qbasic

QBasic

Keywords

This page is only a stub.

The last Microsoft development environment of the QuickBASIC family, released in 1991 bundled with MS-DOS 5.0, QBasic was an interpreter-only version intended to replace GW-BASIC. It inherited from QB, however, its simplified but still great text-mode IDE with a debugger and extensive online documentation through its Help menu.

As described, QBasic existed until Windows 95, when the interpreter, the editor and the help system were separated, and the interpreter was no longer bundled with the system from Windows 2000 onwards.

As of January 2024, however, QBasic was still mentioned as a useful and simple platform for introduction to programming, and used with emulators such as DOSBox in multiple platforms.

Most of the language features of QuickBASIC were implemented in QBasic — the Keywords box aside shows exactly the subset they had in common. Some limits and functionalities applied, though.

Where it is/was used

  • IBM-PCs with MS-DOS 5, MS-DOS 6 and Windows up to version 2000
  • DOS emulators

Noteworthy characteristics

  • An easter egg in QBasic can be found by pressing all the Shift, Ctrl and Alt keys together: it shows a colorful list of 13 names of its developers.

Environment and usage

Extensions

Curiosities

QBasic's text-mode IDE, a simplified version of the QuickBASIC one, was also the system text editor in MS-DOS 5 and 6. The executable EDIT.COM simply started QBasic in "edit mode" only. The BASIC interpreter was stripped out of it from Windows 95 onwards.

Influenced by

Influence for

Versions and successors

References

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