How do I get qbasic to occupy the entire computer screen.

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jimbo
Newbie
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2010 11:29 am

How do I get qbasic to occupy the entire computer screen.

Post by jimbo »

I have recently migrated to a Windows XP laptop (my wife's old laptop) since my Windows Vista computer died. I was able to just copy the old harddrive onto the XP machine. I found my qbasic.exe file, as expected, in the appropriate folder and when I click on it, it opens and I loaded a program that I wrote, but did not run it because I dont want to risk screwing up some data. This is the question and it's so "basic", I'm embarrased: I used to be able to get the initial dialog box to appear full screen (it seems all I had to do was enter ALT-E or something like that) and the whole screen was occupied by the blue. I want to do this for obvious readability concerns. If I click maximize on the window, it barely changes size. Hopefully someone can help.

Jimbo
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burger2227
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Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2006 12:40 am
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: How do I get qbasic to occupy the entire computer screen

Post by burger2227 »

Assuming you are running XP 32 bit, Qbasic graphic screens(1, 2, 7 thru 13) should go full screen all of the time. SCREEN 0 (or no screen mode at all) is a text only screen mode that will open as a window instead. Use Alt + Enter to go full screen.

To make a SCREEN 0 program go full screen from the start, use:

SCREEN 12
SCREEN 0

You can also use blinking colors 16 to 31 in full SCREEN 0 too.

Once a program using SCREEN 0 is full screen you have to use Alt + Enter to go back to the window size.

If you use QB64 the screen size is the literal text or graphic screen pixel size. _FULLSCREEN and _FULLSCREEN: _OFF can be used.
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jimbo
Newbie
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2010 11:29 am

Re: How do I get qbasic to occupy the entire computer screen

Post by jimbo »

Thanks so much, I've wondered about this for years, cause I knew I used to do it. Knew it was something like ALT-E. This will make the typing and reading much easier.

Jimbo
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