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Back in the early prehistory of computing, I wrote some BASIC programs as part of my post-graduate work in Applied Physics. I found the original files, and just for grins and giggles thought I'd run them again.
I can run the FORTRAN77 programs no problem using gcc/GFortran. But I can't locate a BASIC interpreter. A search on the keyword "BASIC" brings up every instance of the English word 'basic' as in its 'rudimentary' or 'fundamental' meaning -- too much of the wrong kind of info.
IIRC, the BASIC I used was straight standards-compliant code with no local system dialect additions.
What's the consensus on getting old BASIC files to run, again?
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try "basic programming" or "basic compiler" or "basic interpreter"
ezik
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A quick search in the AUR provides several likely candidates.
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/?O=0&K=basic
You really should have found these yourself before posting.
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Duh -- in quotes, with 'compiler'.
Feeling stupid at the moment....
Thanks!
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You really should have found these yourself before posting.
Well, yes; but as I indicated in the OP, most of the 204 entries use 'basic' to mean, well, 'fundamental'. At my age, that big list with tiny type makes for difficult reading.
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At my age, that big list with tiny type makes for difficult reading.
Just fyi, most browsers support changing the font size on the fly with <ctrl> and the mouse wheel or <ctrl> and "+" or "-".
Of the 204 AUR hits for "basic". only a few contain the word "compiler". The best candidate seems to be fbc, the FreeBASIC compiler. I know nothing about the different flavors of BASIC but I would give that a shot.
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Another option that I do is, install "dosbox" and find a copy of the old "qbasic.exe" executable.
It runs flawlessly! And it allows me to play "gorilla.bas" and "nibbles.bas".
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Hmmm.
As I recall, qbasic had some nonstandard syntax that wouldn't work with older (late 70's/early 80's) vanilla BASIC. Could be wrong.
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Another option that I do is, install "dosbox" and find a copy of the old "qbasic.exe" executable.
It runs flawlessly! And it allows me to play "gorilla.bas" and "nibbles.bas".
OMG - adjusting the physics in those was how I learned to program!
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Some other packages you may want to look into are yabasic and basic256.
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/yabasic/
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/basic256/
There is also a QBasic clone called QB64, though you may have to build that from source:
http://www.qb64.net/
Another one is Vintage Basic which gets pretty close to Microsoft Basic 2.0 / Commodore 64 Basic
http://www.vintage-basic.net/download.html
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Hmmm.
As I recall, qbasic had some nonstandard syntax that wouldn't work with older (late 70's/early 80's) vanilla BASIC. Could be wrong.
I'm still trying to figure out, which BASIC dialect you could be talking about, when you speak of vanilla BASIC.
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I'm still trying to figure out, which BASIC dialect you could be talking about, when you speak of vanilla BASIC.
We had a bound reference book that, IIRC, was published by ANSI. (or it might have been an European standards agency...? -- sorry; it's been decades) It had all the available keywords we were permitted to use. We knew there were some keywords/commands available in our system that weren't in the publication, but if it wasn't in the book, we couldn't use it.
Last edited by fionn (2018-07-06 15:04:59)
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These are the standards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC#Standards
As far as I know, there is nearly no implementation that supports "Full BASIC" completely, even "Minimal BASIC" is often not implemented fully.
In addition to the already mentioned implementations you can also look into bwbasic. It claims to have a superset of the Minimal BASIC and a subset of Full BASIC. There is no package for arch, though.
I suggest you start with freebasic, since it seems to be the most used on linux nowadays.
Edit: dosemu contains a copy of bwbasic that runs inside the emulator, but if you need dos then dosbox may be easier to set up.
Last edited by progandy (2018-07-06 15:40:40)
| alias CUTF='LANG=en_XX.UTF-8@POSIX ' |
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BASICA, a/k/a Advanced Basic, anyone? https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=basica
I seem recall using a batch file I bummed from a friend, then altered for my purposes. It was originally scripted in the late '80s and subsequently I compiled it into a--what, .COM?--and used it well into the early 2000s. Very specialized, real estate appraisal software, performed one function. To replace it with a commercial version would have cost a couple $1,000 US. In fact, that's what similar packages sell for at present.
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn
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