Chapter I

Basic Commands
When you open QBasic, you see a blue screen where you can type your program.
Let’s begin with the basic commands that are important in any program.

PRINT

Command PRINT displays text or numbers on the screen.

The program line looks like this:

Type the highlighted text into QBasic and press F5 to run the program. On the screen
you’ll see:

 You must put the text in quotes, like this – "text". The text in quotes is called a string. If
you put the PRINT alone, without any text, it will just put an empty line. PRINT can also
put numbers on the screen. PRINT 57 will show the number 57. This command is useful for
displaying the result of mathematical calculations. But for calculations, as well as for other
things in the program, you need to use variables.

Variables

When you think, you keep words or numbers in your mind. This allows you to speak and
to make calculations. QBasic also needs to keep words or numbers in its memory. To do
this, you use variables, pieces of QBasic memory, which can keep information. A
variable can be named with any letter, for example – a. It can also have a longer name,
which can be almost any word. It is important to know that there are two main types of
variables – that keep a number and that keep a word or a string of words.
 Numeric variables. It’s basically variables named with just a letter or a word. You tell
this variable to keep a number like this:

a = 15
In other words, you assigned the value 15 to the variable a.
QBasic will now know that the variable named a keeps the number 15. Now, if you type:

PRINT a

and run the program, the computer will show this number on the screen.

String variables can keep so called "strings", which is basically any text or symbols (like %
or £), which you put in the quotes "". You can also put numbers in a string variable, but
again, you must include them in quotes, and QBasic will think that those numbers are just a
part of text. The string variables look like this – a$. The $ sign tells QBasic that this variable
contains text.

Example:

On the screen you’ll see:

It is nice to see you

The PRINT command can print more that one string on the line. To do this, put the ; sign
between the variables. For example, you have two variables – name$, which contains
name Rob, and age, which contains the number 34. Then, to print both name and age, you
type:

PRINT "Name - "; name$; ". Age - "; age

As you can see, the name of a variable can be more than just one letter – it can be a short
word which describes what sort of information does this variable keep.

What you see on the screen when you run the program will look like this:

Name – Rob. Age – 34

 Or, you can type the program like that:

The result is:

INPUT is a command that allows you or anybody else who runs the program to enter the
information (text or number) when the program is already running. This command waits
for the user to enter the information and then assigns this information to a variable. Since
there are two types of variables, the INPUT command may look like this – INPUT a (for
a number), or INPUT a$ (for a string).
Example (Type this program into QBasic and run it by pressing F5)

The END command tells QBasic that the program ends here.

You don’t have to use PRINT to ask the user to enter the information. Instead, you can
use

INPUT "Enter your name"; name$

and the result will be the same.

GOTO

Quite often you don’t want the program to run exactly in the order you put the lines, from the first to the last.
Sometimes you want the program to jump to a particular line. For example, your program asks the user to
guess a particular number:
The program then checks if the entered number is correct. But if the user gives the wrong answer, you may want
to let him try again. So you use the command GOTO, which moves the program back to the line where the
question is asked. But first, to show QBasic where to go, you must "label" that line with a number:

1 INPUT "Guess the number"; n 'this line is labelled with number 1

Then, when you want the program to return to that line, you type

GOTO 1

You can use GOTO to jump not only back but also forward, to any line you want. Always remember to label
that line. You can have more than one label, but in that case they should be different.

Chapter II
Mathematical Calculations
QBasic was obviously created for us to have fun, play games, draw nice graphics and
even make sounds. But, as you might guess, nothing good comes without a bit of effort
that has to be put in it. In the most QBasic programs a bit of math has to be done. The
math… Doh! If you hate mathematics, don’t worry. Qbasic will do it all for you, you just
need to know how to tell QBasic to do that.
Qbasic can perform the following mathematical operations:

Operator What it does Example Result

+ Add 7+2 9
- Subtract 7-2 5
* Multiply 7*2 14
/ Divide 7/2 3.5

Example 1:
 Result on the screen:

Example 2:

When you run this program it goes like this:

Computer: Enter the first number

You: Enter the first number 22

Computer:

You:

