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Qbasic and FirstBasic

Posted by xFizzx [send private reply] at June 30, 2003, 07:20:17 AM

I'm trying to to convert programs written in QBasic v1.1 into FirstBasic, so that I can compile them, but am having problems... Can anyone give me a list of the syntax differences between the two, and does anyone have any useful tips?

Posted by xFizzx [send private reply] at June 30, 2003, 07:25:53 AM

And before anyone gives me the "I CAN'T believe you're still using QBasic" routine... No, it's not my language of choice either, but until I get my own pc, it's all I can use (so there :op)

Posted by Psion [send private reply] at June 30, 2003, 01:54:27 PM

I'm assuming that this is because of ignorant parents. You should TRY petitioning them to let you download a well-known compiler for a language mentioned at http://www.hprog.org/fhp/LearnProgramming . There's pretty much a zero chance of getting a "virus" or other "bad thing that they probably only know about through paranoid news reports" if you download from a site linked from the main site for an implementation of any of the languages we recommend.

Posted by ItinitI [send private reply] at June 30, 2003, 03:10:08 PM

Since you seem to have basics down, try to move onto something like C/C++...with Dev-C++ [ http://www.bloodshed.net ] or DMC [ http://www.digitalmars.com ].
OR, if they still will not let you get a free C/C++ compiler, get a free UNIX shell; from somewhere like http://www.freeshell.org . And use vi/pico/jed/emacs and the gcc C/C++ compiler from the shell.

Posted by Psion [send private reply] at June 30, 2003, 05:47:34 PM

Of course, I and many others maintain that choosing C or C++ for "learning" is a bad idea, and that you should only learn them for "pragmatic" reasons, where you know you will have to use them for a job, etc..

Posted by xFizzx [send private reply] at July 01, 2003, 07:11:44 AM

It's more subtle than that - the machine I use is my dad's, and he's almost dead against me installing or adding *anything* to it, hence QBasic and other legacy stuff. Anyhow, I've been advised to learn Java, not C or C++, by a good friend of mine. More to the point though, can anyone actually answer my original question? Please?

Posted by Psion [send private reply] at July 01, 2003, 09:43:57 AM

No, I've never even heard of "FirstBasic." You'd probably have to work pretty hard to find people on the Internet who've used it. I mean, it's apparently a particular uncommon dialect of a language that everyone hates. What do you expect? :)

Do you have approximately 2 cents to buy a reeaaally old computer that you can install things on?

Posted by gian [send private reply] at July 01, 2003, 10:53:10 PM

If all you have is QBasic, then why do you need to convert it into FirstBasic?

Posted by anthocomputing [send private reply] at July 05, 2003, 02:23:42 PM

The syntax for qbasic and firstbasic is pretty much the same. I used to use qbasic under win98 but then switched to firstbasic 1.0 after seeing that qbasic could not make exe's. I also reccomend using XBasic Freeware (http://www.maxreason.com/software/xbasic), which includes a qbasic/quickbasic to xbasic converter tool.

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