Converting from an ancient BASIC to new database

[William Vaughn]

Since they didn't have so much as a hand-held calculator (it had not been
invented yet) and the 8008 had not been invented... yes, those "computers"
(mostly analog and RTL logic) were very crude by today's standards. Yes,
your watch is more sophisticated.

--
____________________________________
William (Bill) Vaughn
Author, Mentor, Consultant, Dad, Grandpa
Microsoft MVP
INETA Speaker
www.betav.com
www.betav.com/blog/billva
Please reply only to the newsgroup so that others can benefit.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
__________________________________
Visit www.hitchhikerguides.net to get more information on my latest book:
Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Studio and SQL Server (7th Edition)
and Hitchhiker's Guide to SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition (EBook)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Tom Lake]

Ah, would you rather launch yourself into space with the computers used in
the Apollo mission or those used today?
Oldies are just oldies... Yes, an old application might be just as good
(or better) than the day it was written but it might not work at all on
today's OSs or fall short of what today's users expect.

I might want the equipment of today but I'd sure like the engineers of the
'60s
running it! They could do wonders with just a slide rule!

Tom Lake

 

[William Vaughn]

I have one in a glass case that's marked "IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK
GLASS".

--
____________________________________
William (Bill) Vaughn
Author, Mentor, Consultant, Dad, Grandpa
Microsoft MVP
INETA Speaker
www.betav.com
www.betav.com/blog/billva
Please reply only to the newsgroup so that others can benefit.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
__________________________________
Visit www.hitchhikerguides.net to get more information on my latest book:
Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Studio and SQL Server (7th Edition)
and Hitchhiker's Guide to SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition (EBook)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Judson McClendon]

Oh man, last time I was at the Cape (~1990), the tour guy was saying
the computers in the lander weren't anywhere near as powerful as
"today's PCs." <shudder>

Even then, that was a vast understatement! The first mainframe I wrote
production code for (though it was at the end of its life cycle) was the
IBM 1401 in 1968, a second generation (discrete transistors) computer.
This was less than a year before the first Apollo moon landing in 1969.
The clock on the 1401 was 1kHz and it had 8k (of 6bit) RAM. The
second mainframe that I wrote production code for, which was fairly
new at the time in 1969, was the Burroughs B3500, which had a clock
of 1MHz and 250k RAM. My current PC is 2 years old, and the clock
is 2,400 times the clock on the B3500, a typical business mainframe of
1969, and has about 8,500 times the RAM, plus dual core processors.
And you can bet that the computers on the Apollo missions weren't
remotely as powerful as a 1969 mainframe, because a mainframe in
1969 filled a large room and required a *lot* of air conditioning. The
Apollo computers were about as powerful as a 1950's mainframe like
the IBM 1401, with about 8k RAM and a 1kHz clock. Typical PCs of
1990 were thousands of times more powerful (MHz & MBytes vs. kHz
& kBytes). Even the pocket calculators of 1990 were more powerful
than that! My HP-48GX calculator has 128K ram, with sockets for up
to 256k more, and the copyright on it is 1993. The HP-48GX can do
symbolic algebra and calculus.

 

[Karl E. Peterson]

Even then, that was a vast understatement!

Yeah, after posting that, I was thinking I may have misquoted -- that he actually
said "today's handheld calculators"...

Even the pocket calculators of 1990 were more powerful than that!

Yep. Exactly.

 

[DAVID]

He did not say that it was porting from MS Basic!

I agree that porting from MS Basic to VB is a
fairly small step. MS Basic assumed 64KB segments,
all variables have global visibility but only
local scope, etc.

But porting a big overlay program to MS Basic
would be just as difficult.

As for coding horror - well just remember,
people did object sub-classing and multiple
inheritance in Basic back when C was only
available on Unix.

Still, the moral ambiguity in my original message
was deliberate.

(david)

 

[Michael Mattias]

But porting a big overlay program to MS Basic
would be just as difficult.

Actually it would be silly. MS-BASIC would be an incredibly poor choice of
target languages to serve as a destination for such a project.

But... if one has one's heart set on using MS-BASIC for this project, better
to start with a clean sheet of paper and rewrite the application completely.

MCM

 

[Randy Reimers]

From the OP: (me)
Just trying to help a friend from way back, get them the ability to run
their present Basic code (or modified, or rewritten, or....) on "new" PCs -
XP class or so. Not trying to port to MS Basic, I was hoping to 'port it
into something modern - VB, VB.NET, Powerbasic, not sure what other flavors
would be "easy" for me to understand. The original progams are available as
text files, that would be easily copied or rewritten. The original set was
written as 90+ stand-alone programs, of which a set of 4 are a
split/overlay, as one program grew too big for the environment, and I split
it into a base with 3 overlays. I don't need to convert more than 25 - but
if I could get one, the rest would be easy.
I have looked at PowerBasic, and a couple of others. I must have "writers
block" - having a DIFFICULT time trying to get my brain around the
differences in the languages. I was hoping that one of the Basics would be
easier for me - but am drawing a blank.

I appreciate all the comments, and have learned some new things. I am a MS
network Admin, 15 years experience, can set up MS servers, Novel, and MS
workstations, and use VB scripting for logons, many other purposes. Far
from stupid, but as to what should be an easy task - feel real dumb!

Randy Reimers

 

[William Vaughn]

Traditionally, conversions have always been hard. I expect that you might
have better luck running a DOS Virtual PC to host your application. I have
written some very large programs (even OS-level utilities) in MS-BASIC,
others in CBASIC and others in HP BASIC--I would not try to convert this
code past the next version as there are too many disconnects between the
versions. It's also more than the language that's changed. The concepts and
logic have changed since those languages were in use. Yes, I agree, you need
to start from scratch... or run in a VPC.

Good luck


--
____________________________________
William (Bill) Vaughn
Author, Mentor, Consultant, Dad, Grandpa
Microsoft MVP
INETA Speaker
www.betav.com
www.betav.com/blog/billva
Please reply only to the newsgroup so that others can benefit.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
__________________________________
Visit www.hitchhikerguides.net to get more information on my latest book:
Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Studio and SQL Server (7th Edition)
and Hitchhiker's Guide to SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition (EBook)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------