About 20 years ago, I used to have great fun writing and using simple programs of my own creation on my old Apple IIe and the early Macs. I used BASIC exclusively since I knew the language (somewhat) and found it pretty easy to use. Alas, that has not been something that I’ve done ever since I switched sides and became a Windows guy.
So, my question is, using my current system and its XP operating system, are there any programs available that would let me program (and run) in BASIC? The type of program that might even be ideal for me would be one that makes my current machine seem like an old Mac (or IIe) if such a thing exists. But, even if not, I’d still be very interested.
Only you can answer that question. I assume from the way you’ve worded your question that you want the ready-to-run binary (executable) program, but don’t want the source code of the compiler so that you can read it or compile it yourself. There are thus two questions you need to ask yourself. First, are you running DOS, Linux, or Windows? (If you don’t know the answer to that question, then you may want to reconsider your decision to download a BASIC compiler.) Second, do you want the stable, production release of the program, or do you want the latest bleeding-edge version which may contain bugs and should probably be used only for the purposes of testing it to find and report said bugs to the author?
Find the line in the list of “Binaries” downloads which matches your platform and chosen release (stable vs. testing), and follow either of the corresponding image links. (The left link appears to be a direct-download link, whereas the right link brings up a screen with more details about the package and a download link.)
You could be in for a bit of a shock moving from Apple IIe BASIC to VB.NET
Amongst Visual Basic programmers, there is some debate as to whether VB.NET is really BASIC - and Visual Basic is pretty different from the BASIC on the old Apples.
You should find a copy of QBASIC on your machine, which will be a lot more familiar.
That is true; but since the OP wants to program under Windows, I thought it would be a good place to start - there are lots of wizards and tutorials for VB.NET available. I’ve used both VB and VB.NET, and while there are some changes, many of the familiar program structures remain.
QBASIC would definitely be a lot easier and more familiar, but is naturally much more limited in terms of what you can do interface-wise.
QBasic was available only with MS-DOS. (It is found on some Windows 95 and Windows 98 CD-ROMs, but there’s no way to install it short of manually copying it from the CD-ROM to your hard drive.) It’s not shipped with Windows XP as far as I know.
Like David, I left programming years ago. Can someone please explain: if I were to install one of those programs, and wrote a Basic program, would I then be able to compile my program as an executable (and if so, how), or would I only be able to run the program within the confines of the emulator?
VB Express allows you to publish your program to CD, or the net. It packages in a setup program which will check if the target machine has the prerequisites installed (typically the .Net framework) and will download them if necessary. It’s pretty good for free. I’m mucking about with Visual C++ Express at the mo, and it’s making my head hurt a little.
Does this mean that if I can locate the discs that came with my old Windows95-based machine, that I’ll find a copy of QBasic there and that I can copy it onto my current XP-based machine? And safely run it? Thanks.
I should have noted way back in my OP that what I want to do is actually very simple stuff. Things like writing a program to find all primes less than ‘N’ or finding all factors of all numbers less than ‘N’ (I’m hoping to have a little fun while interesting/intriguing my daughter in programming at the same time).
You can also download QBasic from the Microsoft Website (I believe) but to be sure you might be wise to ask in a BASIC newsgroup, preferably with a real but temporary Email address.
Someone mentioned compilers, I suspect that in the early 1980’s I was one of very few people who used a compiler for the Apple II, it made the thing fly.
Windows programming is very different from what you did 25 years ago, it is possible to make it feel the same, but that is something of a Black Art.
VB.NET is actually very little to do with Microsoft, there is a product called Delphi that is based on Pascal - and is designed for a programmer who hates C but is Ok with a more rigid form of BASIC
Microsoft bought him
and he produced a hybrid which is probably Ok for new programmers and for large corporates but is nothing like the ‘Boy I have an idea, no computer knowledge, can I write a solution between now (7pm) and dawn’
Of course MS conveniently forgot that PCs were made valued by people who were not programmers, but had a problem to automate - yet MS wrote the BASIC for the PET, the Apple and just about everything else.
I’ve downloaded and installed VB Express and I’m really impressed; I have used VB5 and VB6 and I can’t tell what features have actually been pruned back to make these free versions ‘express’ - Admittedly, I haven’t dug very deep, but I can’t see what’s missing.