|
|
|
Links
|
 Enhanced Creations: The (New) QB EC Programming Page 
Description: Angelo Mottola and Petter Holmberg's Enhanced Creations is no longer part of the QB scene, and they've closed up shop at their last QB homepage. Angelo Mottola now has a new C dedicated page that still offers all of the old QB releases. But one day, I happened to stumble upon a very old version of the Enhanced Creations site (1998 era), that I'm sure you'll find interesting.
Unique Features: Lots of information about Wetspot II including fan-made add-on levels which are no longer available anywhere else. In the Projects section you can read about Angelo's upcoming "set of routines," DirectQB: "Current status: [01/06/98] I'm still thinking how to organize the entire library, to make it easy to use. Nearly all the routines will be probably written in assembly, to ensure a fast execution; this project looks really hard, but I feel it can be done!" Also here is a great little section called the "Best of QB" with the best QB games from 1998 and before. Games in the top ten come with their own little reviews, complete with screenshots and an analysis of the code by Angelo. This site is a treasure trove of old QB goodness that is definitely worth a visit!
 QBasic Land 
Description: An old QB site offering a very good selection of games and utilities. This site has some of the best old games that were released for QB and skips over the more crappy releases that aren't so fun to play.
Unique Features: This site is a nice window into the QB world from many years ago. Its features are pretty limited to the game downloads section and a handful of tutorials, but it is a very well-done site!
 Yahoo! Groups: QuickBasic 
Description: This is the bastard stepbrother of the "qbasic" group. Created in 1998, this Yahoo! Group is scarcely ever used. Between 1998 and 2003 it had a total of 15 posts.
Unique Features: There are also no downloads and no links. If you actually want content, go to the Yahoo! QBasic group.
- Yahoo! Groups: QBasic
Description: A fairly active community hosted by Yahoo! Groups. Includes files to download and links, but the heart is the message board.
Unique Features: There are often small contents on this board. Recently there was a neat contest to create the best possible text adventure in under 3KB of code. The Files section has some original programs created by the users, too.
 QBasic By Razorback 
Description: This French QB site is adorned with kangaroos. Oh, and it also has original QB programs to download, such as a 3D modeller and a lot of "Sample Tests" of different SCREEN modes (I'm not sure what the sample tests do, though).
Unique Features: A total of about 15 programs are here. This site also has PowerBasic and Assembler code.
 Code Source
Description: A pretty typical QB downloads page (though there are also many GWBasic programs here too). Evingham, the site's designer, has contributed many of these programs such as his simple Western RPG SixGun.
Unique Features: Has a nice selection of simple older programs; most of them were made in 1995 or earlier. You'll see some familiar names on this site, though, like Fred Buffington and Tim Truman (two veterans of the QB scene, dating back to the very beginning).
 PeatSoft Freeware
Description: GWBasic and QBasic programmer who has made a nifty program that converts GWBasic code to QB code (though as you know, it's mostly compatible already anyway). Also here are a few Peatsoft originals including a QBasic Kaleidoscope and QFonts, which are original font routines.
Unique Features: This simple little page has a handful of downloads in both GWBasic and QB as well as some Windows programs. It's organized and text-based, with brief descriptions of all the programs. Doesn't really bring anything new to a seasoned QB programmer, though.
 Secret Guide to Computers
Description: The Secret Guide to Computers is a gigantic book that seeks to explain EVERYTHING you'd ever need to know about computers. Part of this book is a large tutorial on QBASIC programming.
Unique Features: The QB programming section is the largest of all the Secret Guide's programming tutorials, with four very long, very thorough parts. These are some of the most in-depth QB tutorials I've seen, taking the user from very basic PRINT statements to much more advanced programming techniques like memory cells. A great tutorial series!
 Eric Phelps' Windows 95 / DOS 7 Batch Programming 
Description: Large collection of tutorials and sample programs concerned with creating batch files for DOS. Any programmer knows that these are quite often essential for running more complex programs split into separate modules.
