Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: dvus Newsgroups: sci.physics Subject: Re: The Case For Quick Basic In The 21st Century. Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 05:52:01 -0500 Lines: 52 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net bXCX58oitlHvfRYdY6YZcQCUXCjgXiDC5fqof2Ioyqvc6G5GyS Cancel-Lock: sha1:eypdbz4I1Z5ML/9q05WKmPERHoE= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.3.0 In-Reply-To: X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 151112-1, 11/12/2015), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean Xref: csiph.com sci.physics:532686 On 11/12/2015 2:10 PM, jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com wrote: > dvus wrote: >> On 11/11/2015 11:22 PM, jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com wrote: >>> Max Keon wrote: >>>> The Case For Quick Basic In The 21st Century. >>>> >>>> Prior to the introduction of Windows 7, the files Qbasic.exe and >>>> Qbasic.hlp were included in the self extracting zip file, olddos.exe, >>>> which was available as a free download from Microsoft. It's no longer >>>> available. >>>> >>>> Early in 2013 I asked this question of the Microsoft Community; "How do I >>>> obtain permission to store a copy of Qbasic on my web pages that can be >>>> downloaded by anyone wishing to do so? Permission is all I require." >>>> >>>> I was given verbal permission in a phone conversation with a Microsoft >>>> representative. He said the software was obsolete and of no further use >>>> to Microsoft. I couldn't expect more than a verbal OK in this case. >>>> >>>> I've stored the necessary info for downloading Qbasic at this address. >>>> http://members.optusnet.com.au/mskeon/qbastest.html >>>> >>>> If Qbasic was installed in every computer on earth, it would be one of >>>> the greatest communication tools emerging from the 20th century. There's >>>> nothing else in the world that compares in this field. The problem now is >>>> that XP is the latest Windows version that will properly run the software >>>> and most folk have progressed beyond that. >>> >>> I would guess 99% of people have zero interest in programming Basic >>> to do anything. >> >> I'm finally one of the "1%" I keep hearing about! > > One wonders why anyone in this day and age would be using BASIC for > anything given it's lack of usefull I/O and lack interprocess > communications of any kind. Well, to start with, it's fun. There can be little doubt that other languages are much more useful for practical purposes, but Basic offers a simple introduction to the "basics" of program writing. Serious programmers must, of course, move on to more serious languages. > If one wants an interpreted language, there is Java, Javascript, PHP, > Ruby, Perl, Python, Forth, Lisp, Tcl, and many others. In my younger days I preferred ML to do serious things but in the interest of full disclosure I must admit to not doing much coding in a long, long time. -- dvus