Hi there!
You answers are interesting. I didn't know there is some movement in Qb64. I see that the compiler gets updated (that's the only news in Phatcode) but I haven't checked to see if people are making projects or porting old stuff by using this compiler.
Hi Relsoft, it's great to see that you are trying something with the DS. I am going to fire up my DS and check them. I tried coding something a long time ago, like a water effect I can touch with the touchpad and make ripples just for fun, I might wanted to make a demo or something for DS but it's a long time since I planned this and I forgot it. I am also interested for democoding in my GBA whenever I get the time.
What happened to AAP? He used to have that AAP Freebasic gfx demo central site among other stuff but it doesn't seem to be updated, since... maybe the end of 2008
Yeah, as long someone is interested in doing something, it doesn't matter much if the scene is alive or not. There are people doing stuff on 8bit machines nobody knows (not talking about c64 or stuff that people watch regularly demos, but strange 8bit machines like Oric or Thompson or MZ800 or whatever). Still it's a curiosity of me about where did everybody go.
About me and compilers and how I think them according to the scene feeling:
* Freebasic is good but there is something about it. It's like a C compiler with all the good libs (SDL, Fmod, OpenGL, etc, etc..) but with basic syntax. So, when I first started I really liked it. But later, I got used to the C syntax and loved that one, so there wasn't any reason to go back to Freebasic, because C did the same things Freebasic do and faster and I didn't hate C syntax to stay in basic. So, I am not motivated at all to do something explicitly for freebasic (but if there is a specific freebasic demo competition I might like to do something).
* Quickbasic? This is still in my interest. Why? Because it's not like Freebasic which is like a slower C with same good libs in windows. It's unique, you are in a restricted DOS environment and you just have qb. There is challenge. Some tutorials impressed me where qbasic coders still have to use hardware ports in DOS for sound, gfx, comms and others. It's the last scene where you can still do that. So there is a special feeling if I try to create a new demo effect in qbasic. In freebasic I know it will run and have all the memory availiable and a faster processor will make it worthwhile. But in qbasic you have to struggle with memory, to play with old VGA, which may sound negative but it's the only thing keeping my wanting to try new stuff. The only problem is I have to stick in Dosbox which is slow for basic (also Vista here, I have seen a demo from Plasma running in XP with sound somehow he did this, but Vista here
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/icon_razz.gif)
) or I might use an old Pentium laptop which will be fun with DOS.
* Qb64. I might have to look at this. If I can port my old demos easily it will be interesting. Still, it's a compiler running on windows that maybe avoids the restrictions of old good qbasic. Maybe it stops being challenging. But, if I decide to do something in old qbasic in DOS and still want people to be able to watch it in windows, then maybe I could provide both qb45 version and qb64 version if porting proves to be very very easy. That could be the way to go.