Qbasic

[Diesel]

Was anyone ever big into the online Qbasic community?

 

I remember spending whole weekends downloading qbasic games, and modifying the source to give me unlimited health, lives, etc.

 

I was checking out some websites and it appears the community is actually growing.

 

Too bad the games are getting worse.

 

On that note, around the time I was into Qbasic, I played a game called Solar Winds. What a fantastic game.

 

If anyone wants to play,

http://www.download-game.com/Adventure_Games.htm

 

What a great storyline. Also, don't bother saving your hyper drive energy for the long trek to the alien homeworld.

 

If anyone is interested, Im going to start programming a qbasic version of this game, Solar Winds 3.

 

In the interest of time, Im going to be using the DashX library and some keyboard handling libraries.

 

Experienced qbasic programmers and/or game programmers welcome.

[snarfblam]

I have recently seen some very fascinating games written in QBasic, including games with impressive (for QBasic) vector-based graphics and even games with graphics comparable to those of Wolfenstein 3D (what mechanism used to achieve these graphics and whether such mechanism is QB based, I know not).

 

As soon as I discovered QBasic in my oldmsdos folder on my Win95 CD (this was back in the day), I began to play with it non-stop, learning everything I knew from my existing Applesoft BASIC knowledge and the QB help files. When VB became available to me (it was installed on the computers at school for programming classes) I moved on to "bigger and better" things, becoming a self-taught VB programmer with a keyboard and an Object Browser in hand and QB in my past.

 

Unfortunately, I was never part of the QB programming community. When I discovered QB it was at that point where it was obsolete and before it became a novelty, and now I have .Net as a full-time hobby.

[samsmithnz]

I remember solarwind... that really was a great game. I might try and download it. Remember Starcontrol 2 though...? now that was a great space adventure game...

[Diesel]

Never played it. I looked at the screen shots though. Nice graphics for it's time.

 

Every play Tyrian? I loved that game. Awesome keyboard handling and gameplay.

 

Or how about Raptor? I actually bought that.

 

 

@marble: As for the Wolf 3d like qbasic games, they use an optimized form of raycasting. There's actually some qb demos from way back in 98' that show textured raycasting. Most of it is made possible because of the Dash library, a pure asm graphics library.

 

Anyone interested in checking out a nice qb game should check out Wetspot (or Wetspot 2). Good graphics, great gameplay.

[neodammer]

I used to make countless versions of 'Drug Wars' type games for Qbasic during school days. Qbasic is fun and although its not regarded as 'the' language of today its still imho a great language to at least know.

[IngisKahn]

Screw that, it's BASICA for me. It's not programming if you don't have line numbers! :p

[thenerd]

I've waited for this thread so long.

 

I love Qbasic. It was the first programming language I made. I remember my Asteroids game, my brickout game.. pong.. Countless hours of fun.

[IngisKahn]

Screen 13

heh

[Nate Bross]

qBASIC was fun. I wish I had more time to devote to the old school programming languages, and games. Astriods, Commander Keen, Duke 1,2,3D, DOOM, and later Warcraft II was such a sweet game...

[DiverDan]

Commander Keen got me addicted to Pepsi!!!

[thenerd]

I have recently seen some very fascinating games written in QBasic, including games with impressive (for QBasic) vector-based graphics and even games with graphics comparable to those of Wolfenstein 3D (what mechanism used to achieve these graphics and whether such mechanism is QB based, I know not).

 

As soon as I discovered QBasic in my oldmsdos folder on my Win95 CD (this was back in the day), I began to play with it non-stop, learning everything I knew from my existing Applesoft BASIC knowledge and the QB help files. When VB became available to me (it was installed on the computers at school for programming classes) I moved on to "bigger and better" things, becoming a self-taught VB programmer with a keyboard and an Object Browser in hand and QB in my past.

 

Unfortunately, I was never part of the QB programming community. When I discovered QB it was at that point where it was obsolete and before it became a novelty, and now I have .Net as a full-time hobby.

 

The people who make games with graphics comparable to wolfenstein barely use Qbasic. The way you do that is by programming an external qbasic library in C++ and then using that. Some of them change EVERYTHING even the syntax.

[snarfblam]

The way you do that is by programming an external qbasic library in C++ and then using that.

That is one possible way. Not to be argumentative, but it could also be programmed in another low level language. The QBasic program could also generate some machine language code which could then be executed using the call command. My point would be, of course, that there are various possible methods.

 

And, yes, three cheers for Screen 13.

[Diesel]

I've waited for this thread so long.

 

I love Qbasic. It was the first programming language I made. [/Quote]

 

Holy ****! Can I have your autograph?

 

Screw screen 13, how about Mode X.

[thenerd]

:o

 

Oops.

 

"Learned" was the word I was looking for.

 

Unfortunately, I am not Bill Gates.

[snarfblam]

I never figured out how to use mode x in Qbasic.

[ThePentiumGuy]

:o

 

Oops.

 

"Learned" was the word I was looking for.

 

Unfortunately, I am not Bill Gates.

 

Pfft. I read Gates' crappy (auto?)-biography. He was our age when he was programming TicTacToe in QBasic as his first game. No way he invented that ;).

[thenerd]

Dude, Gates created BASIC. (80% sure)

[snarfblam]

Dude' date=' Gates created BASIC. (80% sure)[/quote']

Awe... come on now, guys. If you don't know your geekoriffic history, do your research. Bill Gates had nothing to do with the creation of BASIC, or Jobs either. They all simply licensed BASIC to include with their operating systems/computers. I hate to see you guys giving Gates credit for something he didn't do.

 

From WikiPedia

The original BASIC language was invented in 1963 by John Kemeny (1926�1993) and Thomas Kurtz (1928�) at Dartmouth College and implemented by a team of Dartmouth students under their direction. In the following years, as other dialects of BASIC appeared, Kemeny and Kurtz' original BASIC dialect became known as Dartmouth BASIC.[/Quote]

[thenerd]

Typo.

 

Gates made

Qbasic

 

This, I'm very sure about.

Edited October 19, 2005 by thenerd

[ThePentiumGuy]

The original BASIC language was invented in 1963 by John Kemeny (1926–1993

I almost misread that as John Kennedy. :).

[TheEternal]

(first post, be gentle)

 

Wow. Qbasic. That was the first language I ever learned to write in, back in late middle school/ early high school (forgot when exactly). I used to spend hours just coding away and having fun with it.

 

I'd totally forgotten about it, too. Thanks for the reminder. I may have to break out an old copy tonight and mess around a bit.

[realolman]

The word refurbushed seems to get thrown around a lot. A guy from Dell, talking about their laptops, told me it means they got it back.

 

What does it mean?

[TheEternal]

The word refurbushed seems to get thrown around a lot. A guy from Dell, talking about their laptops, told me it means they got it back.

 

What does it mean?

 

It's a nice way of saying "Used but in good shape."

[snarfblam]

It's a little more than used but in good shape. It is inspected to make sure everything is in optimal shape, and anything that is damaged in any way is replaced. Anything that is dirty or worn is cleaned or replaced. I would say that when the word is appropriately used it generally means "Slightly used but in new shape." Depending on the consumer, this definition might be a little flexible though.

[Nate Bross]

I know this thread is devoted for qBASIC; but if anyone is into old school programming, and likes games. I highly recomend DarkBASIC, by The Game Creators, http://www.darkbasic.com. You can get a free trial and I believe the standard versions is about $40.00, and the professional is 89 or something.