QBasic is a dialect of the BASIC programming language (BASIC) developed by Microsoft , as well as a development environment that allows you to write, run, and debug programs in this language.
QBasic is convenient for performing simple calculations and for direct work with ports. Along with Pascal, the language is quite popular for teaching programming, and is used in many schools.
History
QBasic was created as a replacement for GW-BASIC and was shipped with MS-DOS 5.0 and later, right up to Windows 95 . QBasic is based on the earlier QuickBASIC 4.5, but, unlike it, does not contain a compiler and linker .
Microsoft has stopped shipping QBasic with later versions of Windows . However, Windows 98 licensees can find it on the installation CD in the \TOOLS\OLDMSDOS . Previously, QBasic could be downloaded from the Microsoft website. [one]
QBasic provided a convenient development environment (for its time), including advanced debugging capabilities and the ability to work in command mode.
Since 2007, there is a version of QBasic for 64-bit systems that runs on Windows 7, 8, 10 operating systems [2] .
Also, since 2007, independent developers have been developing the cross-platform compiler QB64 (originally QB32), which implements QBasic (and QuickBASIC ), expanded with modern tools for working with graphics, music and networking.
Easter Egg
- If, when starting QBasic from the command line, before the title screen appears, simultaneously press LeftCtrl + LeftShift + LeftAlt and RightCtrl + RightShift + RightAlt , then a list of programmers who participated in the development will appear on the screen. On modern computers, it’s quite difficult to press the right keys for the required time - it’s better to check this fact on older computers or in emulators, which allows you to set the slowdown (such as DOSBox ).
Notes
- ↑ After about February 15, 2012 the link was deleted, the file can be downloaded from the web archive
- ↑ QB64 Main Page (inaccessible link) . Date of treatment January 15, 2015. Archived November 1, 2013.