Unique Features: The "Sample Win9x Batch Files" section has a ton of QB programs that will help you create, modify and manipulate batch files. This site is good even if you're using the tutorials just to create a DOS .bat file and are not even interested in the QB apps here.
 Belly Laugh Software
Description: Jonadab's Belly Laugh Software is a one-man QB enterprise that basically makes screensavers and simple text file utilities. Included are Loopy Anarchy and QKalied, a kaliedoscope program.
Unique Features: A small selection of simple programs are here. At least the company has a unique and funny name!
 Joel Kahn's QBasic Jewelry Gallery
Description: According to Mr. Kahn: "My day job used to be comptroller at a jewelry store. My hobby is computer graphics. These images are the result of combining the two environments."
Unique Features: This site is a collection of small QB programs that create graphical "jewelry" like rings and bracelets on your screen. There are dozens and dozens of these little programs here; perhaps you could give one to your girlfriend--it's a heck of a lot cheaper than actually buying a ring made out of gold and diamonds! This is a very odd hobby, to say the least.
 Eric Brasseur's QBasic Programs
Description: Frenchman's site (in English), offering a large selection of random technology-related content. Included are five QB programs.
Unique Features: Programs include four graphic demos: "These are four graphic demos based on the same principle. The first one is very simple, just a few lines. The last one is the most complicated. A "cougra" is the generic name my friend Frederic Cloth thought of for such figures." There's also a simple 2D satellite control simulator.
 TFM's PC Programming Page
Description: Simple little page with information about harnessing the power of SoundBlaster in DOS. Includes tutorials, and some QB downloads.
Unique Features: Programs to download include: QB mouse routines, a QB .voc player and a QB .pcx loader (Not really very intersting stuff). The Soundblaster tutorials are good though.
 QB World 
Description: French QB site with quite a bit of content (though it's all in French). Includes some original game programs including the cool-looking platformers MisterKid, QBSMario, and Niki v2.
Unique Features: There are also a nice selection of (French) tutorials and a lot of programs to download made by other people. These are mostly French programs that we English-speakers normally wouldn't come across, and some of them are quite good. Unfortunately, you might have a hard time navigating this site if you don't speak any French.
 QBasic Elysium 
Description: Small site specializing in newbie QB tutorials. It has a short series of its own beginners' tutorials, and hosts a small selection of other peoples' tutorials (such as Mallard's famous tutorials series).
Unique Features: In addition to the original tutorials, there are QB compilers to download here and a few simple programs.
 About.com: QB Questions
Description: Don Schullian (About.com's QBasic "expert") has been answering peoples' QB questions since 2000, and over the years he's built up a pretty nice little FAQ. Some of this infor here might be useful to somebody.
Unique Features: Not all of these questions and answers are very helpful, and some of them aren't quite what you'd expect; a few of these questions are "Do people actually still use QBasic?". But these FAQs might be helpful to somebody, and you can even send in your own questions and (hopefully) get an answer.
 Pasco's Page
Description: Pasco has been around the QB community for a long time (his website's been up since '97), and back before there were lots of amazing 3rd party QB libraries that give a speed-boost to any program, he was making great games with advanced concepts. Like Groov Buggies, the 3D wireframe racer (with a great 2D mode too), France '98 Soccer, his un-titled 3D vertical scroller, or his many mind-blowing graphical demos.
Unique Features: Pasco's page has gone through three different generations; this link goes to its second iteration, which is the most recent version that is still up. His newest page has disappeared from the Internet, but his oldest page is still available here. (In fact, the oldest page should probably be considered part of the second iteration, since there's a link to it on the opening page and it opens up within the frames.) Anyway, Pasco offers quite a few of his original programs here for download, most with a short description and some screenshots. His bigger programs like Groov Buggies and France '98 have longer descriptions. Pasco's page is a treasure trove of older QB games that rocked the community in their time--definitely worth a visit!
