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PC XT Basic Compiler

I don't think any of those would work for OP at the moment. What OP really needs is someone local to hook them up with either more recent DOS, laplink, or something similar.
patscc
 
CannedBread said:
Does a version of Basic come with DOS 5.0?
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DOS 5 comes with QBasic which is the interpreter/IDE portions of QuickBasic; no compiler is included. MS-DOS 6 also includes it; IBM DOS 6.x does not. Note: This will just about fill a 360kB floppy just for the interpreter and help file.
 
krebizfan said:
DOS 5 comes with QBasic which is the interpreter/IDE portions of QuickBasic; no compiler is included. MS-DOS 6 also includes it; IBM DOS 6.x does not. Note: This will just about fill a 360kB floppy just for the interpreter and help file.
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Hmm... are you sure about that? AFAIK GWBASIC was included in most versions of MS-DOS and Win 9x (if only to run EDIT) and QBASIC was still included at least through 6.22.
 
MikeS said:
Hmm... are you sure about that? AFAIK GWBASIC was included in most versions of MS-DOS and Win 9x (if only to run EDIT) and QBASIC was still included at least through 6.22.
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My MS-DOS 5 manual devotes page 547-548 to QBasic command switches. Of course with about 750 pages of combined documentation, there was no room for QBasic programming information. The IBM withdrawal of QBasic on the PC-DOS line is surprising but IBM preferred their editor.

Win 95 and later made Edit and QBasic into seperate EXEs with QBasic and some other files being in the downloadable file olddos.exe. OS/2 and NT included QBasic but I don't remember the details of them. Not that it matters since none of this will run on an XT.
 
Let me rephrase that: AFAIK every version of MS-DOS after V1 came with a version of BASIC, originally GWBASIC and, as of DOS 5 (including DOS 6.x!), QBASIC; in fact the DOS EDIT program relied on it. I did think that GWBASIC was still included along with QBASIC in some versions, but apparently not.

Although as of W95 EDIT was a standalone program, QBASIC was still included with W95 and W98 (DOS 7).
 
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MikeS said:
Let me rephrase that: AFAIK every version of MS-DOS after V1 came with a version of BASIC, originally GWBASIC and, as of DOS 5 (including DOS 6.x!), QBASIC; in fact the DOS EDIT program relied on it. I did think that GWBASIC was still included along with QBASIC in some versions, but apparently not.
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No, IBM went without QBasic. They used a variation of E instead of the QBasic/Edit that MS offered. See http://oldcomputermuseum.com/os/pcdos_6.1.html for one reference to that. Wikipedia and my memory concur. PC DOS 7 got a language but it was REXX.
 
krebizfan said:
No, IBM went without QBasic. They used a variation of E instead of the QBasic/Edit that MS offered. See http://oldcomputermuseum.com/os/pcdos_6.1.html for one reference to that. Wikipedia and my memory concur. PC DOS 7 got a language but it was REXX.
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Well, I was specifically talking about MS-DOS and I read your comparison of MS-DOS 6 (no .x) with QBASIC vs PC-DOS 6.x without it as suggesting that MS-DOS 6.x no longer had QBASIC either. I imagine IBM just didn't want to be beholden to MS any longer and when MS switched to QBASIC IBM probably thought it was a good time to go their own way.
 
Actually IBM PC-DOS 5 did come with an IBM-branded QBASIC/EDIT. The startup screens show "IBM DOS Editor" and "IBM DOS QBasic" and the copyright was changed to "Copyright (C) IBM Corporation, 1987-1991".

Back on topic, both QBASIC and QuickBASIC will run on an XT (or PC!) if you have enough memory. If you are low on memory you can run just the QuickBASIC compiler (BC.EXE) from the command line.
 
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