BASIC was designed in the 1960s. Is it out-of-date?

Answer:

No. The fundamental principles of computer programming have not changed.

QBasic on your Computer

If your computer is running any variety of a Microsoft operating system, it can run QBasic.

If your computer is running DOS or Windows 3.1 it already has QBasic. Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT operating systems may have QBasic if it was chosen when the operating system was installed. Microsoft Windows ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP do not come with QBasic (but it can be installed on these systems. See below).

To check if your computer has QBasic:

MS DOS icon
  1. Find the Command Prompt on your computer.
    • If you are running DOS, this is the prompt that asks you for commands.
    • If you are running Windows 3.1, find the "DOS prompt icon."
      • This is usually in the Main window.
      • The icon is a little picture of the letters MSDOS.
      • Double-click on the icon.
    • If you are running a more recent operating system, click on the "Start" button.
      • Click on "Run"
      • In the "Open" box, enter CMD
      • Click "OK" (or hit "Enter")
  2. When you get a window with the prompt, enter the command: qbasic then press the ENTER key.
  3. QBasic should start up. The pictures in CHAPTER 1 show what you should see.

If you can not find QBasic after doing the above, you might still have it on your system. Browse through your disk, use "search" from the start menu (look for qbasic.exe), or maybe look at the documentation.

To get a copy of QBasic from the web, go to:

http://www.devedia.com/dosghost/dos/dos_vers.asp#olddos

Details about downloading and installing QBasic are given in Appendix A.

Additional information about QBasic (including suggestions for downloading) can be found at http://www.qbasic.com. (These links worked as of September 25, 2004.)

If you can't find QBasic, you can still read these notes. They won't be as interesting, but because of the active learning you will still be writing some small programs. If you are an Internet ace, you could try the microsoft web pages for a downloadable copy of QBasic.

QUESTION 6:

Are you eager to start chapter one?