QBasic on WINDOWS 98 or XP

[Ralph]

To try to answer to PatB's question,

How would I access QBasic in XP?

All the programs that I know that can "run" in DOS or Windows (have never used Linux, but, I suspect the same is true there), have an extension of .com, .exe (an "executable" file), or .bat (called a "batch" file), The great majority are of the .exe type. In order to run any program, one must tell the computer its path and name. So, if you type in only the program's name (for QuickBASIC, the name is qb, or qb.exe) in the command line (in Wndows, Start, Run gets you there) , and it runs, you either have a .bat file, or short cut file, or the actual .exe file in that directory. If it doesn't run, you will have to find the directory (called "folder" in Windows) that it is in. Use Start, Search, For files or Folders, and enter the program's name (if you have no idea of its name, you might try entering just the extension, .exe, which will find all files ending in .exe, in which you can look for the program you need). For QBasic, I believe the name to use is QB. If that doesn't work, try Q by itself (you will probably find a whole bunch of such files, though). Once you locate where the proper executable (.exe) file resides, you can either make a shortcut to it by doing a right click on the program's icon and selecting Make a Shortcut, or you can go to that folder, and double click on the icon to run the program.

I know, extremely lengthy, and, probably, you "knew that" already. But, since you apparently have not made a proper search for QBasic, I have to assume you don't know how...

Tell us if you found it. However, if you still want to use QBasic, may I suggest that you download QuickBASIC, which is a superior and the most popular BASIC-type program in use, with freebasic, in my opinion, catching up in leaps and bounds? So, I would suggest that you either decide to use fb, or download QuickBASIC and give up on QBasic.