Re:FreeBasic
by livrem on Friday December 22, 2023 @03:25AM
(#38732169)
Serious question: What makes BASIC BASIC? I don't see anything in the FreeBasic example code that looks anything like what GWBASIC was 40 years ago. No line numbers and not a single GOTO. Is there still support for compiling old style BASIC or did the BASIC name move on to mean something completely different from what it used to?
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Re:FreeBasic
by parkertomatoes on Friday December 22, 2023 @03:35AM
(#38732231)
In this particular case, FreeBasic was written in Visual BASIC for DOS 1.0 until it could compile itself. But you're right that some of the original syntax it's added (e.g. C-style pointers) takes it a bit away from what BASIC was.
That reminds me: There’s PC-BASIC available for all platforms that emulates GW-BASIC:
https://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/
Since I’m kind of a data hoarder, I’ve put my GW-BASIC files from the early 90s on GitHub: