GW-BASIC
Welcome to a GW-Basic resource. The aim of this website is to consolidate as much GW-Basic material as I can find on the web and, where possible, make it available here.
GW-BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language developed by Microsoft from IBM BASICA in the 1980's. It was bundled with MS-DOS operating systems on IBM PC compatibles by Microsoft. The language is suitable for simple games, business programs and the like. Since it was included with most versions of MS-DOS, it was also a low-cost way for many aspiring programmers to learn the fundamentals of computer programming. (Portions from Wikipedia)
Fast forward to 2020 and there are still a few options to getting GW-BASIC on your computer. The first option is to install DOSBox, a free, cross platform MS-DOS emulator which is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and other Operating Systems. This is a MS-DOS emulator in which GW-Basic can be installed although DOSBox tends to be more used for playing DOS games.
A much better proposition than the original GW-BASIC would be PC-Basic, a cross-platform emulator for the GW-BASIC family of interpreters which is in active development. This is a more up to date solution with better integration with the users Operating System. e.g., Copy and paste from the user's OS to the PC-BASIC window, which is not available with GW-BASIC.
Some GW-GWBASIC resource's
- Kindly Rat's archived GW-BASIC website on oocities.org.
- PeatSoft has a good selection of programs, games and documentation.
- gw-basic.com Cory Smith has taken over this resource from Neil C. Obremski.
- Leon Peyre's page about GWBASIC Games & Other Programs
- Brooks deForest, large collection of programs and games.
- Phillip Bigelow has scientific programs for clever clogs.
- Gary Peek's BASIC Source Code Archive
- S.A. Moore Miscellaneous GWBASIC Source Code.
- Joseph Sixpack's Last Book of GW-BASIC.
- Wikipedia Wikipedia entry on GW-BASIC.
- MS GW-BASIC Online Reference Full MS GW-BASIC reference.
Books
Here are a selection books about BASIC rescued from web.archive.org. While some are about GW-BASIC, others are about Classic BASIC. Although the techniques explained are still relevant to GW-BASIC.
- Basic BASIC, 2nd Edition, James S. Coan
- Advanced BASIC, James S. Coan
- Commodore 64 Subroutine Cookbook, David D. Busch
- NCR GW-BASIC
- Structured BASIC, 2nd Edition, James F. Clark
- Tandy 1000 GW-BASIC Manual
- BLUE BLUE - BASIC Language User Essay, Thomas C. McIntire,
Disclaimer
Should any copyright holders find their content on this website and and do not wish to have it published here please contact me and I will remove it immediately.