PowerBasic - will it recover or is the Air out?

[Rick McNeely]

I talked to Gary Beene.  Sounds like he has a pretty complete copy of the forums.  IMO, PB would be worth a lot less with that information gone.

[Laurence Jackson]

The PB site is back up with no apparent changes.

[Frederick J. Harris]

If Bob were still around, I believe he'd say, "Take a deep breath fellers, and try to have a little faith".

[Theo Gottwald]

Yes, I thought they would change a bit here or there, but they really just moved to another server.
About PowerBasic

[David Roberts]

The PB site is back down again with no apparent changes; in the UK, that is.

[Theo Gottwald]

17:22 MEZ is PB down again?
I can't reload it.

The only semi-official thing i read today was a Post from Tom Hanlin.
It was interesting.
He said that he is stuborn and that he feels somehow that Bob was like a 2nd father to him.
Doesn't it mean on the otehr side, that he feels somehow that he is like a 2nd Son to Bob?
If so he could fill into some of these gaps that are now open at PB.inc.

The only problem is that he possibly will need some business people on his side to prevent that PB goes the way like his previous bussinesses.
Anyway technically - as far as i have heared - he seems to be a good match.
And from the character possibly too.

[Norbert Doerre]

Since the prestart times of "vista" i've been struggeling with the tendency of Microsoft and their overdrilled Windows OS. I liked the former more or less open platform of Windows and got more and more aware that they were on the trip to pack it into a black box, to make agreements with hardware "update" producers to urge users into a situation of permanent inevident revolution, not acompanied with real improvement of their hard- and software but with packing a black secret box with stupid utilities nobody really needs, irritating updates nobody wants and self sacrifying user interfaces nobody really wants to work with.
Not PowerBasic, but Windows has reached it's end, and this as a consequence of their growing primary interest only to make more money.
Comparing Windows with Linux, You see players on one site and professionals on the other.
Among the programmers of PowerBasic i never found players. So, during the last eight years the distance between Windows and Powerbasic has grown larger and larger. PowerBasic was and is a professional software with an much increasing value in comparison to Windows. I don't think that Bob is an enthusiast wanting to follow the player's and adverizer's direction Windows has taken.
During the last five years i consequently went on with PowerBasic because it IS a very good and structured software even to develop complicated math oriented software like CAD. So i transferred already my software in a first step to Linux successfully as a Wine application. I always missed something like "PowerBasic for Linux", and i'm shure that just this would be very helpful for serious programmers.
My English is only literal, and so i'm not able to always find the words, but i hope you understand. Windows has reached it's limits and will blow itself off, and the Microsoft developpers are trying to hide their unsuccessful programming with offering happenings of "Gordian Knots" they don't even understand themselves and a stupid "Colosseum for Players" as an advertisement screen for children and adults.

A quickly increasing number of professionals in Germany are already using "downgrades to XP" for their new computers because they have to earn money with them. Windows has in fact become a poison and cancer for technical applications. Just this is the reason why Bob might have given up, and i feel with him strongly.

Your's respectfully,
Norbert Doerre from Old Germany

[Steve Hutchesson]

Moving an existing forum is a terrible job, I have recently done it with a move from the UK to Australia and its some massive amount of work. Have some idea of just how big the database is for PowerBASIC and you will understand why its taking time to get going. It came back up for a while and was a lot faster from here in OZ but its down again. If you just try for powerbasic.com you get an empty Apache listing with a CGI-BIN directory showing so I guess things are still being moved around.

[Theo Gottwald]

Not PowerBasic, but Windows has reached it's end, and this as a consequence of their growing primary interest only to make more money.
Comparing Windows with Linux, You see players on one site and professionals on the other.

A quickly increasing number of professionals in Germany are already using "downgrades to XP" for their new computers because they have to earn money with them.
Windows has in fact become a poison and cancer for technical applications. Just this is the reason why Bob might have given up, and i feel with him strongly.

I agree with you Norbert. Never give shareholders the Captains hat.
But this is exactly what happens in USA at so many places.
This will lead to some interesting crashes.

PS: PowerBasic.com down again? (15:54 Tue)
The problem about it is, that the Captains have already installed bunkers for themselves.

[Frederick J. Harris]

I also agree with Norbert, although I'm not as against making a profit as he is (typical reaction from a Bourgeois American I expect ).  It also sounds like Norbert works with technical software, as I do.  So yes, there isn't anything Microsoft has done for many years now that is of any interest to types such as us.

When you think about it, Microsoft started with DOS/BASIC back in the early 80s.  At that time most computer users were coders, with a fair smattering of business and technical types.  Microsoft foresaw all the money they could make if the full technical and business community could be brought on board with a PC purchase and a copy of their OS.  With the advancement of Windows and COM/OLE that process was complete by say about 1995. 

The next big money making step would be if not only could they put a Windows PC in every science lab, class room, and business, but in every home in the world, then the bucks, marks, dollars, pesos, geld, whatever would really come rolling in.  That would be the internet boom between 1995 and 2000.  So now everybody has a PC and home network. 

Next step is to make money off of every digital toy that can be created and produced, e.g., cell phone smart phone, whatever.  And maybe to further that aim might as well dumb the PC down and treat it like just a big awkward cell phone.  Didn't even Ubunto Linux opt for that desktop treatment a few years back?  I think it was optional, but I believe it was the default, not? (at that point I gave up with Ubuntu too).   

So those few of us (relatively speaking , compared to the mass hoards with cell phones and other such gadgets) who use computers for technical reasons, aren't seeing much come out of Microsoft to please us.    And I suppose, from Microsoft's viewpoint, those relatively few of us who actually work with computers instead of play with them, can just go ahead and put XP or Win 2000, or Win 7 or whatever we want on our computers.  All the coding to make that work was done years ago from Microsoft's viewpoint.  All they really need to do is just keep it working, which they apparently have.   From what I gather even VB6 works on Win8.

[David Roberts]

Third time on the canvas.

"Take a deep breath fellers, and try to have a little faith"

PS But don't hold your breath.  I said don't!

[John Strasser]

Fwiw, I had a reason to call PB in Florida the other day (ok I was looking for an excuse anyway but what the heck. . .) and they said they were completely moving everything.  New servers, new offices the works.

So I should (would) expect things to be a little chaotic. I also remember them saying how they were looking forward to their upcoming vacations once things smoothed out.

I don't remember whom I spoke with though.  Sorry 'bout that.

John

[Theo Gottwald]

Couldn't you call them again, hypnotize them and make them say the truth about the future ? 
Or change their past in a way so they just forget the last weeks ? 

[Knuth Konrad]

PS: PowerBasic.com down again? (15:54 Tue)

Yepp, still down for me. Although it looks like it's not PB's fault, unless PB (the company) also runs an ISP business:

Can't ping www.powerbasic.com. Looking up WHOIS info returns these DNS servers:
     NS27.WORLDNIC.COM       205.178.190.14    
      NS28.WORLDNIC.COM       206.188.198.14

Can't ping both of them, so naturally, powerbasic.com is not reachable from the net anywhere.

[Theo Gottwald]

Are they possibly just in a provider switch?