Where is the Basic, in Visual Basic?

[ThEiMp]

Yeah there are cheaper ways of Windows 8.00. My Computer currently running Windows XP, well that was $999AUD. Then much faster computer running Windows 8.00 is $599AUD!! Man I am really looking to change to a Windows 8.00, when programs and also applications have then been supported by the operating system, then!!

[Nightwalker83]

Yeah there are cheaper ways of Windows 8.00. My Computer currently running Windows XP, well that was $999AUD. Then much faster computer running Windows 8.00 is $599AUD!! Man I am really looking to change to a Windows 8.00, when programs and also applications have then been supported by the operating system, then!!

Wait! Are you saying Windows XP cost nearly $1000 when you bought it or are you talking about the computer package?

[DataMiser]

Has to be the computer with OS Windows pricing has stayed pretty constant over the years. XP home was around $100 and Pro around $200

[dilettante]

While this isn't really a Win8/Surface thread...

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/201...h-laptops.html

... might help shed some light once you get past the gay disco bondage image near the top of the page.

Those $599 Surface RT thingies run ARM processors, and 1 GHz of ARM isn't really even close to 1GHz of x86, let alone x64.

[DataMiser]

Not to mention that 1 ghz of x64 would be considered slow by most of us I am running Windows 7/8 on 6 x64 cores at 3.5ghz with 8gb ram and 3tb hdd with high end video and that system was less than $1000

I couldn't imagion running in on a single core 1ghz processor anymore. Been quite a few years since I used any PC with less than a 2ghz cpu

[ThEiMp]

Well my machine was an Intel Pentium IV Dual Core with about 1Gb memory, 256Mb video and DVD Burner. That was about 2004, I think???

[ThEiMp]

Wait! Are you saying Windows XP cost nearly $1000 when you bought it or are you talking about the computer package?

Well the machine was that price, and then Windows was free and OEM, as well...

[Vladamir]

The trouble with Windows 8 and Metro computing is that industry has a huge investment in software that will not run on these OS'es. All you young whipersnappers out there who think the phone or tablet will take over the desktop have got at least a decade to wait...and then those screens will have to project an image on the wall that's big enough for your tired old eyes to see. I am banging into my 5th decade of computer use and while none of you will ever catch me you're not getting any younger. When I see youngsters thinking that using their phone will handle everything, I say wait until you're in your early 40's and most of you will begin to notice how your eyes will not let you see those tiny little fonts on those tiny little screens anymore. And how short sighted your thinking was only just 5 years ago to think that all this new hardware will just appear...when the software most industries developed has not even been amoritized yet.

[ThEiMp]

Yes that's right. They put so much money into the design and programming and then they only have it around for about two to five years, at a time. If they are lucky. Also Tablets are the way to go, if they haven't got the same screen as the Tablet computer's do. Then they can continue to have the same Screen as do the Desktops. But then everything packed into the keyboard, as such...

[dilettante]

When I see youngsters thinking that using their phone will handle everything, I say wait until you're in your early 40's and most of you will begin to notice how your eyes will not let you see those tiny little fonts on those tiny little screens anymore.

I can empathize. And it is getting worse now even on the new generation of laptops and desktop monitors.

Acer’s Series 7 ultrabooks with 1080p screens: Too many pixels?

On the one hand, the display looks great when you’re viewing the Start Screen or apps designed for the new modern UI.

When you try to run a desktop web browser, on the other hand, everything looks very, very tiny. If you don’t plan to hold the laptop as close to your face as you typically hold a smartphone, that could be a problem.

But on the plus side, they'll make more money off you by keeping the cost of screens high or cajoling you into buying a new one when you don't need it.

Can't read anything? Well cough up the cash anyway and then just dumb it back down using High DPI settings!

[Vladamir]

But if you really want to see what the future of computing is going to look like....see this on youtube. It will make you stop and think about what a device really is.

[ThEiMp]

What an Autobot Transformer???

[Joacim Andersson]

What an Autobot Transformer???

http://imdb.to/29jJt

[ThEiMp]

Well this Thread has then taken an odd turn of events...

