What is Microsoft QuickBASIC 1.00E?

In the past there were a variety of reasons not to program in BASIC on the Macintosh. Programmers complained of an inability to directly access the Mac’s toolbox routines, a severe lack of control structures, antiquated debugging tools, and no support for linking to other languages. In addition, BASIC was interpreted, not compiled, and was therefore slow.

With the latest release of QuickBASIC, Microsoft has responded to these grievances, fusing its BASIC compiler and BASIC interpreter into a sophisticated and diverse implementation of the language.

QuickBASIC comes with two 800K disks: a program disk and an examples disk, both packed with programs. Also included is a 571-page manual so hefty that I constantly referred to items in the index. Most of the topics I needed, though, had no reference, since only the most obvious topics are indexed.

Version 1.0 of QuickBASIC comes with two compiler/interpreters on the program disk. A decimal version generates BCD code suited for financial applications, and a binary version generates IEEE code more suited to scientific applications. QuickBASIC also includes three run-time packages, for BCD code, IEEE code, and for running with a 68881 coprocessor. Included on the examples disk are many informative and well-commented example programs, as well as source-code utility programs written in QuickBASIC that enable you to create cursor and pattern resources.

The Toolbox, Debugger, and Editor

Many languages that run on the Mac require intimate knowledge of the Mac toolbox and its calls. QuickBASIC makes all this automatic so that the developer can concentrate on ideas, rather than getting lost in typical Macintosh housekeeping details. A routine named ToolBox lets you access toolbox routines based on the trap address and other parameters. QuickBASIC also enables you to create and access libraries. Another powerful feature is the ability to call routines written in other languages (such as LightSpeedC, assembly language, or any language that can generate pure code resources) to fine-tune the QuickBASIC application.

Microsoft has provided a good BASIC debugger in QuickBASIC, with which you can both step through and trace through a program. In Step Mode, each time you press a key, the next statement in the program is executed and surrounded by a rectangle (the same result occurs when the interpreter finds an error). In Trace Mode this process is automated. By using the IRON and TROFF calls to surround selected sections of program code, you can watch specific parts of your program execute at a slower pace. One of the nicest features of the Trace Mode is that you can see each of the graphic call statements in your program as it executes. You can also set dynamic breakpoints by selecting an option on the menu or by dragging a small Stop icon to a chosen spot in your program.

QuickBASIC’s editor is fully equipped. While editing you can cut, paste, and copy; unfortunately, the Undo function has not yet been implemented. When you press the Return key or move the cursor to a new line, each QuickBASIC reserved word is boldfaced. I liked this feature, but could find no way to disable it for those who may not.

In the Search menu you can find, search, and replace text (there is no wrap-around option). You can also get information about specific QuickBASIC reserved words by placing the cursor on the desired line and selecting Get Info. You can change this stored information with the Set Info option to suit your programming style. The final touch is the Bookmark option, which lets you mark lines of your program that you want to return to quickly. Using the Next Bookmark option you can easily traverse the bookmarks you have set.

The Compiler

QuickBASIC comes with two compilers, one for the BCD format and another for the IEEE format. These compilers offer many options: compiling the run-time code directly into a program, generating code for the 68020 processor or the 68881 coprocessor, generating static arrays, creating an error list, and many more (see “Compiling Options”).

I did a simple benchmark on the speed of the QuickBASIC compiler and interpreter, using the Sieve of Eratosthenes. To perform the tests I used QuickBASIC’s binary (IEEE) compiler on a standard Mac II with 1 megabyte of memory.

The interpreter took 28 seconds to execute the Sieve. QuickBASIC’s compile time (22 seconds) is not as fast as that of other languages. It took 4.2 seconds to exe- cute; with the 68020 and 68881 options enabled, however, this time was reduced to 2.3 seconds. I also ran the Sieve under Symantec’s LightSpeedC and found that although that language compiled machine code much faster than QuickBASIC did, it executed the Sieve in a comparable amount of time.

Rudolph, David J. (February 1989). Microsoft QuickBASIC 1.0. Macworld. (pgs. 240, 245).

Download Microsoft QuickBASIC 1.00E for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Mini vMac