History and specs of QB64 & Quick Basic software
I ‘found’ a copy of MS Quick Basic & started playing around with it. I was so excited about not having to shuffle line numbers around, I don’t even remember anything else. Then I had a kid, a life & an ex-wife and the rest is …
QB64 is a independent (newer) BASIC IDE based on Microsoft Quick Basic {I think}.
| Quick Basic | QB64 | |
|---|---|---|
| manufacturer | Microsoft | Rob Galleon & QB64Team |
| launched | 1985 | 2007 |
| last stable release | 7.1 (1990) | 2.1 (2022), 4.5 (2026)Phoenix |
| license | Proprietary (closed) | MIT (open) |
| sound | limited PC speaker sound | Plays mp3, wav, ogg & more |
| graphics | limited to 640×480, 256 colors | 32-bit High-res color, OpenGL |
| bits / ram | 16-bit / 640KB ram | 32/64-bit (16 exabytes) |
| operating systems | MS-DOS, PC-DOS, OS/2 | Windows, Linux, macOS |
| # of commands | 240 | 650+ (Phoenix Edition) |
Microsoft created Altair BASIC in1975. That led to GW-BASIC, along with lots of non MS products. And that lead to MS Quick Basic, out just ten years later in 1985.
I didn’t get much time with QB, I was married with a baby on the way, so I had no time for computers.