[Og_ofthejungle]

I'll tell you what I'd like to see: a beginning language that's language agnostic... huh? something that teaches basic fundamentals but is independent to a specific language. PseudoCode++#.NET6 soemthing that teaches logic and reasoning, I wish that flowcharting and UML and simple debugging were also taught... it's amazing the number of posts that crop up in here because someone doesn't know how to follow code or logic and debug their app... granted that's something that is dependent on the IDE... but still, it's somethign of a fundamental thing to do... all IDEs (the good ones at any rate) allow the setting of breakpoints, stepping through code... and all that... to me, that's where the real shame lies...

after giving it a LOT of thought (and restarting this post 4 times) ... I think I might have to agree... there isn't something small and simple that allows for the learning of the basics... two reasons I suspect for this: 1) academia isn't teaching the basics any more... I blame the ITT Techs for that which crank out the developers by the dozens of certifications at a time and 2) the boss's nephew syndrome -- their first foray into programming is VBA in Excel or Word... by the time they get to where they need something more powerful, they're getting into .NET ... and yes, that transition is a bit harsh.

If I had the time, the knowledge and the motivation, I'd take a shot at maybe creating a new kind of base logic type language... but it's not something that's in my wheelhouse, and not really something I want to undertake... I might be convinced to be part of a team though if someone else wants to spearhead it though...

Jsut sayin;

-tg

Actually, I think that something like that sort of existed... I'm referring to batch file programming.

It was originally intended to just allow programmers to debug a batch of applications at a time, but it was actually useful and there were a lot of things you could do with it, including loops, if/then statements, choices (branching), labels / goto, and all the real structures of more complex languages.

Yes, it was contemptible to real programmers, and yes, it was really just a script, and yes, it was really just DOS commands transparently duct-taped together, and yes, the batch file could be edited by anyone at all. But as a teaching tool...

[ThEiMp]

Well you really didn't need to know about programming when writing a DOS Batch file, because it used basic DOS commands from QBASIC that first appeared on the DOS 5.00 operating system. But I am not going before that, it's been far too long to go back to...

[Joacim Andersson]

I wrote DOS batch files in DOS 1.1 so it existed long before DOS 5.0.

[ThEiMp]

Really, that goes back more than twenty years, doesn't it???

[DataMiser]

Yes Dos has been around for a very long time. I was writing bat files 25 years ago and it was nothing new when I was doing it.

[Nightwalker83]

Yes Dos has been around for a very long time. I was writing bat files 25 years ago and it was nothing new when I was doing it.

Yeah, there have been different variants of it too! IBM Dos, MS Dos, etc.

[ThEiMp]

The Atari ST, back in it's hay day: Had a version of Windows that was of a very clever design, as well. However it was either 8/16-Bit, they didn't get quite up to the strengths that the PC and also the MAC does, today. I know my family (Mother and Father), owned a version of one, in the early Ninties, also that we then got a Intel PC, at the end of the golden age of computing where it wasn't cool to be a computer nerd. Now these days that is totally differnet and then what was in is now out. Out with the old and then in with the new!!

[Joacim Andersson]

Really, that goes back more than twenty years, doesn't it???

Yeah, it's more like 30 years ago.

[DataMiser]

Yeah, there have been different variants of it too! IBM Dos, MS Dos, etc.

If I am not mistaken those are basically the same thing. Bill Gates contracted with IBM to supply the OS for the first PCs which of course was Dos which he purchased from someone else for very little then licensed to IBM. He also made sure to get BASIC in there from the beginning.

Commadore had a windowed option that ran on thier Basic OS back in the mid 80s, there was also a windowed option on my first PC which ran under DOS 2.0

I think it is funny that people talk about PC vs MAC since MACs today are PCs as well. The major difference is the OS and the price. MACs are overpriced and run a different OS which does not support a lot of hardware or software. Where as Windows supports much more. PC is actually the name that IBM came up with. Compaq figured out that they could clone an IBM PC and make thier system compatiable to run software that ran on the IBM machines and from there the PC was unleased.

