Talk:GW-BASIC

Untitled first comments
I moved this page from to 'Microsoft GW-BASIC intrerpreter' from 'GW-BASIC programming language'. My rationale for this is on the talkpage for Microsoft BASICA interpreter. Please note that I have done the same for Microsoft QuickBASIC compiler. cprompt

Perhaps someone should merge 'Microsoft GW-BASIC interpreter' with 'Microsoft BASICA interpreter'. There is different information in both articles, but a lot of it can be described in common. I could imagine it starting off with something like "GW-BASIC and BASICA were both BASIC interpreters developed by Microsoft..." I might end up doing it myself, but I welcome anyone else interested in this article to do so. ---cprompt

Whew.. BASIC. Old School. - PY

Are we sure that GW stands for "gee-whiz", or is that a joke? I was sure that it was Graphics Workstation. CGS 10:50, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC).

It is generally understood to stand for "gee-whiz" among the old-timers in the computer industry (i.e., me - alas for my grey hair). It might be an urban legend, of course, but that is certainly what I have always understod it to mean. GW BASIC realy was gee-whiz! Indeed, it is particularly memorable as it's the last time I am aware of that Microsoft ever had an unchallenged best-of-breed product that re-wrote the rules about what good software meant. Since then, of course, they have had many products, but none that were so damn .. er ... so damn "gee-whiz, look at this!" Tannin 11:57, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I once read that GW stands for "Graphics Window" (Window not as in "Microsoft Windows" of course but perhaps as in the GW-BASIC "window"-command). It's true that GW-BASIC had a fair amount of graphic commands (for its time of course), so who knows? HK


 * I can attest, too, that it was "Gee Whiz", and if not mistaken, that *might* be in an old old copy of PC-Magazine. I know that I read it somewhere, a book? Magazine? Yes, even though it's been a long time, I still have a working copy of the program on my machine here. The rationale behind "Gee Whiz" was not that the product had any significance, but that it was a sarcastic remark about the type of product the MS programmers were saddled with. If I recall correctly, the article was an interview with one of the programmers. Metrax 06:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The notion that GW stands for 'graphical workstation', is that it was BASIC for computers that replaced ROM-BASIC addresses for graphical memory. Since magazines like PC-Mag and many early computer magazines often had basic code, this allowed people with graphical workstations, (instead of text-mode machines) to still do these basic tricks.


 * On very small machines, like the Tandy 100 (a laptop with 8*40 character-mode display, ROM-Basic was the built-in OS, along with an Editor. The whole kit had 24 kByte memory (basically shared between system ROM, ram, and storage), [for $1000, you could buy another 8K.  I did not upgrade].  It was basically a kind of interface like GW-BASIC, with a file-selection one might see in U-BASIC.  (This has a similar interface).  The file system supports 32 files, but you could store things on CAS: or even, (by adding a COM file (by typing in the hex code directly), an external floppy disk on COM1.  --Wendy.krieger 09:05, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

New link
What is the justification for keeping a link to this site? As far as I can gather, it only has a few business programs, and not much else. The first site has downloads of GW-BASIC, and the second site contains the thoughts of one of the most experienced GW-BASIC programmers I know of - so why have a link to the other site? Graham/pianoman87 talk 07:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey! what happened to the Scottserver link? 76.232.52.111 18:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I have no idea - it seems to be a dead link. A pity - it was a great site. Graham 87 15:02, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Last version?
What was the last version of GW-BASIC? A web search seems to suggest 3.23.--JeffryJohnston 20:39, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, 3.23 was the last version released. The external links in the article support that as well. The next basic interpreter that microsoft released was QBasic. Graham/pianoman87 talk 13:30, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Equating GW-Basic as a kind of ROM-BASIC standalone (which exists under the name basica.com or basica.exe (compaq), we can see the last version was 3.40, supplied with PC/DOS 5.02.--Wendy.krieger (talk) 10:03, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Tokenized format
I've once seen a webpage extensively documenting the tokenized format. We could use that as a ref... if I can find it again. Shinobu (talk) 21:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I know of the Basic Language User Essay by Tom McIntire. It is a book describing tips and tricks for GW-BASIC, and includes a chapter on the tokenized format (chapter 2, as I've just checked). The HTML version doesn't seem to be available anymore, but here is the author's webpage from the Wayback Machine, containing a link to get the file as a self-extracting zip file containing a Microsoft Word document. I didn't realise the Wayback Machine stored program files. I don't feel comfortable citing a program file as a source - maybe if I put the original HTML or something up on another site? Graham 87 11:04, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

NOISE command
Can anyone point to reference material about the mentioned 'NOISE' command in GW-Basic ? Can't seem to find anything notable about it, and I myself was never aware (or made aware) of this command. 69.60.122.94 (talk) 16:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

0A and 0D for LINE INPUT
One drawback to using GWBasic now is that the LINE INPUT command expects a carriage return at the end of the line. Modern text files just have line feeds, not carriage returns, so GWBasic grabs the next 255 characters of the file and ignores the line feed. But it will operate as normal if, with a hex editor, you replace one with the other in the text file. I wonder if it would be possible to change the value at the right place in the GWBasic interpreter so that it expects a line feed rather than a carriage return and thus works normally? I have seen somewhere on the internet someone who has modified and made several changes to the interpreter using a hex editor. 78.146.77.179 (talk) 20:30, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * LF (^J) is the end-of-line character on Unix, CR (^M) is the end-of-line character on Macintosh, and CR-LF (^M^J) is the end-of-line character in DOS (and by extension, Windows). If you're running GWBasic on a Unix machine, then you will probably have to convert your files from ^J-terminated lines to ^M^J-terminated lines (or perhaps just ^M if it ignores the ^J). --ΨΦorg (talk) 16:38, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on GW-BASIC. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080629053601/http://classiccmp.org:80/pipermail/cctech/2005-April/042967.html to http://classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2005-April/042967.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 00:02, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on GW-BASIC. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080920032110/http://classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2005-April/042999.html to http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2005-April/042999.html
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2005-April/042967.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 19:24, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

GW-BASIC and graphics mode
I did some experiments with GW-BASIC in my grade school days.

On systems with graphics capabilities, GW-BASIC is able to operate on screen modes based on pixel graphics instead of just text. In such a screen mode, text input/output is still possible, and the displayed text is implemented as part of the pixel graphics.

It turns out that GW-BASIC recognises on-screen text and is able to interpret it as BASIC commands if the graphics in the corresponding places are pixel-to-pixel identical to the glyphs comprising the characters. If one single pixel has the wrong colour, GW-BASIC fails to recognise the character. Putting the correct pixel back makes GW-BASIC recognise the character again.

Should this be mentioned in the article? J I P &#124; Talk 10:45, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, if you can find a reliable source for it, which I understand might not be that easy ... Graham 87 14:09, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 05:07, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
 * MicrosoftGWBasicInterpreterV3.jpg