I am back playing with comm ports again.  Way back in the old days it was possible to talk using inp and outp  to twiddle RTS n DTR.  As well as read DTR n CLS.  Nowadays it's not possible to get to those signals.  It's all because of VCSP (virtual comm serial port).  It's possible to have 255 serial ports in windows.  In the original PC comm ports maxed at 4 physical ports.  Now the VCSP port could be a alternative to a 8250 comm chip.  Or even not a comm port but a Ethernet serial interface device.

I am trying to test the above control signals, to identify bad ports (combination of loop back and such).  I need a way to set and read the control signals.

I suck at DLL interfacing with QB64.  Which is where I assume be VCSP signals need to be accessed.

Any help here maybe ?

We are trying to run certain .exe programs on a IBM 486 running DOS 5.02 to make sure they are backwards compatible. When attempting to compile an QBasic 4.5 program with BC.EXE we get the following error and would like to know how to solve it.: 

(source code below the running program)

* Triangle Math 1

A while back I could have sworn I saw someone post code that identified the CPU and speed using a Declare Library but I can't find it. Furthermore, I would have saved something like that in my box of goodies but I can't find that either?? Is my age finally messing with my brain or did I in fact see this code recently?

[qbjs]'Option _Explicit
'_Title "Tessellation 4" ' b+ 2023-05-19
' Inspired by Charlie's BAM example
' https(colon)//qb64phoenix.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=1646&pid=15772#pid15772

' b+ 2023-05-09 - Tiling with a pattern
' Tessellation 2 will try color filled with more background black.
' Tessellation 3 Charlie mentions a mirror image for interesting tessellating,
' lets try mirroring both x and y axis.
'
' Tessellation 4
'  Use b key to toggle between
'      1. 3 color tessellation
'      2. 4 color tessellation
'  and use c key to toggle between
'      1. a random set of colors
'      2. contrast (a red, a green, a blue and 4th is white)
'
'DefLng A-Z
Randomize Timer
Screen _NewImage(800, 600, 32) ' full rgb range here
_ScreenMove 250, 50
Dim Shared Pix '  Pix is number of pixels to Tile side
Dim Shared Scale ' Change a pixel to a bigger square block for not so subtle patterns
Dim Shared Tile '  Handle that stores Tile Image in memory to call up with _PutImage
Dim Shared B '    Toggle color mode from 3 to 4 and back
Dim Shared C '    Toggle Contrast set and Random set of colors
ReDim Shared Pal(1 To 4) As _Unsigned Long ' palette to hold 3 or 4 colors
Dim K$, t$
Do
    K$ = InKey$
    If K$ = "b" Then B = 1 - B '        toggle coloring mode on a b keypress
    If K$ = "c" Then C = 1 - C '        toggle coloring mode on a b keypress

    ' update the title according current b and c toggles
    If B Then t$ = "4" Else t$ = "3"
    If C Then t$ = t$ + " Contrasted Colors" Else t$ = t$ + " Random Colors"
    _Title t$ + ">>> use b to toggle 3|4 colors, c to toggle random|contrast, any other for next screen"

    MakePalette '                      3 or 4 random colors according to b
    MakeTile '                          create a new random tiling pattern
    Tessellate '                        tile the screen with it
    _PrintString (740, 580), "ZZZ..." ' Show user we are sleeping awaiting a key press
    Sleep
Loop Until _KeyDown(27) ' quit when detect escape key on sleep

Sub MakePalette
    Dim As Long n, i
    If B Then n = 4 Else n = 3
    ReDim Pal(1 To n) As _Unsigned Long
    For i = 1 To n
        If C Then
            If B Then
                If i = 4 Then Pal(i) = C3~&(999) Else Pal(i) = C3~&(10 ^ (i - 1) * Int(Rnd * 10))
            Else
                Pal(i) = C3~&(10 ^ (i - 1) * Int(Rnd * 10))
            End If
        Else
            Pal(i) = C3~&(Int(Rnd * 1000))
        End If
    Next
End Sub

Sub MakeTile ' make a random tile to Tesselate according to B Mode coloring
    Pix = Int(Rnd * 9) + 4 '          sets tile size pix X pix or a 4X4 to 12X12 Tile coloring
    Scale = Int(Rnd * 6) + 4 '        to change pixels to square blocks
    If Tile Then _FreeImage Tile '    throw old image away
    Tile = _NewImage(2 * Scale * Pix - 1, 2 * Scale * Pix - 1) '  make new one
    _Dest Tile '                      draw in the memory area Tile not on screen
    Dim As Long y, x, q
    For y = 0 To Scale * Pix Step Scale
        For x = 0 To Scale * Pix Step Scale
            If B Then q = Int(Rnd * 4) + 1 Else q = Int(Rnd * 3) + 1
            Line (x, y)-Step(Scale, Scale), Pal(q), BF ' this should be integer since Tile is
            Line (2 * Scale * Pix - x - 1, y)-Step(Scale, Scale), Pal(q), BF
            Line (x, 2 * Scale * Pix - y - 1)-Step(Scale, Scale), Pal(q), BF
            Line (2 * Scale * Pix - x - 1, 2 * Scale * Pix - y - 1)-Step(Scale, Scale), Pal(q), BF
        Next
    Next
    _Dest 0
End Sub

Sub Tessellate ' just covering the screen with our Tile
    Dim As Long y, x
    For y = 0 To _Height Step 2 * Scale * Pix
        For x = 0 To _Width Step 2 * Scale * Pix
            _PutImage (x, y)-Step(2 * Scale * Pix, 2 * Scale * Pix), Tile, 0
        Next
    Next
End Sub

Function C3~& (n) ' New (even less typing!) New Color System 1000 colors with up to 3 digits
    Dim s3$, r As Long, g As Long, b As Long
    s3$ = Right$("000" + LTrim$(Str$(n)), 3)
    r = Val(Mid$(s3$, 1, 1))
    If r Then r = 28 * r + 3
    g = Val(Mid$(s3$, 2, 1))
    If g Then g = 28 * g + 3
    b = Val(Mid$(s3$, 3, 1))
    If b Then b = 28 * b + 3
    C3~& = _RGB32(r, g, b)
End Function[/qbjs]

So what am I doing wrong?

The Free Basic project has just released version 1.10 of their compiler.  To check it out you can download the latest release along with Paul Squires' integrated environment (win64) here: 

https://github.com/PaulSquires/WinFBE/re..._Suite.zip

The project page is here:

https://github.com/PaulSquires/WinFBE/releases

The Free Basic website is at:

https://www.freebasic.net

So, I have a nearly 7 year old daughter and she seems interested in daddy pounding on the keyboard when I am programming. I know scratch is a language for kids as well. Anyone have experince of it and can point me in a direction to have enough resources to teach it? Or should I just download it and it is all in the langauge already? Thanks!

I have been using this code for awhile. It is a CreateFile library function call.
Problem it work in Qb64pe-32 bit but in 64-bit throws a GNU C++ compilation error and I wanted to know why!?

Erik.

BASIC Anywhere Machine version (with mods) of a FreeBASIC game by MagicalWizzy (found here: https://retrocoders.phatcode.net/index.p...;topicseen)

• Run the program
  
• View the source code
  

I got the itch to do some Basic again and found out about the split and decided to follow along with QB64PE. I'm on Windows 11 and on both a rather old laptop (Thinkpad T480 but 8th gen i5) and a very new AMD system the compiler seems slower than I remember on my old desktop.

I suspect it's the compiler start up time since I don't notice a difference between very small programs and larger samples I've downloaded, so there may be nothing I can do but felt I should ask. Searching didn't turn up anything.

Thanks.

Troy.