Talk:True BASIC

Unix/Linux version

I know of no TrueBasic interpreter/compiler for Linux or Unix, and no such interpreter/compiler is listed on the TrueBasic web site. Thus I am removing the assertion that those interpreters/compilers exist. --Popefelix 01:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

They exist. At one time the Unix compiler was even given away free to users who purchased the entire PC software set on CD, and, as I recall, it was available as a download from True BASIC, Inc. I had a copy running on an IBM RS/6000 workstation in the late 1990s, and it ran programs written for the PC with little or no modification. It didn't have the nice integrated editor that the PC version had, though; one would have to edit code with an external text editor, save the file and then run the compiler. I suspect it wasn't a big hit, so True BASIC probably stopped development on Unix/Linux versions. By the way, it's spelled True BASIC, not "TrueBasic", and True BASIC was never offered as an interpreter, only as a compiler. —Quicksilver (Hydrargyrum)^{T @} 22:03, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

My Optimal Scientist Software Package, written in filePro and True BASIC, is available both for DOS/Windows and SCO UNIX. I use True BASIC for relatively low-level programming--those times when database languages are useless. The syntax for True BASIC is excellent--it's very similar to what is called "pseudocode"--the language used for expressing algorithms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Transpower (talk • contribs) 23:37, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Request for expansion

There are no details regarding a request for expansion on WP:RFE, so I have removed the request for expansion tag. --Popefelix 01:56, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Possible vandalism

The sample code (print virus downloading, etc) looks suspicious. Also does anyone know why the "familiar equation" (not familiar to me, but presumably to some people - perhaps there should be a wikilink to explain what it actually is - differs between the US and UK? -86.137.136.182 22:23, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, y = mx + b!It's the formula to graph a line on a plot. m = slope b = y-intercept, which is the point where the line crosses the y-axis, and y is the line in general. 71.163.117.33 (talk) 23:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Sources

Yeah, the page is great and all, but the thing reads like an advert, and I'm not seeing sources for anything they're claiming anywhere. Resolve/Rewrite/Delete ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.249.164 (talk) 21:00, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

How about reading Back To BASIC: The History, Corruption, and Future of the Language, listed in the Further reading section, or is that too much to ask? —Quicksilver (Hydrargyrum)^{T @} 22:06, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a primary source; we really should have some sources from someone besides the creators of True BASIC.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:31, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

"First"?

it implemented a number of new features over QBasic,... It also was the first to provide a method for saving a portion of the screen and blitting it elsewhere, but had no proper buffering implementation.

This definitely sounds wrong to me. Qbasic allows you to use GET to blit a section of the screen into an array, then PUT to put it back on the screen. If they're talking about something else, it should be clearer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.32.37.109 (talk) 02:41, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Reception

What is the relevance to this article? Does the dismissive opinion of the irascible Jerry Pournelle — a science fiction writer educated in psychology and political science, not a programmer, engineer or scientist — matter at all? The statement showed a profound lack of understanding of what True BASIC could do, even in its first release in 1985: It was a compiler, not an interpreter, unlike all the rest of the microcomputer BASICs, and on a given processor would outperform any other BASIC available in the mid-1980s. It supported external subroutines and functions with local variables, which allowed writing programs with true recursion, something that is impossible in a language that uses only global variables. It had MAT statements for efficient work with matrices and vectors, something that had been present in HP BASIC around 1970, but had been stripped from the microcomputer BASICs until True BASIC appeared. Even though Pournelle wrote articles for BYTE magazine, his opinion sounds like that of one who had never worked with Dartmouth BASIC or one of its early derivatives, such as HP BASIC or Tymshare Super BASIC, had spent just a few hours with True BASIC, and thus had a very limited basis for comparison. One can always find a pessimist in any field of endeavor and decades later exhibit them as a humorous example of misguided thinking, such as those who declared even into the 20th century that heavier-than-air aircraft were impossible! — Quicksilver (Hydrargyrum)^{T @} 18:58, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Bug in the example

It seems that there's a bug in the code example introduced way back in 2006. Nothing ever updates the rnd variable to make the text appear somewhere else. Can anyone confirm/fix? .froth. (talk) 17:48, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

It is not a bug. rnd is a built-in function, not a variable. It updates automatically each time is is used. -72.71.132.162 (talk) 18:38, 2 February 2020 (UTC)