Back in the old days the IBM-PC, like most of its contemporary computers, shipped with BASIC in ROM. Even after it stopped living in ROM, IBM-Compatibles shipped with GW-BASIC, and now we have a project that asks: what if they still did? Thoreau BASIC is GW-BASIC, but updated for the 21st century.
It’s meant to be code-compatible with all old GW-BASIC code — which means, yes, line numbers and GOTOs abound — but it can boot from a modern x86 PC’s UEFI or run under Windows and take full advantage of modern hardware with 64-bit memory and multithreading support. Graphics are 24-bit at any resolution your monitor can handle, and there are a number of handy built-in commands to handle file management, graphics — including sprites — mouse and keyboard input, 32-channel sound, and more. It is also not strictly an interpreted language. Programs can be compiled to run under Windows or bare-metal on UEFI x86 machines.
It’s not open source, but the project is “pay what you want” over on Itch.io, where you can also see a number of examples.
We’ve seen other attempts to revive BASIC over the years, like MoonBASIC or BASIC-256, but we have to admit it’s never going to be the dominant force it once was, regardless of how nostalgic we might get. That’s probably for the best, but it’s still nice to know you can boot to BASIC if you really, really want to. Do you think it would work with our preprocessor?
QB64 and FreeBASIC too.
Point to qb64pe. Not qb64.
I didnt even know, thanks.
Does it support all the weird video modes and multiple voice beepers of the old Tandys?
Ohhhh, Does it have PROC support?
Bring it. BASIC was never meant to manage large financial systems or navigate jets – it’s in the acronym: “Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code”. The leap from BASIC to Python/Cxxx is much more pleasant than a cold start, and it will do a passable job of Runge-Kutta solutions and Mandlebrot sets for the motivated sorts.
This was the path I took in the early 90s with a hand me down Tandy 286 PC and Qbasic. I didnt do much with it at the time but later learning C++ I had a big headstart.
I started writing BBC Basic programs before I even had a computer.
I never owned Visual Basic 6 as I had Visual Basic 5 and didn’t want to spend any more money.
But without owning Visual Basic 6, but still using Basic 5 today, think Visual Basic 6 is the best version.
Have used VBA and Visual Basic Studio, but they are not as good.