GW Basic running on WIndows 2000/XP
 

Hi!,

I have a bit of a problem here. I am looking into a few options. First of all, I have a program that was written in GWBASIC and it runs great on a DOS machine. It will even run in Windows 2000 under QBasic if you run it from there, but the .exe will not run under 2000 or XP.

I would like to solve this in a 2 steps. 1st, I would like to get the current program to compile so I can run it in 2000/XP. The program does quite a bit of interesting things such as screen calls and drawing graphics, it's quite a program in it's day. How do I compile this program into something that I can run in the 2000/XP environment?

If I can get this to work, this will just solve the initial problem. Eventually I need to rewrite it in like VB.NET. Does VB.NET have the capability of doing the kids of graphics that this current BASIC program can do such as drawing objects and then based on numbers for that object, change the drawing on the fly...

Thanks for the information. I am most interested in getting this program to run in the 2000/XP environment 1st then worry about the 2nd part later. This would buy us some time.

Erik

Re: GW Basic running on WIndows 2000/XP
 

GWBasic is not a compiled language, neither is QBasic.

Re: GW Basic running on WIndows 2000/XP
 

Thank you for your reply. So, do I have an option to somehow get this program to run under 2000/XP by using a compiler that would compile this code without having to rewrite it yet?

Thanks,

Re: GW Basic running on WIndows 2000/XP
 

Try the following.

• Download this file.
• Create a folder for qBasic somewhere (such as C:\qbasic) and place the downloaded file there
• Open a command prompt, navigate to the folder that you placed the file in, and run the program. After the program runs, you will have qBasic installed on your machine.
• Run qBasic as you would normally.

Does this help you?

Re: GW Basic running on WIndows 2000/XP
 

Thanks for your help.

I did what you said. I already had QBasic on the machine I am working on. And, it will run under QBasic. But, I need something to compile it with that way I can just run the .exe's instead of running it under QBasic using the .bas

I hope this makes sense. Any other suggestions?

Thanks again.

Erik

Re: GW Basic running on WIndows 2000/XP
 

For that you'll need to find an old copy of MS QuickBASIC 7 somewhere (4.5 might work depending on the language features you used).
That can compile your BASIC programs into DOS 16 bit executables.

And no, noone's going to point you to a download as it's not free software. It's a commercial product that's no longer be sold, but it's still protected under copyright and cannot be distributed.

Re: GW Basic running on WIndows 2000/XP
 

One option you can try is to write a script that launches QBasic and loads/runs your program. Check out AutoIt. It will compile to an EXE. Something like the following should work:

$ret = runwait("qbasic yourprg.bas", ... , ... )

Re: GW Basic running on WIndows 2000/XP
 

Why not get a cheap machine and load dos in it and just use it for your program....much cheaper than trying to reinvent what is a good program that does what you want.....

Re: GW Basic running on WIndows 2000/XP
 

Hello...I'm able to run gwbasic on our computer which has windows 2000...what I'm trying to accomplish is to print a hard copy of my programming results...output is only on the monitor...what can I do to be able to print on paper? Would my getting a inexpensive computer with DOS and a dot matrix printer work? What would your suggestion be...as you mentioned above to load DOS...is there a certain level of it...I've seen on eBay ...DOS 5.0, DOS 6.something...thanks for your help...jshock

Re: GW Basic running on WIndows 2000/XP
 

You will probably be able to get it to work on all modern Windows based machines (and Linux too) under QB64 (http://www.qb64.net/). QB64 is a QuickBasic compatible compiler that's under development, but it already probably has all the features you'd need. Since QuickBasic was compatible with older line-numbered BASICA code, and BASICA was essentially the same as GW-BASIC, I'd be surprised if you had problems.

If you are willing to delve into a little bit of reprogramming and you remember some BASIC, may I suggest you take a look at freebasic,net? It's a free compiler for Windows, 32bit DOS, and Linux that supports modern BASIC syntax, some OOP, and more. Plus it's easy to learn for folks familiar with older BASICs since it's not such a departure as VB.