{"slug": "qbasic", "name": "QBasic", "category": "editors", "category_name": "Editors and IDEs", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 4, "warners": 0, "score": 3.018, "rising": 0.35, "first": "2026-01-06", "latest": "2026-10-09", "why": "I too had my life changed by how convenient and complete QBASIC's help feature was.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I too had my life changed by how convenient and complete QBASIC's help feature was.", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": "mordenstar.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["QBasic", "QBASIC"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 800330624, "item_id": 50020664, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50020664", "by": "EdgarVerona", "date": "2026-10-09", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I too had my life changed by how convenient and complete QBASIC's help feature was.", "excerpt": "Yes! I have often wondered how many other kids had this experience. I too had my life changed by how convenient and complete QBASIC's help feature was. When I was 12, my dad brought home a laptop that the company he worked at was going to throw away. He convinced them to let him take it home instead, and turned it into our home computer. My brothers didn't care about it, but I became obsessed with it. Stumbled into Q", "context": "retired software engineer", "use_case": "learning programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "A browser-native classic Visual Basic VB6 IDE"}, {"id": 788636864, "item_id": 49289804, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49289804", "by": "vunderba", "date": "2026-08-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It\u2019s a love letter to everyone who learned to program on Microsoft\u2019s BASIC interpreters in the \u201980s and early \u201990s.", "excerpt": "Nice job. The sound effects are a bit too advanced because early IBM computers shipped with pretty simple, magnetically driven dynamic speakers. On a related note, I\u2019ve actually spent the last four months working on a 100% faithful adaptation of both QBasic and QuickBasic 4.5 that runs entirely in the browser on a virtual CPU and hardware abstraction layer. It\u2019s a love letter to everyone who learned to program on Mic", "context": "", "use_case": "Retro BASIC programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Donkey.bas is 45 Years Old \u2013 131 line of Glory"}, {"id": 785288048, "item_id": 49080503, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49080503", "by": "sras-me", "date": "2026-07-28", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "which was also a great thing about QBasic", "excerpt": "I am also doing something similar here [1]. But I decided to NOT use BASIC as the language. Instead I implemented a new language with more modern features like foreach loops, closures and a less verbose syntax etc. But the focus is still on getting the same IDE experience as QBasic IDE as well as the graphics/sound capabilities as the good old QBasic. Another priority was the availability of built in documentation he", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What apps are you building?"}, {"id": 744277584, "item_id": 46517349, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46517349", "by": "ferguess_k", "date": "2026-01-06", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'll introduce game programming to him using QBASIC.", "excerpt": "I'm going to do the same thing when my son is older. 6-yr old is a bit stretch as he is easily addicted to TV so I think computer is definitely another level up. Maybe 7-yr old is better. But I need to do it before his friends introduce pads and phones to him so definitely before 8. I'm thinking about getting a Rpi box slapped with an old monitor, a keyboard and a mouse. It should go straight into MS-DOS after bootin", "context": "parent", "use_case": "teaching kid programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What kind of setup do you run for your children?"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "EdgarVerona", "context": "retired software engineer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50020664", "date": "2026-10-09"}, {"by": "ferguess_k", "context": "parent", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46517349", "date": "2026-01-06"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["learning programming", "retro basic programming", "teaching kid programming"], "compared": [], "makers": [{"id": 799373776, "item_id": 49960861, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49960861", "by": "vunderba", "date": "2026-10-05", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've spent the last 6 months building a similar 1:1 faithful recreation of QBASIC and QuickBasic 4.5", "excerpt": "So I think you're talking about TYPES. TYPE PERSON AGE AS INTEGER FIRSTNAME AS STRING * 12 END TYPE DIM KURTZ AS PERSON PRINT KURTZ._ You could do something like this, but it wouldn\u2019t provide any kind of code completion or autocomplete to show the AGE/FIRSTNAME fields where the underscore represents the text cursor. However you are right that if you hit F1 on KURTZ it would then show User defined PERSON, and then you", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "A browser-native classic Visual Basic VB6 IDE"}, {"id": 785281616, "item_id": 49080101, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49080101", "by": "vunderba", "date": "2026-07-27", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "I\u2019m working on a 100% faithful adaptation of both QBasic and QuickBasic 4.5 that runs entirely in the browser running on a virtual CPU and hardware abstraction layer. It\u2019s a love letter to everyone who learned to program on Microsoft\u2019s BASIC interpreters in the \u201980s and early \u201990s. The whole project is fully open source. The best compliment I\u2019ve received so far is from friends who grew up in the same era I did: when ", "context": "", "use_case": "Retro BASIC IDE", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What apps are you building?"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49956681", "title": "A browser-native classic Visual Basic VB6 IDE", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49078588", "title": "Ask HN: What apps are you building?", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49289465", "title": "Donkey.bas is 45 Years Old \u2013 131 line of Glory", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47600496", "title": "Almighty Lisp", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46513089", "title": "Ask HN: What kind of setup do you run for your children?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 800330624, "item_id": 50020664, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50020664", "by": "EdgarVerona", "date": "2026-10-09", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I too had my life changed by how convenient and complete QBASIC's help feature was.", "excerpt": "Yes! I have often wondered how many other kids had this experience. I too had my life changed by how convenient and complete QBASIC's help feature was. When I was 12, my dad brought home a laptop that the company he worked at was going to throw away. He convinced them to let him take it home instead, and turned it into our home computer. My brothers didn't care about it, but I became obsessed with it. Stumbled into Q", "context": "retired software engineer", "use_case": "learning programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "A browser-native classic Visual Basic VB6 IDE"}, {"id": 788636864, "item_id": 49289804, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49289804", "by": "vunderba", "date": "2026-08-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It\u2019s a love letter to everyone who learned to program on Microsoft\u2019s BASIC interpreters in the \u201980s and early \u201990s.", "excerpt": "Nice job. The sound effects are a bit too advanced because early IBM computers shipped with pretty simple, magnetically driven dynamic speakers. On a related note, I\u2019ve actually spent the last four months working on a 100% faithful adaptation of both QBasic and QuickBasic 4.5 that runs entirely in the browser on a virtual CPU and hardware abstraction layer. It\u2019s a love letter to everyone who learned to program on Mic", "context": "", "use_case": "Retro BASIC programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Donkey.bas is 45 Years Old \u2013 131 line of Glory"}, {"id": 785288048, "item_id": 49080503, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49080503", "by": "sras-me", "date": "2026-07-28", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "which was also a great thing about QBasic", "excerpt": "I am also doing something similar here [1]. But I decided to NOT use BASIC as the language. Instead I implemented a new language with more modern features like foreach loops, closures and a less verbose syntax etc. But the focus is still on getting the same IDE experience as QBasic IDE as well as the graphics/sound capabilities as the good old QBasic. Another priority was the availability of built in documentation he", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What apps are you building?"}, {"id": 761894976, "item_id": 47618436, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47618436", "by": "nvader", "date": "2026-04-02", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to write Qbasic on DOS boxes", "excerpt": "I used to write Qbasic on DOS boxes, and the editor would have the same colours too!", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Almighty Lisp"}, {"id": 744277584, "item_id": 46517349, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46517349", "by": "ferguess_k", "date": "2026-01-06", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'll introduce game programming to him using QBASIC.", "excerpt": "I'm going to do the same thing when my son is older. 6-yr old is a bit stretch as he is easily addicted to TV so I think computer is definitely another level up. Maybe 7-yr old is better. But I need to do it before his friends introduce pads and phones to him so definitely before 8. I'm thinking about getting a Rpi box slapped with an old monitor, a keyboard and a mouse. It should go straight into MS-DOS after bootin", "context": "parent", "use_case": "teaching kid programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What kind of setup do you run for your children?"}]}