Interactive PowerBasic Forum

As we have learned, Bob Zale, the "Man behind PowerBasic", left us short time ago.

Then last days, i have heared that Jose wants to use less time in front of the computer.
In his situation a very good decision.

Looking at the forum there is not much movement here these days.
It looks a bit like "the air is out", at least for the moment.

Will we get things running again next year?

Fact is that the PB that we have is good as it is. There may always be wishes especially about X64, but PB is here and it is good.
And the work that Jose has already done is so much that i am sure, most people (including me) have no overview whats all there - already now.

Many of us can use Month and years just to use all the wrappers and stuff that IS NOW HERE.
Thats just the fact.

So i believe we will start into the new year a bit more slowly about Powerbasic.
And i wish Jose a good recovery from a hard year 2012.

A year full of movements goes to its end. Was it a good year for PB?
I'd say for PB it was the worst year in history.

But anything that looks so bad on first look, has a hidden good side also.
Let's hope that next year we will get strenght to explore the new chances the changes this year make possible.

Lets hope on new direction, new ideas, new decisions.

Lets hope that PB will recover and will be stronger then ever.

And especially that my and our all friend Jose will be healthy and motivated to stay more years with us and with a lot new ideas,
anytime next year!

PS: The year has not yet ended, and even the famouse 21.12.12 is not yet over.
Mayans predicted the coming of "Bolon Yokte" who shall introduce a new age.
Muslims call him "the Mahdi" and Jews and Christians expect "Jesus" to arrive.

So what is going to happen at the 21.12.12 ?

I'll personally light a candle at the 20th and hope that it still burns on the 25th.
And then we'll carefully watch if things happen that are expected to happen first
(for example if Ariel Sharon's death - he's possibly still in the coma).
and see what happens.

This year was already not an easy year and it has not yet ended!
Lets pray that 2012 will have a good end.

And may god bless us with peace in 2012 and also in the new year 2013 that shall come and starts as the first year of the new age.

Yes, I feel terrible about Bob's passing, as I said before Theo.  But we do have the benifit of his tremendous work, and that is PB Win 10, and CC6.  And we are all so much further ahead due to Jose's tireless work.  I really think that if it hadn't been for Jose, at this point we would all be just at the point of figuring out how to use Active X controls, instead of having had the ability to use them since he figurred out how to do it back in Windows 7 times about 2003 or so.  For these reasons I think there is a lot to be grateful for, even though some pretty terrible things have happened.

For my own personal situation, I could get by with PB Win 7 if I had to.  Just think of all the major improvements since then.  In PB Win 8 Bob was finally able to convert his asm codebase from 16 bit to 32 bit.  In PB Win 9 we got classes and direct VTable access.  In PB Win 10 we got static libraries and unbelievably good unicode support which makes the C++ way of doing things look silly.

In the larger picture Microsoft's infatuation with Apple's phone business and tablets has definitely taken the spotlight off desktop apps, which is I think where most of us 'live'.  So I don't think there will be all that much inovation there to do.  Win32 will just keep on going doing all the unglamorous grunt work of the computer field for business and goverment.   In terms of x64, I think the steam has been decreased there too for the reason I just mentioned; Microsoft wants to cut into Apple's phone business, and x64 doesn't really matter there much in that context. 

So I guess its good to try to look on the bright side.  It certainly doesn't help to dwell on the dark side.  I really doubt any programming community is more into helping one another than the PowerBASIC community, and by that I mean the folks at www.powerbasic.com, plus all the related sites such as here and elsewhere. 

But the bad has really been bad.  That is for sure.  I really feel everybody else's pain too.  Take Dominic, for example.  He's been working on his new release for years, and many of us are anxious to get it.  And just about exactly when its about ready - this terrible thing happened. 

I expect everyone who creates 3rd party tools for PowerBASIC feels likewise diminished. 

Its been a terrible year for me for other reasons.  Because of the things going on in the broader technology realm involving Microsoft and tablets, many, many years of my C++ work with data collectors and Windows CE was put in jeopardy.  I spent a good part of this year not programming but fighting my bureaucracy here at work over that issue.  Finally things got so bad for me mentally I had to distance myself from it and head out into the wilderness for a month to get away from it.  In my darker moments I felt like I was wasting my life writing code, which seems to be of such an expendable and ephemeral nature.  One of my greatest successes here at work has been the PowerBASIC programming I have done.  It has helped my organization a great deal.  And it won't be easy to replace, and I expect it will endure.  So that keeps me going.  On the data collector front, I may yet prevail.  We'll see. 

I think it is far too soon to start worrying about the future of PowerBasic. I think you are expecting too much from them at the moment. It has only been one month since Bob died and especially Vivian will likely have troubles getting used to this new situation. Most companies in this situation would likely take a couple months to sort things out.

I am sure Bob had hired plenty of good people in recent years so there is likely a good team in place to move forward. We just have to give them time to sort things out.

The best thing to do right now is "don't panic".

Even with PB 10 I personally have enough features to last me the next 10 years. About the only thing I would want might be 64 bit support, but even that is not critical yet.