Back in the 80s the place where I shopped for computer gear had abotu 100 titles for IBM, about 100 titles for Apple and about 500 title for Commadore. By 1990 they had about 50 titles for Apple, maybe a 100 titles for Commadore, mostly the Amiga and about 1000 for IBM. Soon both the Apple and Commodore titles were gone and IBM/Dos were king.

[Doogle]

Yeah, it's more like 30 years ago.

and the rest. I was using a variety of 'Basic' using an ASR33 Teletype in 1973... on an ICL System 470 running Multijob.....

[ThEiMp]

-- I started programming for the C64, back in 1989. The C64 ran a total of: 64kb of memory and just made it to 8-Bit!! I cannot remember the operating system and also the GUI, at this point in time. Also I was writing using and owning an Atari ST, which was running a chip based operating system that you could be able to upgrade using a disk or hard disk drive, to do so. Also I was writing in GFA BASIC II, this was about 1991. That was the very first object oritentated programming that I was able to do. Here in this Thread I will then be able to scan in an image from the old book or mags, if you wish???

[ThEiMp]

Here is the very same magazine, in which I was reading last night, even!!
Attachment 93603

[Joacim Andersson]

Also I was writing in GFA BASIC II, this was about 1991. That was the very first object oritentated programming that I was able to do.

GFA BASIC was never object oriented. It did however get structures in version 3.

[ThEiMp]

Well this was what I was working with, when doing the Object Oriented design work. I brought back the dual sided scrollbar here on the PC, it's a build on my website, if you care to download it???
Attachment 93605

[Joacim Andersson]

Having a Form designer doesn't make a language object oriented. OOP means classes, polymorphism, inheritance and the like.

[ThEiMp]

-- Crikey!!

[Vladamir]

My dad showed me a computer when he was an accountant at the Southland Corporation, the parent company of 7-11 stores, back when it was an American owned company owned by the Thompson Brothers. That was sometime around 1966 or 1967. It was not too big but it was big and it was in a dark room with techs in another room connecting to it with cables of some kind. I didn't actually touch a computer until 1977 in my freshman year of college. That was a Wang main frame that did very primitive CADD work. Then in 1984 I bought my first computer which was an Apple IIe and when it booted up, you were in BASIC. There were programs galore for it but it was still limited so I ended up teaching myself Apple Basic and the book I purchased was supposed to be complete, but it didn't even mention file I/O and the more complex stuff which BASIC could do. Does anybody else recall CPM, Nibble Magazine and Beagle Brothers software. I recall writing some really neat stuff to do structural calculations only to go to the office and no one could run my programs because the office was full of PC's, not Apples. Apples were only in the schools. The first PC's I worked with used DOS something but I do remember in 1989 working with DOS 3.3. It had BASIC and BASICA. I never really paid any attention to the differences because I wrote only simple code. Then I discovered batch files and did even more. By then it was DOS 5, then 6 and then finally 6.2. I think that's where DOS died and Windows took over. By then the Macs were in full play and the players took up sides in a serious way. Turbo Basic was my first compiler and that came around 1988. Then I discovered a game called Gorilla Basic which came with the DOS OS on PC's. This was M$ program QBASIC and it would compile your code but you could not save the files. A retail version of QBASIC came out later and I still have a copy of version 4.5 around here. It will work on XP machines but not Windows 7 or later. Now the M$ has released the Express editions of VS I'm getting my feet wet again with Visual Basic. The learning curve has not been too easy but it's not what I would call hard either. The trouble is the client I'm working for wants the code working now and sometimes, most of the time, I have to forego good coding practice for speed. I recently read the yahoo article about an old computer from 1951 was rebuilt and actually booted the other day somewhere in the U.K. It's amazing to think that this machine is older than most of us older guys and it still works. Like where did they find enough vaccumn tubes for it.

Another strange thing is that according to the movie "The Pirates of Silicon Valley" Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, et.al duped IBM into believing they had DOS. When in reality it belonged to some hack in Seattle, WA and they purchased it from him only after IBM agreed to Gate's licensing terms. And the city in which that historic meeting took place was right here where I live in Miami, FL. And then one of the largest personal fortunes in the history of man was built on the results of that meeting. Makes you think.

