Nirenjan’s Space

For those of you who don’t know what QBasic is, then you should do some research before reading this. Just kidding. QBasic is, essentially, Microsoft’s interpreter for the BASIC programming language.

I was digging through my old files today evening when I noticed an archive file titled QBasic. It’s been a very long time since I have programmed in QBasic. The last time I did something like that was about 6-7 years ago.

Digging through the archive, I found some pretty interesting programs that I wrote just for fun way back in ‘97. Just looking at them is a reminder of those glorious days. No design, no documentation, no review, no appraisal, no client visits, no on-site trips, no adherence to quality guidelines, in short, no process to follow :D.

There was one program that pretended to be a dialer, it would print some number on screen and play a tune from the PC speaker. You’d think that it was almost real. Then there was another program which pretended to be a RADAR. Then there were a few programs based on the TV shows of the early 90’s. Most of these programs were written based on my childhood fantasies. They seem almost absurd now, but then again, it’s a kind of window to my past.

I learnt BASIC when I was in the 7th and 8th grade as it was a part of my curriculum. I was so enthusiastic about learning a new language that I bought “Programming in BASIC” by E. Balaguruswamy. This was based on the early BASIC language in general.

After I finished my 10th, I got a new PC - Pentium II 233 MHz, 32 MB RAM, 2.1 GB HDD, 3.5″ floppy drive, 24x CD-ROM, Windows 95. Top of the line back then. (And the same system where the kernel panicked). Anyway, it had Microsoft QBasic installed as well, and I wound up re-learning BASIC all over again. QBasic provided a more structured approach to programming than the old BASICA interpreter did. And then the unexpected happened.

I never thought it would happen really. After a few years of working with BASIC, then Pascal, then back to BASIC, I finally discovered the world of Windows programming with Visual Basic. After I discovered the true power of VB, QBasic took a back-seat and never resurfaced, until now.

Now, however, I prefer programming in C, and my knowledge of QBasic is almost zero. C has the power to do almost anything, something which you cannot even dream of in QBasic. However, QBasic is, and always will be, one of my pet programming environments.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 31st, 2005 at 11:21 pm and is filed under Programming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.