I am a low level programmer, so I don't need all the bells and whistles many others need.

Christopher

I think the situation of Bob Zale, relative to his compiler and is strong personnality, is exactly the same than yours with EZGUI.
All the critical code is/was within the head of one single guy, and in the case of PB, only the secondary tasks were left to "the team"  :-X

Anyway, because we are all dying slowly, and because most of the PB community is part of the papy boom, most of them will be relunctant to move to something new, thus giving to third party addons some more time :)

...

Now with a developer like me, since I am a sole developer of course everything about EZGUI is in my head, but with the case of PowerBasic it is a company (a corporation) with a good number of employees who likely are responsible for coding PowerBasic. While we don't know how many and the things they do, they do have an R&D department responsible for research and development, which likely means Bob was not the sole R&D person.

I have to believe that Bob hired good people around him to do stuff like that.

Just think, people like Tom Hanlin had worked for PowerBasic for years in the past and Tom was an excellent assembly language programmer. So Bob, even years ago, had quality coders around him who could work on the core compiler, just like him.

Quotethey do have an R&D department responsible for research and development

No, Mr Zale was himself the R&D, that's for sure, and this has not changed from the time of PBDK (that was the only exception).

...

Patrice, I must say that  i have no real insight into "what happens at PB".
I only see the results and therefore i did an assumption on the style of things.

From feeling I'd say that some minor parts of PB - even of the compiler had been already done by some other person already in version 10.
While I assume that the great structure and the details were of course Bobs artwork.

PowerBasic website down at the moment.  Hope that's not a bad sign.

I don't think so. There have been problems during all the month and probably they are trying to repair it.

Let us hope that Mrs Zale is successful in finding an energetic developer or team to take the project on. Few of us are capable of inflating this particular tyre. José, you have done so much for this community, I hope that it continues to sustain your interest.

Maybe we should all put a few $$ into a pot and buy the company - then argue for ever about how to run it!

In this situation i would had prefered if they say something before shutting down.
However, having such good products in stock it would not make sense to "shut down" like this.
Therefore i also expect them to come back.

The sign for me will be the release of PB 10.04. There are a number of issues being resolved in that release and it would be a welcome Xmas present. I agree that the compiler can be used for many a year still, however it is also a motivator to explore other avenues, however painful it is for an old dog to learn new tricks. ;D  We have not heard much from Tom Hanlin, which is a pity as it would give confidence to me knowing if he is still around.

Thomas G. Hanlin III (http://www.tgh3.com/contactus.html)

Interesting...Much of the site is DOS orientated.

QuoteI've run Hammerly Computer Services, EllTech, MicroHelp, and PowerBASIC. Much of what you've seen from them is my work. Oh, even a little Crescent Software. I have been a lot of the BASIC industry. Let's break loose and get funky with it. Products coming.

Well talk about blowing smoke up your own... ::), I hope that PB do find a suitable replacement, but in the mean time, with a sad nostalgic heart I will start digging around for plan B.

QuoteMuch of what you've seen from them is my work. Oh, even a little Crescent Software. I have been a lot of the BASIC industry

Well, maybe a prerequisite for the job is a large ego. No disrespect, Bob!

I'm grateful to PowerBASIC for both introducing me to Windows programming in 2005 and providing some first-class tutors, including several of the contributors to this thread. Thanks!

But I'm getting ready to feel sorry for the people who bought a compiler last week.

Let's look on the bright side - on Monday, PowerBASIC may rise Phoenix-like with a different badge.

I hope that it IS just technical issues.  But, I am pessimistic by nature.  If they can't come back, I hope that they will release the source.  Don't see that happening either.  In any case, I never saw PB outlasting Win32.  Might be as good a time as any to move on.

2005?  Wow!  You've certainly learned fast, Chris. 

If it doesn't come back.  I'll miss the camaraderie of the forums, more than anything.  Even the beatings I took from MCM were usually worth it, in the end.  I was proud to have started the 8th longest thread on the board!  Wife says I'm good at starting fights and then walking away!

I know nothing about PowerBASIC, Inc. except what I've seen of the web in 7 years as a user. But it's fairly easy to do some simple math(s).

Last time I looked, the PB forums had 4,900 members - let's say 5,000. If you assume that only 1 in 6 of active PB users actually register on the forums (based on the normal lurkers to members ratio), that's about 30,000 active users (maximum).

If you assume each user contributes an average of $30 to $35 per year, which doesn't seem too far-fetched based on the observed comments of purchasing patterns of registered users (and about my own average), that's a (somewhat lumpy) average income of $1,000,000 per year. I think that's a generous estimate - and it might be half that some years which have no updates.

That seems to be enough to support a small staff, but I would estimate no more than 6 or 7. If any of them were programmers capable of stepping into Bob Zale's shoes, I feel that we would have heard of them before this - instead, all we have heard is vague references to the R&D department.

Even before the sad loss of Bob Zale, it was fairly clear to anyone who took a realistic view that PowerBASIC has a very limited future life. The average age of users is over 50, and PB seems to be picking up very few new and, crucially, young users.

