QuickBasic Cafe Forum

Friends: I wish to run QB4.5 under Windows 2000NT. I have installed QB4.5 on C drive. I enter 'cmd' in the 'run' box to get the little black dos-looking screen, go to appropriate directory, type 'qp', and up pops the beloved blue screen inside a window. I can type in the editing screen but can't click on pull-down menus. The windows caption reads 'select c"\WINNT\system32\cmd.exe-qb" '

Am I doing things correctly? Should I install the dosbox program? It also would be nice to be able to increase the size of the window with QB4.5 in it.

Allow me to note that it is exciting to encounter a community of QB users!

I have answered my own question. Yes indeed, QB4.5 runs like a top once DOSBox is installed on my Windows2000NT-running machine. Nice!

Edited later:
Oops!, you beat me to the punch! However, I think you will be much happier with the QB icon, as I described below. Do give it a try!

I wrote, before seeing your new post:
In Windows, go to the QB directory, where all the neessary QB files are. Co a right click on qb.exe, click on Create Shortcut, then, when you see the shortcut at the end of that directory, just grab it and put it on you Desktop.

Now, just a double click on the shortcut icon open up QB.

To get the full screen on opening QB, do a right click on the icon on your Desktop, choose Properties, select the Screen tab, then click on the Full Screen option button, then OK.

Now double click on your QB icon...QB should now be open in full screen mode.

Let us know if the above worked as I described, and, if this fixes your problems.

I got the shortcut Icon working as suggested. That saves me a number of steps -- going to the Z prompt, mounting the C directory, etc. And the display is now full-screen. Wow -- I'm thrilled to find Qbasic so well supported under new OSs. And I thought I was going to have to reprogram my lengthy Qbasic program in a newer language...

The gods be thanked!

Believe me, when I got my new computer, back in 2003, I couldn't run graphics in QuickBASIC 4.5 any more . I asked and asked, and got many ideas on what to do, especially a "Windows XP does not supportr QuickBASIC...That's your problem", but, none of the suggestions worked! Finally, a QB guru told me that I had a program running in the background, and that was the cause of my problem. I painstakenly searched-and found-which program it was, and, it turned out I didn't need it for my present setup, as it was only required for a previously owned scanner. I got rid of the background program, and, wos, I got graphics back, just like with Windows 98.

My other problem was the small window, just like you. I got the "how to" by asking around in the QB forums, and finally, someone guided me through the same path I led you. Please spread the news to any others you may meet, with similar problems. Windows XP lets QuickBASIC 4.5 run in every way that I have tried, so far.

QuickBASIC followers seem to get scarcer and scarcer each day, but, good luck with your programing. There are still a few knowledgeable folk who have stayed around, trying to help out, but, they are not many!

Ralph, I use QB for scientific computing -- my program pulls in very long meteorological records (e.g., hourly temperatures X 10 yrs), does a bunch of calculations, and spits out even longer output files. I tried TrueBasic but that program runs too slow for my needs -- maybe because of the double-precision accuracy of numbers. Well, I just need to get one more set of analyses done with my trusty Qbasic program -- I might have to learn a new program after that.

I keep hearing that FreeBASIC (fb) is the way to go! It is a free program, very well supported by a group of very knowledgeable and haelpful folk, who started out by taking QuickBASIC and changing it from a 16-bit program to a 32-bit one, compatible with Windows in every way.

If QuickBASIC doesn't solve your problems, please try fb. Me, I don't seem to have a need for heavier programming than QB, so, I'll stay here.