QBASIC is indeed free and you can download it here.

Visual basic is not free (It is several hundred dollars, in fact).

Both will work with win98. I hope this answers your questions.

it did thank you!

If you are somewhat open minded, try BCX. It is free and fairly mature. It was written by Kevin Diggins who migrated from VB to C/C++. It is a Basic to C translator that allows you to write C/C++ programs in a simple readable basic code. You can mix in C or ASM too. There are a number of free C compilers that will take the translated code. The helpfile that comes with BCX is great, and there are lots of code sample files. Learn a good solid basic and C to boot!

I am not selling you anything, the whole system is free!!!

visit: http://bcx.basicguru.com/

PowerBasic has 2 windows compilers (and a DOS compiler).
The windows versions allow inline asm.

Very affordable and the best support.