Turbo Basic

[An0maly_76]

Does anyone remember Turbo Basic? I used to use this quite avidly (I hail from the days of command-prompt MS-DOS), and tonight I wondered if this could still work on today's machines. Is it even possible to still get it?

[mariushm]

There's DOSBOX which emulates a DOS machine and you can run it from any Windows.

There's computer emulators ...Virtualbox, VMWare .. you can easily create a virtual pc and install FreeDOS in that virtual pc and run turbo basic from there.

 

So you can basically run any dos application in a window or full screen, no problem.

[An0maly_76]

21 minutes ago, mariushm said:

There's DOSBOX which emulates a DOS machine and you can run it from any Windows.

There's computer emulators ...Virtualbox, VMWare .. you can easily create a virtual pc and install FreeDOS in that virtual pc and run turbo basic from there.

 

So you can basically run any dos application in a window or full screen, no problem.

 

I kinda thought this would be a DosBox thing. But would a program compiled in Turbo Basic run on Win 10?

[mariushm]

No, they would not run directly in Windows 10, because the executables are compiled expecting certain things which are no longer available/allowed in modern operating systems for various good reasons. 

It will run in a virtual machine. You may also be able to run some basic DOS executables in a browser or something like that (there's even a dosbox that uses web assembly to run in browser) .. here's an example, you start dos in browser and run a game : https://yksoft1.github.io/emularity/fzksdl1.html

 

But there's modern dialects of Basic that generate modern command line or GUI programs which work in Windows 10 .. for example FreeBasic is free and Power Basic costs money (which is made by same company that made Turbo Basic).

 

There's also FreePascal which can do Windows programs and has a syntax similar to old Turbo Pascal. 

[Franck]

If you familiar with Turbo Basic you might probably know QBasic / Quick Basic which did had a 64 bit release under a project called Qb64. It's not and official thing but it was supporting all original features properly.

[An0maly_76]

1 hour ago, Franck said:

If you familiar with Turbo Basic you might probably know QBasic / Quick Basic which did had a 64 bit release under a project called Qb64. It's not and official thing but it was supporting all original features properly.

Actually, I didn't know that, I've been out of circulation for some time in regard to programming.

 

Some history here. In the early '80s, I learned a smattering of BASIC on a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, recording programs with a standard cassette recorder. Around 1986, a Tandy 1000 SX for my father's business became the mad scientist's new lab, using GW-BASIC to expand on my school Apple II learnings. Truly a Frankenstein -- An 8088 with twin 5.25" floppies, it later got a 20MB hard drive, CD-ROM, SoundBlaster and 3.5" floppy, running an 80286 in tandem with the original 8088 -- watch out, world! GW-BASIC was "Gee-Whiz" BASIC, bundled with MS-DOS 3.2 -- remember when OS came with the system and you got it for free?

 

When I was in high school (pre-Windows), I ran with a copy of Turbo Basic by Borland, pirated by a relative's coworker. Now proficient with manipulating system and string variables, a subroutine I created for decoding the $DATE system variable from 02-21-1991 to February 21, 1991 and TB's built-in compiler came in handy in creating a basic text editor to keep a journal for a school project, something I continued throughout high school. Everyone thought I'd be a wizard, but in community college, Visual Basic made absolutely no sense to me, nor did C++, and I failed both courses. I wandered to food delivery, taxi, and even trucking before being diagnosed with autism.

 

More recently, I received records of an undisclosed brain stem injury diagnosis from the early 80s -- a veritable 1980s Forrest Gump, sans braces and speech impediment. Needless to say, a lot makes sense now, and I'm amazed I was able to do any of the things I have. But other autism-related issues have debilitated to the point I am veritably bed-bound, so I now have to file for disability. However, all this gives me more pride in what I have managed to accomplish -- basically, I've given a brain stem injury and autism both middle fingers for two decades, even if they weren't known.

 

But I digress. Anyway, I've been thinking about repurposing a M71E SFF as a web / media machine, and would like to mess around with Turbo Basic again if its construct, interpreter and generated executables can work on more modern machines. Sounds like the executables will be the tricky part. Any ideas?

[An0maly_76]

6 hours ago, mariushm said:

No, they would not run directly in Windows 10, because the executables are compiled expecting certain things which are no longer available/allowed in modern operating systems for various good reasons. 

It will run in a virtual machine. You may also be able to run some basic DOS executables in a browser or something like that (there's even a dosbox that uses web assembly to run in browser) .. here's an example, you start dos in browser and run a game : https://yksoft1.github.io/emularity/fzksdl1.html

 

But there's modern dialects of Basic that generate modern command line or GUI programs which work in Windows 10 .. for example FreeBasic is free and Power Basic costs money (which is made by same company that made Turbo Basic).

  Bummer.

1 hour ago, Franck said:

If you familiar with Turbo Basic you might probably know QBasic / Quick Basic which did had a 64 bit release under a project called Qb64. It's not and official thing but it was supporting all original features properly.

Actually, I didn't know that, I've been out of circulation for some time in regard to programming.

 

Some history here. In the early '80s, I learned a smattering of BASIC on a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, recording programs with a standard cassette recorder. Around 1986, a Tandy 1000 SX for my father's business became the mad scientist's new lab, using GW-BASIC to expand on my school Apple II learnings. Truly a Frankenstein -- An 8088 with twin 5.25" floppies, it later got a 20MB hard drive, CD-ROM, SoundBlaster and 3.5" floppy, running an 80286 in tandem with the original 8088 -- watch out, world! GW-BASIC was "Gee-Whiz" BASIC, bundled with MS-DOS 3.2 -- remember when OS came with the system and you got it for free?

 

When I was in high school (pre-Windows), I ran with a copy of Turbo Basic by Borland, pirated by a relative's coworker. Now proficient with manipulating system and string variables, a subroutine I created for decoding the $DATE system variable from 02-21-1991 to February 21, 1991 and TB's built-in compiler came in handy in creating a basic text editor to keep a journal for a school project, something I continued throughout high school. Everyone thought I'd be a wizard, but in community college, Visual Basic made absolutely no sense to me, nor did C++, and I failed both courses. I wandered to food delivery, taxi, and even trucking before being diagnosed with autism.

 

More recently, I received records of an undisclosed brain stem injury diagnosis from the early 80s -- a veritable 1980s Forrest Gump, sans braces and speech impediment. Needless to say, a lot makes sense now, and I'm amazed I was able to do any of the things I have. But other autism-related issues have debilitated to the point I am veritably bed-bound, so I now have to file for disability. However, all this gives me more pride in what I have managed to accomplish -- basically, I've given a brain stem injury and autism both middle fingers for two decades, even if they weren't known.

 

But I digress. Anyway, I've been thinking about repurposing a M71E SFF as a web / media machine, and would like to mess around with Turbo Basic again if its construct, interpreter and generated executables can be made to work on more modern machines. Sounds like the executables will be the tricky part though.

 

EDIT: FreeBasic, PowerBasic and QBasic / QuickBasic sound like the move, then. I'd rather try before I buy, though. Any ideas?

[mariushm]

FreeBasic is free and probably the easiest to set up.

 

From the freeBasic website, you'll only download the compiler and access documentation (or download documentation) 

 

My recommendation is to download WinFBE Suite : https://github.com/PaulSquires/WinFBE/releases

It's an editor (IDE)  which comes with a free basic compiler included and configured so that you can start a new project and hit run and it will run right away.

If you install the compiler separately then you need to go in your preferred IDE and manually set the paths to the compiler or manually type the command line commands to compile your .BAS file into an executable.