DOS ain't dead

Just found this while browsing the net. True Basic is a Basic by the original creators of BASIC, originally based on Darthmouth Basic. They offer a modernish version for Windows OS (and, for some reason, Mac OS Classic) and a few legacy versions including True Basic for DOS, OS/2 and Atari ST.

I asked ChatGPT about it and it said:

> True BASIC is a structured, cross-platform dialect of BASIC developed by
> John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz, aimed at providing a consistent and modern
> alternative to the fragmented BASIC landscape of the 1980s. Designed
> primarily for education, it supported structured programming features like
> procedures, control structures, and eliminated line numbers, making it more
> readable and maintainable. Unlike Microsoft’s BASIC variants (e.g., GW-
> BASIC, QuickBASIC), True BASIC emphasized portability and abstracted
> hardware details, which limited its use for low-level or performance-
> critical DOS applications. Though it offered both interpreter and compiler,
> compiled programs required a runtime, reducing its practicality for
> standalone DOS software. It found its niche in academia but never achieved
> wide adoption in commercial or hobbyist development.


TrueBasic is available here. Not free or open source, but it might be of interest to someone.

IIRC, the DOS version is from 1992.

There were lots of contentious debates about BASIC syntax (after the failed standards). Mandatory "LET" was one odd feature that TrueBASIC supported. I did take a superficial look at some other changes but never bothered buying the DOS version, though it wasn't too expensive ($19). (It's probably incomplete, abandoned, too different from others to be "portable".)

> TrueBasic is available here. Not
> free or open source, but it might be of interest to someone.

I was interested enough to click the link. While
browsing, I noticed the MSDOS version and thought
about MSDOS 4.0 and whether it would run on that
and be useful. I then remembered that I am the
"official maintainer" of BWBASIC, and that maybe
I should build an MSDOS executable. I then
remembered that HX is available for MSDOS 4.0 and
so I can run Windows executables and I already
have a Windows executable. I then remembered that
I included the PDOS/386 executables as part of the
Freewindows distribution, so maybe bwbasic was
already there. I then tried it. It gave an error.
Fixed that error. And it did work, but wouldn't
accept input. After a bit of confusion, I found
an unrelated bug, and fixed that. I uploaded an
updated freewin2.zip to pdos.org with a working
bwbasic.

> IIRC, the DOS version is from 1992.
>
> There were lots of contentious debates about BASIC syntax (after the failed
> standards). Mandatory "LET" was one odd feature that TrueBASIC supported. I
> did take a superficial look at some other changes but never bothered buying
> the DOS version, though it wasn't too expensive ($19). (It's probably
> incomplete, abandoned, too different from others to be "portable".)

Agreed. It's just a historical curiosity, for most. Or maybe nostalgia, for others.

The DOS version is from 1992 and IDE is much worse than Turbo Basic or QuickBasic. It uses non-standard key bindings and might have been dated even in 1992. Other than that, as you said, a specific syntax incompatible with contemporary solutions. And it's not a full compiler, either.

> > TrueBasic is available here. Not
> > free or open source, but it might be of interest to someone.
>
> I was interested enough to click the link. While
> browsing, I noticed the MSDOS version and thought
> about MSDOS 4.0 and whether it would run on that
> and be useful. I then remembered that I am the
> "official maintainer" of BWBASIC, and that maybe
> I should build an MSDOS executable. I then
> remembered that HX is available for MSDOS 4.0 and
> so I can run Windows executables and I already
> have a Windows executable. I then remembered that
> I included the PDOS/386 executables as part of the
> Freewindows distribution, so maybe bwbasic was
> already there. I then tried it. It gave an error.
> Fixed that error. And it did work, but wouldn't
> accept input. After a bit of confusion, I found
> an unrelated bug, and fixed that. I uploaded an
> updated freewin2.zip to pdos.org with a working
> bwbasic.

I didn't work much with BWBASIC, as I didn't write a line of BASIC since the 90s. But it should be much more useful. And is open source. :)

So, good job.

> I didn't work much with BWBASIC, as I didn't write a line of BASIC since
> the 90s. But it should be much more useful. And is open source. :)
>
> So, good job.

Thanks. It's really HX where all the magic is. It is
way undersold.

I was thinking about it some more.

So let's take the words Japheth used - something like
"HX is a mere DOS-extender".

Ok, so people here using DOS are happy to use DOS
extenders as far as I am aware. I don't think anyone
is insisting on not running any software that doesn't
fit into 640k.

So - if you're going to use a DOS extender - and the
author himself says it is a "mere DOS extender", then
how about we standardize on HX as the "DOS extender
of choice"?

I would have called it a Win32 mini-clone myself -
but what's in a name?

So depending on your point of view, you're either
still running DOS - by some definition of DOS - or
you're running a Win32 mini-clone - by some definition
of "Win32".

Either way - what's wrong with this as a choice?

And so everyone here "upgrades to Windows", finally,
on our terms.

Any reason not to do that?

freewin2.zip is one example distribution, but there
can be other distributions - and some may prefer to
swap MSDOS 4.0 with Freedos.

And all of these distributions - like all of the
distributions of Linux - exist.

Someone once said to me not to conflate "Linux"
with "distro" and added "the latter are all shit".

Perhaps the "Win32 mini-clone distros" can have
some non-shit distros? Any idea why the comment
would have been made about Linux distros, and
whether Win32 distros could overcome the factors
that led to that comment?

Also, there is another problem - manufacturers
are conspiring with Microsoft to obsolete old
hardware and software.

But if you simply treat a Linux distro as a
"glorified BIOS" and run Virtualbox under it,
also as part of the "glorified BIOS" and then
only run a Win32 distro - is there anything
wrong with that? I don't consider it to be
"cheating". The Win32 distro will run on real
(old) hardware if it is available. And there
are still some new computers that have a BIOS
anyway. If the manufacturers make things
difficult - so be it - just bypass that. And
in fact - new computers come with Windows on
them anyway - just do the same thing and run
the Win32 clone under Virtualbox under Windows 11.
Treat Windows 11 as a "glorified BIOS". Any
harm in that?

And on top of all that, there is probably a way
of using UEFI to present a BIOS to MSDOS 4.0,
now that the full chain of source code is
available. You probably need to disable interrupts
and switch to RM16, but that's probably not
impossible. There may be something I'm missing
though, so it needs to be proven.

So how about we make the move to 32-bit DOS,
with this (HX, basically) as the "standard
definition" of "32-bit DOS"?

BFN. Paul.