Gw Basic Online3/30/2021
There are several theories on what the initials GW stand for.Microsoft bundled GW-BASIC with MS-DOS operating systems on IBM PC compatibles.Microsoft also sold a BASIC compiler, BASCOM, compatible with GW-BASIC, for applications requiring more speed.The language was suitable for simple games, business programs and the like.
Since it was included with most versions of MS-DOS, it was also an inexpensive way for many would-be programmers to learn the fundamentals of computer programming. With the release of MS-DOS 5.0, QBasic, a cut-down version of the separately available QuickBASIC compiler, took eventually GW-BASICs place. Therefore, this language was inappropriate for large projects. GW-BASIC has a command line-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) based on Dartmouth BASIC. It also includes function key shortcuts at the bottom of the screen. Like other early microcomputer versions of BASIC, GW-BASIC lacked many of the structures needed for structured programming. The format of program source files is normally binary compressed with tokens replacing commands, or optionally ASCII text form. All IFTHENELSE conditional statements must be written on one line, although WHILEWEND statements may group multiple lines. Functions can only be defined using the single line DEF FNf(x) mathematical function of x statement (e.g., DEF FNLOG(base,number) LOG(number) LOG(base)). The data type of Variables can be specified with a character at the end of the variable name: A is a string. Groups of variables can also be set to default types based on the initial letter of their name by using the DEFINT, DEFSTR, etc., statements. The default type for undeclared variables not identified by such typing statements, is single-precision floating-point. GW-BASIC allowed for the joysticks, mice and light pen input devices of its time. GW-BASIC can read from and write to files and COM ports; it can also do event trapping for ports. Since the cassette port interface of the original IBM PC was never implemented on compatibles, cassette operations are not supported. GW-BASIC is able to play simple music using the PLAY statement, requiring a string of notes represented in a music macro language (e.g. PLAY edcdeee2dfedc4). Consequently sound is limited to single channel beeps and whistles as befits a business machine. Home based PCs such as the Tandy 1000, allowed up to three channels of sound for the SOUND and PLAY commands. A well programmed GW-Basic program is made of the following parts.
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