3 ms·
> This new editor is actually a reimplementation of the classic MS-DOS 5 EDIT program from 1991 MS-DOS 5 EDIT is actually just a stub which runs QBASIC in edit
by skissane 1y ago
> This new editor is actually a reimplementation of the classic MS-DOS 5 EDIT program from 1991
MS-DOS 5 EDIT is actually just a stub which runs QBASIC in editor mode, in which all the BASIC-related features are disabled.
Windows 95 EDIT was different, it actually had BASIC removed from the binary. I don't know if it was a rewrite or if they just deleted (or even #ifdef-ed) out the BASIC parts out of the source code.
QBASIC was basically just a cut-down build of QuickBASIC with some features disabled. The TUI part was provided by the "Character Windows" (aka "Character-Oriented Windows", CW or COW) library, a TUI-mode analog to the Windows 3.x API for DOS TUI apps, it was also used by some other Microsoft products such as Word for DOS. It would be great were Microsoft to open source it (although from what I've heard, significant chunks of this stuff have already been included in various leaks of DOS and Windows source code, but it would be nice to have it publicly available in a completely kosher way)
- donatj 1y ago> QBASIC was basically just a cut-down build of QuickBASIC with some features disabled Huh, I've wondered about the difference for the last 30+ years.
- mattl 1y agoQuickBASIC, Visual BASIC for DOS and PDS (Professional Development System) all had some variation on the same design. PDS has QuickBASIC Extended. I briefly worked with them.
- pico303 1y agoThe target market for this editor seems infinitesimal. Who on Windows these days groks the terminal on Windows, wants a terminal editor instead of Notepad++ or VSCode, and finds Neovim overwhelming? And certainly no one on Ubuntu is looking for this. That said, give me QuickBasic back in the terminal on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and now you’ve got my attention…
- skissane 1y ago> That said, give me QuickBasic back in the terminal on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and now you’ve got my attention… There are already open source clones of QuickBasic which provide what you want, plus a whole lot more, such as QB64 and FreeBASIC. While I'd love it were Microsoft to some day open source QuickBasic/QBasic/PDS/VB for DOS/etc, that would largely be of historical rather than practical benefit.
- TowerTall 1y agowsl2 users that needs to edit an file on linux springs to mind.
- pico303 1y agoI use neovim for that.