BASIC

[Narz]

Whats up my OT Civ people!? I've been away from the site for awhile being that I finally found gainful employment (I can't decide whether to [dance] or ). So anyway, the other night I was searching around online and I found a BASIC simulator . For anyone unfamilar with BASIC, its an old programming language previously used on the old Apple II computers, its fun and can also be useful for long strings of equations.

I found an old program I made but was too lazy (so far) to copy the code line by line. The program was inspired by my favorite game at the time (Dragon Warrior III), where the monsters fight each other and you gamble on them.

So my question is, what fun and/or productive thing should I do with my new little program. Any ideas?

- Narz

 

[Ren]

This really should be in the Computer Tech forum...

 

[Pillager]

Well, more for your entertainment than an idea, my first 'game' in BASIC (it was QBasic) was a text-based cricket game. It took me weeks and weeks to perfect, and then I lost the file (I can't remember how) just as it was near completion. Just think, I could be a multi-millionaire with my graphically thrilling cricket simulator. It did have different coloured text, though, depending on if the result was 'out' 'six', etc.

I bet you won't be able to program anything half as exciting...

 

[Narz]

Oh yeah, computer tech forum. Well, if an admin reads this, feel free to move it to that forum, I'll probably get more feedback anyway, thanks.

I bet you won't be able to program anything half as exciting...

Well Pillager, if you shared your knowledge of programming with me, I'm sure I'd be able to program something twice as exciting.

- Narz

 

[Jimcat]

Ah, BASIC, my first programming language. Convinced me at the age of 11 that I wanted to become a programmer. Then I got to college and discovered all sorts of other languages that scared the living heebie-jeebies out of me, so I changed my major to physics. Puzzling out quantum electrodynamics was a lot easier than puzzling out structured programming, and a lot more spiritually satisfying.

Then the Cold War ended and jobs for scientists dried up, and I ended up working in the computer industry anyway. Life is funny sometimes.

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

10 Print "Hello World"
20 Goto 10

 

[starlifter]

I still have various incarnations of BASIC, including GW Basic, BASCOM, QBasic, etc. They still run. They are amazingly small and compact, by today's bloat code standards. But then, they don't have the fancy graphics and Windows either.

Techincal analysis is still very well served by compiled BASIC (and other languages).

 

[Pillager]

I was just about to write

10 print "Hello World"
20 goto 10

But seeing as Gastric's already got there....hell, I'll post it anyway.


Narz, I would post what I know, but the complexity of it might just put you off programming in BASIC....


Then again, it may not....

 

[Narz]

I finally put all the code for the game into the BASIC simulator. And guess what? It still works, after all these years. It didn't copy and paste perfectly (many characters got messed up such as quotes and $'s) so I had to do a lot by hand. Oh well, it wasn't so bad.

Check it out : http://www.narcity.com/projects/basic.html

BTW, is the font on my site too big? Many PC users have complained about this though it looks fine on IE on my Mac.

Also, Pillager, tell me all you know, I can learn anything! If its too complex just let me know the genral concepts. Then I can use the forumlas, copy and paste and change the variables.

- Narz

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

Narz, your website background makes the text very hard to read. I know, you didn't ask for criticism or a complaint about that, but that was the first thing I noticed.

 

[Narz]

Thanks for the comments, I've been meaning to change that background anyway. Don't be afraid to critsize anything about the site, I appreciate all comments.

- Narz

 

[starlifter]

Interesting program, Narz! BTW, your text is large, but not objectionable, since the webpage is short. The red on gray is a contrast clash, IMHO .

 

[gonzo_for_civ]

I've only used QBASIC extensively as far as the BASICs go. QBASIC was a favorite of mine for 2 years and I even programmed a pretty awesome text based RPG. I took about 2 months to program and was very advanced as far as text based RPGs go. I don't remember the whole story but you were teleported back in time and had to find out how to get back to your house in the future while you solve several world problems in the meantime. My killer app so to speak was that you could use almost 10 different commands to do one action so if you typed in 'get' or 'grab' or a small list of other things it would get something. you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what to do. Unfortunately I got mad one day during the creation of the 2.0 version because of an error I couldn't find even with the help of QBASIC so I deleted everything QBASIC on my computer and that I put on the net. It was more of a hobby for me before I discovered civilization.

 

[darkwarpblade]

thats old basic. You shiuld look VB, its not hard to learn if you know QBasic.

 

[gonzo_for_civ]

Yeah, but I am a c++ man now. VB never held me once I fell in love with c++.


Still I remember the thrill when I made my first program!

 

[Pillager]

Originally posted by darkwarpblade
thats old basic. You shiuld look VB, its not hard to learn if you know QBasic.

Visual Basic? Hah.
QBasic? Hah.
GWBasic is what you want.....

 

[darkwarpblade]

yeah well where do you get it?