BASIC help

[Windblows User]

<?xml utf="8" ?>
<joke>

My "Many Men Theory of Programming and Google Syntax" is as follows:


Syntax is in there to make it sound all cool, but serves no other real purpose. The rest of it is valid and is stated as follows: There are many men out there on the internet that program and write programs. Thousands of them turning out hundreds of programs a day and 99% are connected to Google in some form. If I need a program, I google for it. If I cant find it, I dont need it that bad -- I can compensate. Write my own? That takes time and effort, things I lack.

</joke>

[LosT]

Basic *can* be a useful skill- MANY microcontroller companies have tried to soften the blow of assembly by releasing 'forms of basic' and software to get that to run on their chips....Parallax for example has PBasic. And they aren't the only one's doing that. Granted its meant as a crutch to get you eventually to assembly (Ubisofts SX chips for example)- but it *does* allow you to start writing code for a controller VERY QUICKLY.

LosT

[Thorn]

I take it Agent Orange and I are the only two who remember when the game was new ?

I'm in that club, too. Hell, 30+ years ago I was programming in BASIC on a Xerox mainframe.



! RUN SUPERTANK
*SYNTAX ERROX LINE 12430*
!

<"Damn." Trudge off to the card punch room to find the typo on the punchcard for line 12430. To classmate: "The admins (read: High Priesthood of the Big Iron) say that someday they'll let us store out programs on 9-track tapes. And then maybe we can edit right on a glass terminal! That will be so groovy, man.">

[Windblows User]

I agree with the BASIC and legos analogy. It does seem like that when first start looking at it... Its like HTML in that sense, yah know?


And I believe in starting a programmer in BASIC, or assem., or VB, or even C, before Java because its my belief that if you dont know where the current C++ syntax comes from, or the current XHTML/CSS/XML/etc. DTDs come from, you wont really know that much about the language.

Its kind of like the purpose of history class. Know where you come from so you can avoid previously made mistakes. Know where you come from and you will undoubtedly have a better understanding of where you are now and know the best course of progression.

But thats my deep thoughts for today. I gotta go to school, its starting in a few minutes :/

In order.


<no comment> /me holds a lighter for TrueBASIC

How does BASIC teach bad programming practices and principles? I think it is a much better starting block than Java. Start em high and then push them low.

<no comment> /me holds a lighter to thecotman .. just because.

Java is teh suck too..

[converge]

In order.

Good for your teacher. I like the idea.

The last compiling version of BASIC, iirc is 4.5. There was also BASIC 7.0PDS, but 4.5 is the more easily found version. Ok.. VisualBASIC for DOS .. but that wasn't really worth a rats nuts. Of course, any version of MSDOS will have qbasic.exe (coughedit.comcough), which will interpret to your hearts content. There are several options for modern interpreters, but I believe the most popular is FreeBASIC.

gorillas and nibbles are the reason I program today.

No. VB is not a form of BASIC. VB uses a lot of syntax that is similar to BASIC, and much (most|all?/never tested) BASIC syntax will interpret in VB. But why?

<no comment> /me holds a lighter for TrueBASIC

How does BASIC teach bad programming practices and principles? I think it is a much better starting block than Java. Start em high and then push them low.

<no comment> /me holds a lighter to thecotman .. just because.

PLCs

George Washington and Elvis doing a donkey.

I guess that makes sense in a graphical sense.. pset can be a bitch for detailing, but in many ways BASIC is like using those extra big legos with premade shapes because you were too young to imagine.

Extra Credit ?:/ pffff...

,mmmm bananas potent enough to make Osama proud and sleek enough to morph though 5 stories :o

.... .... yeah .. you guys are pretty old. It was new to me when I got my first 386sx.

<no comment>

YES! That is one game that could definately use a modern makeover.. I have ideas ... mmm .. good ideas. I might have to play :) I sense a new defcon video. .. nope ... that was just my butt itching.

