Power Basic Development to Continue

**dmontaine** · 06-02-2017, 00:34

As announced on the Power Basic forum - the Power Basic source code has been sold to Drake Software, a 350 person company specializing in software for companies that prepare tax returns.

The only downside so far is that they are discontinuing the availability of free versions of Power Basic.

A copy of the post follows:

PowerBASIC Has a New Home

Drake Software has utilized PowerBasic for many years and we are big fans. We are pleased to announce first to this group that we have acquired the PowerBasic source code from PowerBasic, Inc. We have developed software for over 40 years, and we intend to continue updating and improving the functionality for this excellent product into the future. We also recognize the unique community that has grown over the years through this forum, and the contribution many of you have made to the success of the product. We are looking forward to continuing that community.

Adam Drake
Drake Software

**Michael Hartlef** · 06-02-2017, 22:19

That sounds like good news for the PB community. Wonder what/when they will announce as the next features.

**ErosOlmi** · 06-02-2017, 23:04

First they need to master some lines of code

And not using the most easy programming language!
It will take some time

Hi Marc. Bob's code is pretty well organized and commented. If you count lines in the compiler (including white space, remarks, equates and executable code), there are over 400,000 lines of ASSEMBLER. So even if it is organized and commented, there is a lot to grasp.
Phil

https://forum.powerbasic.com/forum/announcements-articles-and-support-faqs/product-announcements/757277-powerbasic-has-a-new-home?p=757289#post757289

Seems good news. Maybe Drake Software will need a scripting language for their software

Anyway I hope they will work first on 64 Bits PB Version

**primo** · 07-02-2017, 15:32

thanks for the info. good to see a rescue for the powerbasic, we can see that it is for many people a culture and not only a commercial product.
the x64 version is a must at least for psychological reasons. unfortunately the technology was speedier than Bob Zale thought in January 2010: http://www.thinbasic.com/community/s...ll=1#post77325
after 2 years the x64 systems and OS's are everywhere.
i suggest to keep his style, except the ide which should be better.
i think translating assembly to C will make it easier to update the product. now the computers are much more speedier than in the old time.
this is what i could suggest

**medistat** · 12-11-2017, 08:49

Originally Posted by primo

thanks for the info. good to see a rescue for the powerbasic, we can see that it is for many people a culture and not only a commercial product.
the x64 version is a must at least for psychological reasons. unfortunately the technology was speedier than Bob Zale thought in January 2010: http://www.thinbasic.com/community/s...ll=1#post77325
after 2 years the x64 systems and OS's are everywhere.
i suggest to keep his style, except the ide which should be better.
i think translating assembly to C will make it easier to update the product. now the computers are much more speedier than in the old time.
this is what i could suggest

Has anyone done a conversion, ie moved from PowerBasic over to ThinBasic? Would be interested to know about similarities, ie what's involved?

**ErosOlmi** · 13-11-2017, 08:57

Ciao medistat,

thinBasic and PowerBasic are "internally" very different but the language is very similar:

thinBasic is an interpreted language that produces bundled 32bit executables
PowerBasic is a compiler that produces real 32bit executables or DLLs

The syntax of the language is very very similar: many sources just require few changes to be ported from one language to the other.

thinBasic has a lot more native commands due to its modular nature.
Sometimes just one line of code in thinBasic requires many lines of code in PowerBasic

In any case the biggest difference is the fact that thinBasic is an interpreter while PowerBasic is a real compiler able to produce machine code executable.
From that big internal difference, it derives execution speed: when many big loops are involved PowerBasic is faster.
But sometimes thinBasic has a native command already developed that is equally faster to some PowerBasic code.
It depends what the programmer is doing.