 Supercomputer.at/QBasic 101
Description: A QB site with a ton of different sections but with nothing in any of them! The website claims to pay people to upload QB programs, but there are only a handful of programs up: "Earn yourself $1 per upload. We keep track of it and will pay you off at over $10." I don't think that the offer ever *really* existed, or this page would be full.
Unique Features: The menu on this page has a lot of links, but each section is basically void of content. In all there are a half-dozen programs to download here and that's IT! And these aren't even good. They include Hangman and Address Book, with a few others.
 Basic Central 
Description: A site with info about a few different versions of BASIC and Pascal, but most of the info here is about QB. The webmaster is working to make his own BASIC compiler called BestBasic.
Unique Features: Has many useful tutorials on QB, and a decent-sized downloads library with some pretty good games. Its forum also is specifically about QB.
 Folker Fritz's QuickBasic Site
Description: A German QB programmer named Folker Fritz's site, where he distributes his original programs. Fritz has made a huge collection of QB puzzle / strategy games, many of which are clones (Tentris and Minefield come to mind), but others are cool original ideas, such as the strategy games Bix and Willyboy. Some programs are in German, some are in English. The site itself is in English.
Unique Features: This site features a nice layout, with each major release getting its own page with several different versions available. Screenshots are also provided. Additionally, there is a collection of image viewers for a whole bunch of different formats, such as .PCX, .IMG and .RAW. Nice layout and a lot of cool programs!
 Kedjikeen's QBasic Page
Description: Keji's site has several nice little programs that he made in middle school in high school. He has a three-game series called Break'n'Out where you "save the world" (kinda vague...), Crunch, a two-person strategy game where you try to conquer your opponent's station, a nice collection of several different card games and a program called Mazer that makes random mazes on the screen.
Unique Features: Each of these programs comes with a brief description and a screenshot. Also available are several of the subroutines, such as the Card Subroutine that allows you to "draw any card anywhere in Qbasic’s screen 13." This would be very helpful to someone who wante to quickly make their own QB card game without having to re-invent the wheel. There's not much to this site, but it does have a nice collection of simple programs that you might find entertaining.
 Stars Development Company
Description: Hard Rock's company, through which he has released games like the space shooter, The Terror, Pong Ultra and a cool Metal Gear style mini-game called Metal QB.
Unique Features: The Stars site displays its original products pretty nicely, with screenshots and in-depth descriptions. There's also a big sub-site devoted to Pong Ultra that's worth a look. A nice all-around site!
 AAP Official Projects Squad
Description: Adigun Azikiwe Polack's QB projects site. This is the guy behind Frantic Journey and Star Angelic Slugger, as well as the QuickBASIC Caliber Programming Competition. He is also a member of the QB coding group Aura Flow.
Unique Features: AAP has a very enthusiastic writing style, but from what I've seen of his programs, they are very good. Frantic Journey looks to have great graphics and great gameplay. This site has a nice design that showcases the graphics from the various AAP / Aura Flow games. Still, there's only a limited amount of content on this site.
 TopGun Software
Description: Developer of the platform games Space Commando. Space Commando 2 and the awesome-looking DOOM-style first person shooter starring the same Space Commando and green blob aliens as in the platformers. This FPS actually looks really great, and according to the author, has a blistering fast engine.
Unique Features: There's not much here; just downloads of the first two Space Commando sidescroller games and information about the upcoming Space Commando first person shooter. Space Commando 2 was a pretty good game, definitely worth the download!
 Scotiasoft HQ
Description: Three games are available at this small site: 3D Bobble, Tana Tuva Stock Exchange and Rowliner.
Unique Features: There's not much here, though there is a FAQ/hints page for 3D Bobble. Otherwise, just downloads of games (and this weird quote: "Scary dog, Evil dog, Mad dog").
|
|
Programs
