcarchive](https://github.com/qb40/abcarchive)

I used to be active on the QB FIDOnet forums in the mid-90's until many of the
BBSs shut down. It was my favorite language during my teen years!

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Razengan
QBasic was probably the first language I wrote something in from start to
finish. It was an attempt at a clone of Deflektor [0].

Before that, I never really got anywhere on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum or
Commodore 64, though I still hope to go back in an emulator and make up for
that someday.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzA8NdXEB2M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzA8NdXEB2M)

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IndigoFox
I spent a lot of time with Pete on ICQ in the late 90s. He really taught me a
lot of basics (heh) about programming back then, and his community was great.
Many regulars from his site and NeoZones/Neobasic are still in contact with
each other, and it's crazy seeing what some people do now, like release
TurboGrafx games.

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greypowerOz
i wrote my first commercial program in Qbasic.. good times :)

