QNews QBasic Newsletter Issue Number 5 170 Members! -------------------------------------------------- Inside This Issue: 1. Hello 2. QB: BUG in Crypt v3.1 3. QB: and Win98 4. QB: Bring back Qb 4.5! 5. qb 6. QB: Tutors? 7. QB News letter 8. QB: Question about keys 9. The Final Say -------------------------------------------------- 1. Hello From: Sturm Date: Thursday, October 15, 1998 10:54 AM Is anyone out there. I have a question? When I downloaded QBasic it asked for Parameters. What do I need to put in there? I am new to QBasic and I feel lost. Any help is appriciated. -------------------------------------------------- 2. QB: BUG in Crypt v3.1 From: Deniz Özmen Date: Thursday, October 15, 1998 8:07 AM Warning to all folks who have downloaded (e.g. from Future Software) and use my QBASIC encryption program "Crypt v3.1"! I discovered a bug in it when I tried to develop and improve it: if a file is bigger than 1,000,000 bytes, the decryption routine will not work properly and refuse to decrypt the file, which is quite a significant error... I tried to find the bug for weeks, but I couldn't. If anybody would like to help me (anybody who can help me solve my problem will of course be mentioned in the new, graphical Version of this program), please mail to Deniz.Oezmen@T-Online.de Thanks! Deniz -------------------------------------------------- 3. QB: and Win98 From: Jim Robinson Date: Thursday, October 15, 1998 11:17 AM I have some programs written in QB4.5 and VBDOS 1.0 that have subroutines that act as a telephone dialer. Under Windows 98 QB doesn't seem to be able to open COM1. Anybody have any ideas? Jim Robinson jrobinson@creativemailings.com -------------------------------------------------- 4. QB: Bring back Qb 4.5! From: Fiach Reid Date: Thursday, October 15, 1998 1:02 PM (1) QBasic 4.5, as everybody knows has ceased being produced by Microsoft. The only medium of getting new copies is through piracy, where there is (I'm sure) hundreds of people out there willing to pay for a legitimate copy. Can this newletter encourage its readers to e-mail Microsoft to persuade them to bring back QB 4.5. (personally I would pay up to $100 for QB 4.5) contact: fiach@tinet.ie (2) With the advent of faster processors, many old QB programs are unworkable due to their speed. One major annoyance is that on pentiums and fast 486's single mouse button clicks are read as prolonged presses, causing multiple actions. Usually I use the expression: if (rnd*cpu_speed)*0.5 then ' accept mouse click where cpu_speed is aprox 0.1 for a pentium , and 0.5 for a 486 etc.. Is there anybody out there who could supply me with an expression that could differentiate between mouse (or key) presses and releases? contact: fiach@tinet.ie (3) Has anybody got a windows-style Qbasic menu system that they would like to share with others? - contact: fiach@tinet.ie (4) If there is any Qbasic Programmers with in interset in Electronics, e-mail fiach@tinet.ie for a copy of a Boolean logic designer. -------------------------------------------------- 5. qb From: newton fisher Date: Thursday, October 15, 1998 4:03 PM QBASIC on the Win95 ROM under other/msdos. Run pgm from CD save product in file in subdirectory c:>qb. [MD qb]. Editor / text-QBASIC same. Use. REM in .bat files dont DEL - in 95 use safe start and easy repair.] Why QBASIC? Cheap, Easy, There. English syntex. Development time = zilch Sokoban in QBASIC, maybe. Doom in QBASIC ha ha ha REM main COMMON SHARED c: REM must come before exe statements COLOR 15: REM ez to read CLS: REM cleans screen barf C = 0: REM sets value 10 CALL air1: REM calls SUB named air1 PRINT c: REM c print needs come after return to MAIN If c = 10 THEN END: REM without INKEY or this pgm in endless loop GOTO 10 REM SUB air1 c = c + 1 ----------------------------------------------- Ideas from above: 1. Keep QBASIC pgm short 2. Stay text / graphics are slow in QBASIC 3. Keep MAIN short 4. Use SUBs they can be reused in OOP style ---------------------------------------------- borg13@hotmail.com -------------------------------------------------- 6. QB: Tutors? From: @--->[!Terminator_Z!]<--@ Date: Thursday, October 15, 1998 4:17 PM Would anyone be interested if I were to write a series of tutorials for QNews? These would not however be like the simple tutorials I have seen around which cover the basic command set such as PRINT and CLS. They would be much more advanced, covering topics such as: Pixel morphing (morphing one image into another) Cross Fading (Fading one image into another) Shadey Bobs (A nice misc effect, hard to describe) Fire effect (Guess?) Lens effect (Producing a good looking lens over an image *not just a simple resize though*) Scaling (Resizing images) 3D Star fields (Like the Windows screen saver) 3D Principals (The math behind the 3D) Vector Balls (Balls which rotate in 3D) 3D Solids (Polygon fillers and hidden face removal) + Anything else that people want to learn about. I will only do this if there are actually people out there who are interested in learning how to code such things! Email me if you are interested! If I don't hear from anyone, I'll assume your all dead and won't bother... Email me: shadow@georgeg.force9.co.uk Check out FoX (The best QBasic game ever -coming soon) on http://critical.hypermart.net -------------------------------------------------- 7. QB News letter From: BCOM Date: Thursday, October 15, 1998 6:47 PM Hi Jeff. Sorry we have been oh so quiet!!! I have a question for the group.... Has anyone got info on qb networking , especialy internet interface for gameing etc... Dont know if it is even possible , if it is do I need a file server or can it be done on TCPIP addresing?? Maybe someone can help with that one.. Thanx for keeping up the group, I appreciate it greatly... You can review my game project x , its only a quick project but has some clever stuff,,,, sadly my HD got trashed last weekend so if you want the game , youll have to download it from my site ,,, www.btinternet.com/~qbasic. click on project x in the nav bar.. , then downlad it.. Bye for now and thanx,,, Steve -------------------------------------------------- 8. QB: Question about keys From: Colin Sharpe Date: Thursday, October 15, 1998 2:14 AM Dear Jeff, I have 2 questions I would like to ask you 1. How do you make keys do actions in QBasic eg.sounds and quitting and stuff like that? 2. Can you make QBasic play .wav sounds? If you can help me with the answers to these questions please E-mail me A.S.A.P at csharpe@apex.net Thanks Tim Sharpe -------------------------------------------------- 9. The Final Say From: Jeff Rapp Date: Sunday, 18 Oct 1998 Hey all! Good turnout this time! The QNews is finally starting to shape out. Keep sending in those letters and all that cool stuff! This week I will be reviewing a new product by Phil Garner. -------ASCII ARTIST------- ----Review By Jeff Rapp--- ASCII Artist is not your typical QBasic Art program. ASCII Artist is designed to help the budding QBasic genius make his or her own simple game or anything else their heart desires in screen 0. Yes, that's right, screen 0. That's the downside to this program is that it is an art program for the standard screen mode in QBasic and DOS. Although it is in screen 0, it does have a great Help system. I would like to see color and the ability to make a .BAS file in future versions of this program. The ratings are as follows. Category Rating Explanation Usefulness: 4/10 Text-based pics only. User Interface: 6/10 Easy to use UI. Use Again: 4/10 Great for that promo screen after your new game Overall: 5/10 See 'ya next week!! Jeff Rapp jrapp@geocities.com