[Joacim Andersson]

Another strange thing is that according to the movie "The Pirates of Silicon Valley" Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, et.al duped IBM into believing they had DOS. When in reality it belonged to some hack in Seattle, WA and they purchased it from him only after IBM agreed to Gate's licensing terms.

The story told in that movie isn't true though. Microsoft had a deal to sell their BASIC to IBM and when IBM asked if they also had an operating system Bill Gates said that they didn't. He instead referred them to Digital Research that had CP/M. However when the IBM executives met with DR the folks over there refused to sign an NDA, so IBM went back to Bill Gates and asked again if he could supply them with an OS. Now since Bill felt that the deal with BASIC for the IBM PC was hanging lose he promised to come up with something. So Microsoft bought the rights for QDOS from Tim Paterson at Seattle Computer Products for $50.000. After that Bill Gates talked IBM into letting Microsoft retain the rights to market MS-DOS separe to the name PC-DOS which was what it was called on the IBM PC.

Edit: Oh yes, I also remember when Angry Birds used to be called Gorilla.bas

[DataMiser]

The story told in that movie isn't true though. Microsoft had a deal to sell their BASIC to IBM and when IBM asked if they also had an operating system Bill Gates said that they didn't. He instead referred them to Digital Research that had CP/M. However when the IBM executives met with DR the folks over there refused to sign an NDA, so IBM went back to Bill Gates and asked again if he could supply them with an OS. Now since Bill felt that the deal with BASIC for the IBM PC was hanging lose he promised to come up with something. So Microsoft bought the rights for QDOS from Tim Paterson at Seattle Computer Products for $50.000. After that Bill Gates talked IBM into letting Microsoft retain the rights to market MS-DOS separe to the name PC-DOS which was what it was called on the IBM PC.

Edit: Oh yes, I also remember when Angry Birds used to be called Gorilla.bas

That is pretty much the way I remember the movie going as well, been a while since I saw it so maybe some small details are different but that seems to be the jist of it.

[Joacim Andersson]

No, in the movie it is claimed that Microsoft first goes to IBM and say that they will need an OS and that MS has one for them and then they go and buy QDOS (or 86-DOS which was its official name). That part is not true. Microsoft never claimed they had something that they didn't have and they first referred IBM to Digital Research. First after that that didn't work did IBM and Microsoft make a deal in which MS would develop their own OS. So they bought 86-DOS and used that as the base for MS-DOS. BTW, Tim Paterson, the original creator of 86-DOS joined Microsoft in 1981, the year after MS had bought 86-DOS.

[DataMiser]

Perhpas we saw a different variant of the movie? I remember IBM coming to Bill Gates and him referring them and then when that didn't work purchasing the rights to QDos for 50k and contracting with IBM on a royalty basis while still being able to market the OS under a different name. Never heard the term 86-Dos before ??? There was another part in the movie where Bill Gates did approach a company that was making a computer and told them that they would need an OS and sold them on the idea of using his BASIC on it but that was before the IBM deal.

[Vladamir]

I have the movie here with me now in vob format on one of my BSD servers. Don't need to watch it but could if need be. This movie is one of my favorites and while it may have taken some liberties with the truth, it definitely tells the tale that Gates and Ballmer flew to Miami to meet with IBM and in that meeting Gates told them that he had an OS for the computers that IBM was about to go into production on. It wasn't just basic, it was a complete OS to which Gates' character was eluding to in the film. At least as complete as OS'es were back in 1980. Gates told them that he could license them the software but he reserved the rights to be able to license it to other manufactures as well. IBM's people were convinced that the profits were in the hardware and easily relented. The movie goes on to show that at the time Gates and Ballmer were in Miami, the 3rd original partner in Microsoft, Paul Allen, was in Seattle making an offer to buy DOS from it's copyright owner. And they made a particular point in the movie to hammer home that M$ didn't have squat at the time of this infamous meeting in Miami and didn't know if Allen would be successful in negotiating a purchase for the OS.

