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Converting a PC BASIC program?


Larry

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Back in the days of MS Dos and GW BASIC, I converted quite a few programs to Atari Microsoft BASIC (AMSB).  But so many years later, I can't even find a BASIC interpreter that will run under Win 10.  Does anyone know of one that will work?  I don't need to run the BASIC programs -- just load them and list them to disk files. These are in tokenized format, so AMSB chokes immediately.  Maybe something I can run in a Dos box?  

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Not that I use it, but a quick google search came up with "PC-Basic" which aims to be a clone of GW-Basic from the 80's, including bugs.  Supports Windows, Linux, Mac, and more.

 

http://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/download.html

 

I tried it just now, wow....I've got GW Basic on my Mac

 

I even typed in a quick program and saved it.  the documentation explains it saved the bas file to my home folder. Or on windows:

 

  • On Windows, this is usually a folder with your user name, located under C:\Users\. You can find this folder in Windows Explorer by typing %USERPROFILE% in the address bar.
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7 hours ago, Dmitry said:

Not that I use it, but a quick google search came up with "PC-Basic" which aims to be a clone of GW-Basic from the 80's, including bugs.  Supports Windows, Linux, Mac, and more.

 

http://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/download.html

 

I tried it just now, wow....I've got GW Basic on my Mac

 

I even typed in a quick program and saved it.  the documentation explains it saved the bas file to my home folder. Or on windows:

 

  • On Windows, this is usually a folder with your user name, located under C:\Users\. You can find this folder in Windows Explorer by typing %USERPROFILE% in the address bar.

PC-Basic seems to be written in Python, as I recall.  It also crashes on some programs :(

You could probably find GW-BASIC on a PC-DOS disk that someone may have uploaded to archive.org or some abandonware site.  I think I've also seen a BASIC de-tokenizer that can even decrypt the protected programs.

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Yes!  V1.2 installs and runs under Win10.  I had tried 2.x and it just crashed. Now to get those PC programs converted. I always liked PC BASIC.  Even in the days of Dos, I was really impressed with the colorful menus that could be created in text mode.  I always wished our Ataris could easily do that.

 

Thanks!

 

Edit: The several programs that I've tried thus far work great, except that the speed is blindingly fast -- even on an old XP hobby computer.  But is will be just fine for my conversions.

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I did a game on the PC around 1987... on a work machine, not sure if it was GWBasic but it did have statements to do rendering and collision detection of softsprites.

Never saved a copy or printout for myself so it's gone now... though in theory could be recreated without too much effort.

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You all remind me that in the late 90s I had a support job where the polling computer ran DOS and had a copy of basic on it.  I wrote a pong clone, the kicker was when you pressed the space bar an arm came out and the ball was actually struck with a racket.  i had big plans for “The Mean Streets of Hong Pong” but alas the program was discovered and the IT department said the game was responsible for poor polling performance.  the source code sitting on the disk, lol.  that may not be how computers work but it is how IT departments work.   the program was deleted.  tragedy. :)

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Not entirely sure if that will be helpful for what you're trying to accomplish but there is a still updated version of BBC BASIC for the PC that is available for a lot of systems. BBC BASIC is considered to be very advanced with lots of features supporting structured programming.

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19 hours ago, drac030 said:

Is there anywhere a repository of GW-BASIC/PC-BASIC programs worth porting?

 

I don't know of one. Same deal (IMO) with CP/M. If there were PC games worth porting, they would probably be text adventures or specialized business apps.  Compute! magazine had quite a few PC jr programs, but most were also available for the Atari.

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On Monday, December 28, 2020 at 4:52 PM, Larry said:

Back in the days of MS Dos and GW BASIC, I converted quite a few programs to Atari Microsoft BASIC (AMSB).  But so many years later, I can't even find a BASIC interpreter that will run under Win 10.  Does anyone know of one that will work?  I don't need to run the BASIC programs -- just load them and list them to disk files. These are in tokenized format, so AMSB chokes immediately.  Maybe something I can run in a Dos box?  

Why not just run GW BASIC in DOS BOX(the emulator)?

 

www.dosbox.com (to get the emulator)

 

GWBASICv322.ZIP

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