[Gadsden]

It's comforting that I'm not the only with memories of that game. The edge detection was great (throw a banana really fast and it sometimes went through the buildings), and people would get quite upset with my slightly modified version of the game...

Heh.. the nice thing was with a couple slight modificatins, you had NUCLEAR BANNANAS!
Now.. if someone would just mod the game for monkey knife fights...

[Voltage Spike]

I take it Agent Orange and I are the only two who remember when the game was new ?

I suppose that depends on when it was new. I found it (and nibbles?) while futzing around with QBasic on MS-DOS 5.0. I somehow skipped 4.0, going straight from 3.1 to 5.0, so I might have missed the original release. I was very impressed with the game and played for hours on end, but I can't, for the life of me, remember why. Perhaps it was because it was the most advanced game I owned for which I could view the source code.

[astcell]

It's comforting that I'm not the only with memories of that game.

I take it Agent Orange and I are the only two who remember when the game was new ?

[Voltage Spike]

So that is how Gorilla was migrated to Gorilla 2!

It's comforting that I'm not the only with memories of that game. The edge detection was great (throw a banana really fast and it sometimes went through the buildings), and people would get quite upset with my slightly modified version of the game...

I swear the teacher gets a kickback

Only from the students with a more righteous sense of justice.

I do have a Windows 3.1 box

I'm assuming the assignment is fairly simple, and QBasic is pretty easy to pick up. If you didn't follow che's link, it includes the source code to the game. This includes the ever-popular:

 ON ERROR GOTO FuckOff

(You may wish to leave this part out of your assignment. )

[Windblows User]

I would complain and protest normally, but its extra credit in a class I'm not doing so well in, so I dont mind.

[astcell]

After you write your code in BASIC for the teacher, ask if you can learn how to start a fire by rubbing sticks together. Sheesh. I had to learn useless code in college (MINITAB anyone?), I swear the teacher gets a kickback.

[lil_freak]

Pick up the Feb 2005 issue of Nuts and Volts Magazine, it has an article about all kinds of basic (called "The basics of basic" I think).

LosT

Also in the March 2005 issue there is a small section that has some stuff on BASIC. I think it's in the Stamp section.

[LosT]

Pick up the Feb 2005 issue of Nuts and Volts Magazine, it has an article about all kinds of basic (called "The basics of basic" I think).

LosT

[TheCotMan]

I do know that VB is a form of BASIC. I asked the teacher when she gave me the stuff if she meant VB, but sadly no... Its all BASIC. Luckilly I do have a Windows 3.1 box, though I dont know where I put it... Thanks though! You folks are awesome.

Don't get frustrated when coding what appears to be exactly what you see, only to find it does not work. It seems there were "enhancements" made to BASIC for each system that claimed support for BASIC.

On the Apple ][ with DOS 3.3 you had one BASIC or on other boot disks, Integer BASCIC.

TI-99 4/A had variations in BASIC and add-ons not supported by the Apple][ and the other way around too.

And many othe forms of BASIC had their special mods such as BASIC on the TRS-80 models, MS-DOS, Commodore, and even the Atari.

I haven't touched BASIC in ages, but some common differences include:
* Is declaration of variables required?
* Does assignment require LET or is it optional?
* Are arrays supported? How? Multi Dimentional Arrays? How?
* Are multiple statements allowed per line? How?
* Can assembley routines be called from BASIC? How? Do they return control to the BASIC code just after the location they were called? How?
* How is File access performed?
* How do you clear the screen? (CLS?, HOME? CLEAR? CLEAR SCREEN?)
* How do you play sounds?
* How are graphics enabled? Used? Supported?
* What about sprites?
* Is there a limit to line length for statements? What is it?

there are many more. Even representation of symbols with decimal value over 127 (beyond old ASCII-- sometimes called "extended ASCII") will be different.

Just because something is in BASIC does not mean a copy and paste will make that BASIC code work with your BASIC interpriter "as-is."