As for the earlier machine that Gates was involved with that was called the Altair and it was manufactured in New Mexico. It was nothing more than a box with some blinking lights on it. Gates did make a deal with these guys by letting them know their machine was useless unless it came with a programming language (BASIC) to run on it. That is were M$ started operations and it was well before the IBM deal went down. So most of the computing world owes it's start to this humble language we call BASIC. Sure the first computers were built in 1947 and ran COBOL and Fortran, but the computers which went to the masses are what made the industry what it is. Imagine a world where only businesses used computers. I can't.

[FunkyDexter]

I'll tell you what I'd like to see: a beginning language that's language agnostic...

I absolutely agree with the sentiment but I think there are plenty of languages that fit the bill, they're just not pushed very hard commercially because they tend not to be good at producing anything that's commercially useful. I think the bit that's missing (as TG correctly identified) is that people don't spend the time learning how to think before they decide to learn how to program. Whether that's a failing of academia, industry or whatever, I really don't know. When I was taught programming we spent the first few months barely touching a computer but instead designing algorithms using a pen and paper. They taught is pseudo code and flowcharts before they ever let us near a computer.

Actually, I think a large part of the blame probably goes to a growth of the web. While I have no desire to diss web programmers (I've worked with many who were excellent), HTML and packages like front page have provided a wide open channel for people to come into the industry from a marketting/design background rather than an engineering background and that tends not to favour logical thinkers. Again, this is a bit like the Office Macro channel TG identified.

[Vladamir]

No sooner than I finished my post about Gates et.al. I watched another youtube clip which shows the actual people, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Paul Allen, the execs at IBM, etc... and apparently the movie while relavent took many liberties with the truth. What they described went down was only vaguely parallel to what was shown in the movie. Still the idea that M$ was started on the premise that an OS existed but who owned it was true.

[Joacim Andersson]

Actually, I think that something like that sort of existed... I'm referring to batch file programming.

It was originally intended to just allow programmers to debug a batch of applications at a time, but it was actually useful and there were a lot of things you could do with it, including loops, if/then statements, choices (branching), labels / goto, and all the real structures of more complex languages.

Yes, it was contemptible to real programmers, and yes, it was really just a script, and yes, it was really just DOS commands transparently duct-taped together, and yes, the batch file could be edited by anyone at all. But as a teaching tool...

If anyone is interesting in Batch file programming so have I created a tool called BatchBrix. It's basically a BAT to EXE compiler but with some additional functions. It supports all the old DOS commands but also have commands such as READLINE, WINDOW (which creates a "window" within the console window), it's own variable stack, FORECOLOR and BACKCOLOR to change the colors, MOVETO to move the text caret to specified coordinates, and a bunch more. And yes, you can compile the batch script into a stand-alone EXE file.

WARNING! The ZIP file I link to here contains a SETUP.EXE file. I have runned anti-virus scans on it but you run it on your own risk. I've written the program and I assure you that it doesn't contain any malware from my part.

The installation includes the BatchBrix IDE and compiler. Help files and some demos. The demos are installed in a subfolder of your Documents folder.

You can download it from here.

Here's a screen shot:

[Niya]

If anyone is interesting in Batch file programming so have I created a tool called BatchBrix. It's basically a BAT to EXE compiler but with some additional functions. It supports all the old DOS commands but also have commands such as READLINE, WINDOW (which creates a "window" within the console window), it's own variable stack, FORECOLOR and BACKCOLOR to change the colors, MOVETO to move the text caret to specified coordinates, and a bunch more. And yes, you can compile the batch script into a stand-alone EXE file.

WARNING! The ZIP file I link to here contains a SETUP.EXE file. I have runned anti-virus scans on it but you run it on your own risk. I've written the program and I assure you that it doesn't contain any malware from my part.

The installation includes the BatchBrix IDE and compiler. Help files and some demos. The demos are installed in a subfolder of your Documents folder.

You can download it from here.

Here's a screen shot:

Interesting. Did you do all the low-level stuff yourself ? I.e. I imagine there is a lot of stuff for token evaluations, expression evaluations, syntax checking etc...What language did you write this in ? When ? And how long did it take you ?