Computer:
 Advanced operations:
Operator What it does Example Result
\ divides and turns the result into 7\2 3
an integer(the whole number)
^ Raises a number to the 3^4
power of another number (means: 3*3*3*3) 243
2.5 ^ 3
(means: 2.5*2.5*2.5) 15.625
SQR Calculates the square root SQR(9) 3
of a number (because: 3^2=9)
SQR(16) 4
(because: 4^2=16)
SQR(5) 2.236
MOD Divides two numbers, and if the 17 MOD 5 2
result is not an integer (because: 17 / 5 = 3.4
(for example - 3.25), finds out 17 – 2 = 15
how much to subtract from the first 15 / 5 = 3)
number in order to get the
integer result.

Chapter III
How QBasic decides what to do

From the previous chapters you have learned how to create a simple program with
INPUT, GOTO and PRINT commands. In such a program, you are asked to type the
information, QBasic processes it and then shows the result on the screen. In many
programs (for example - games), the user has a choice of what to enter. In this case,
QBasic has to check what the user has typed, and to react accordingly. This can be done
with the IF...THEN command.

IF…THEN…ELSE

This command checks if an argument involving a variable is true. An argument may look
like this: IF a = 15 THEN... If the argument is true (and a really equals to 15), then
QBasic executes the command you put after the IF...THEN.
Example:

IF a = 15 THEN PRINT "OK"

If the argument is not true (if a is not equal to 15), QBasic bypasses this line and goes to
the next. In some cases, you can use the ELSE command, which tells QBasic exactly
what to do if the argument is not true.

IF a = 15 THEN PRINT "OK" ELSE PRINT "It's not 15"

This example means that if a equals to 15, the computer will show OK on the screen:

OK

But if a is not equal to 15, you'll see:

It's not 15

To check the argument in IF…THEN command, you can use any of these mathematical
operators:
Operator Meaning Example
= Equal to IF a = 15 THEN…
<> Not equal to IF a <> 15 THEN…
< Less than IF a < 15 THEN…
<= Less or equal to IF a <= 15 THEN…
> More than IF a > 15 THEN…
>= More or equal to IF a >= 15 THEN…
You can make QBasic to execute more than one command if the argument is true. To do
this, put those commands after IF…THEN and divide them with : symbol.

IF a = 15 THEN PRINT "OK":GOTO 1

This example means that if a equals to 15, QBasic will first print OK and then will go to
the line labelled 1. Here is an example of full program (a simple game):
Let's analyse how this program works. The first command, CLS, clears the screen so it's
empty. Then QBasic makes the variable score to be equal to 0. Then the Computer shows
the question:

How many days there are in a week?

You type your answer (a number) and QBasic puts it in the variable a. Then QBasic
checks if the number in this variable equals to 7 (because there are 7 days in a week). If it
equals to 7, the program goes to the line 2, where the variable score gets equal to 10. You
get the message:

How many days there are in a week? 7

and then the program ends. But if you gave the wrong answer (that is, the number in the
variable a is not 7), QBasic bypasses the line with IF…THEN, and shows the message:

You can then press the key 'y' to try again or press any other key to end the game. The
value of the key you pressed goes to the variable a$, which, if you remember, is a string
variable (because of the $ symbol), and can contain only strings (letters, words or
symbols). So the program checks if the key you pressed is really "y". If it is, the program
 takes you back to the line labelled 1, where the screen is cleared and the question is asked
again. But if the key you pressed is some other key (not "y"), the program ends.
Sometimes you may want QBasic to execute more than two or three commands if the
argument is true. Instead of putting all of them on one line, you can make an IF…THEN
block:

The END IF command at the end of this example. It tells QBasic that the commands, which
should be executed if the argument is true, end here. This is important to separate the
IF..THEN block from the rest of the program by putting END IF.

If you want QBasic to check more than one argument at once, use such words as AND
and OR. For example – you want QBasic to execute commands in IF…THEN block if a
is more than 12 but less than 50, somewhere in between. To program that, you can type:

IF a > 12 AND a < 50 THEN

Or, if you want commands to be executed if a equals either 6 or 12, you type:

IF a = 6 OR a = 12 THEN