Mini Course on GW-BASIC

from the Anguilla Library Computer Club

Each of our computers contains a complete on-line BASIC tutorial including demonstration games and lessons. Here are some helpful hints:

These programs were written a LONG TIME AGO when keyboards had only CAPITAL letters! You must press Caps Lock before doing this lesson. And remember to press Enter after you type your input.
This lesson uses GWBASIC, which is older than QBASIC. If you are doing a BASIC lesson and the tutorial wants you to interact with GWBASIC yourself, you will see the word OK on the screen. To get back in the tutorial, type RUN. To get back to the club menu, type SYSTEM.
If you write a BASIC program and it goes out of control (perhaps printing POLLY forever), you can stop it with the BREAK key. This is usually Ctrl-PrtSc on your keyboard.
''Quotation Marks:'' BASIC expects you to type strings in quotes, as in "Hi World!". The tutorial displays this as ''Hi World!'' on the screen because PRINT "Hi World!" would actually print Hi World! without the quotes.

Screenshot of the Mini Course on GW-BASIC

Activity: BASIC Syntax

The Basic Tutorial is option 11 on the main menu and has 10 lessons. Start with lesson 2 and see how many you complete in 20 minutes. Try more next time.

Guide. This is a reference to GWBASIC syntax and commands. "guide.bas"
Print. This is a good place to start, then work your way through the other lessons. At the end of each lesson, you may practise with the real GWBASIC by typing "Z". If you do so, when you are done you must either type SYSTEM to get back to the club menu or LOAD "BTMENU.BAS",R to get back to the Basic menu. "print.bas"
Modes. BASIC is either in Immediate mode or Programming mode. "modes.bas"
GoTo. How to jump around. Hint: do NEW before writing a program. Otherwise you are modifying the lesson program itself, which is quite large. "goto.bas"
Let. Assign numbers or string values to storage variables. "let.bas"
For and Next. How to repeat something many times, but not forever. "fornext.bas"
Input. Reading characters from the keyboard. "input.bas"
If and Then. Do it this way sometimes, that way others. "ifthen.bas"
Read and Data. Fill your program with data. "readdata.bas"
Gosub and Return. Break your program into smaller pieces, called subroutines. "gr.bas"

Exploring: Each lesson and game is a separate program and has its own BAS file, as in goto.bas. The file names are shown above in small letters. If you want to explore, type LOAD "GOTO.BAS" in GWBASIC, then LIST. To get into GWBASIC, type B at the Basic Tutorial menu.

Word Scramble. This is one of the games on the main menu: option 5. Try word group A (3 letters) and D (4 letters), then Q to get back to the menu. Now study the program itself: "scramble.bas"