All that being said, I will continue to use PB/Win, whether or not there is ever a new version, and continue to regard PB as the best kept secret in computing.

I think it is a little premature to start talking about PowerBasic's demise.

Jose mentioned they were having problems with their web site for some time, so likely they just had to shut it all down until they could solve the problem. I don't think PowerBasic is just going to disappear.

Yes, they are a small company, but they are still a company with decent customer base.

It always seemed to me that there were about 5000 active users of PB judging from the hits on the version update topics.  I don't know of any other way to find the update links which are free.  The big payday is the $100 per copy upgrade every 3 years which would equate to $500,000. They were about 1 year away from this cash infusion. If these employees are full time then I see a serious cash drain for Vivian, especially if they wanted a raise from their Bob's helper status.  The premature domain name hiccup looks odd to me, as there was no reason for it. Could be a frustrated Vivian pulled the plug to let Bob's work keep its dignity.  Maybe she does not need the money and feels she has no way to monetize PB anyway.  I wonder if Bob and Vivian had discussions of what to do with PB if a situation like this occurred.  The web lists Vivian's age as 72.  Not an age for most people to tackle a situation like this and keep things business as usual. Especially if you are not a geek.

Chris B., As I said, I'm a pessimist!  But I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

James Klutho,  While I have the chance, Thanks for one of the most reasonably priced and valuable tools I've ever bought.  Also, hate to say it, but your logic makes way too much sense.  All the next year can do for her is further lower her retirement pool.  If they have to replace Bob that will probably put off any updates and certainly any major releases.  It would probably be at least two years before she got a _chance_ to recover the losses she takes in the interim.

Glad you found MLG useful. You made my day. Jim

I have a bad feeling.

Either (1) PB is closed, or (2) it has been sold and the new owner is now doing the transfers.

A business that suffers a loss like this would by now have a specific plan and would be falling over themselves to reassure the customer base. Every day that goes by without contact will see customers abandoning ship. The programming world is fast and competitive. I would have expected to at least have received a PB Gazette detailing PB's new roadmap.

Personally, I am not betting my programming future on hopes, dreams and nostalgia. If I did that then I would have stuck with Visual Basic. That being said, I am sticking with PB or whatever it will eventually be called until after Christmas. After that, I will ramp up my current C# learning to a new level.

Website being down is a technical issue? Doubt it. Hell this is a programming company, not Mom and Pop's Gas station. A page with some info would be displayed.

Yes, I am pessimistic.

Can't imagine there has been time to sell the business. Two weeks for the funeral etc.  Two weeks to huddle with a lawyer to sort out options in light of all the employment contracts and commitments.  Unless Bob had a buddy lined up in case this happened to buy the business, then I vote it is down. If the business is sold, it would not be done like this.

Jim Dunn just posted on PlanetSquires that Tom Hanlin emailed him that the forums are being moved to new servers.  Problems are just technical.

Thrilled to hear it.  Poorly handled, tho..

QuotePoorly handled, tho..

That is to say the least, and that would had never happened with a real boss.

The whole "team" was between 4-5 at the time of Bob Zale, where Bob himself was working like 3.

...

Ok, just close all down is not an option. Simply because its wasted money.
No worker in USA can waste money.
Before you can waste money in USA you need to be one of those people with a golden toilett, like this one:

(http://sphotos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/320507_256564724470484_485784869_n.jpg)
Source FACEBOOK (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=256562184470738&set=a.100984500028508.909.100003508742089&type=1&theater)

Therefore if you have a market ready product (like PB is) and they have an online shop, they can at least continue selling what they have.

A total close down is no option. What is in question, is if they get the ship going into newer versions that will be as rockstable as the old was.
There is so much buggy software out there, with lots of features on the paper.
But when you need it, it crashes, Bobs compiler was an exceptions and that made it special.

Hi guys --

I emailed Tom Hanlin and he told me the same thing late yesterday, so let's keep our fingers crossed.

-- Eric   (My first post on this forum)

Technical issues? If that was the sole reason then we would not have what we have. Legal issues may result in 'pulling the plug' which is what we do have. FWIW, my money is on a local buy out. PowerBASIC, or whatever, will be back but not quite the same but then that was the case anyway with the demise of it's chief architect. Sometimes it is difficult to stop things looking like a debacle. The whole truth may never be disclosed and that happens more than sometimes.

I think the operative phrase is "moved to new servers" not "technical issues".

As in... maybe they are moving everything to a new office building, maybe they hired a hosting service for the web site, etc.  Take my word for it "moving" is often a non-trivial task, especially when something like an old version of vBulletin forum is involved.

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.

The PB site is back up with no apparent changes.

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

Yes, I thought they would change a bit here or there, but they really just moved to another server.
About PowerBasic (http://www.powerbasic.com/aboutpb.asp)

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

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.

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

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.

Quote from: Norbert Doerre on December 11, 2012, 02:01:02 AM
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.

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.

Third time on the canvas.

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

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

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

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

Quote from: Theo Gottwald on December 11, 2012, 03:54:40 PM
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.

Are they possibly just in a provider switch?

If they knew that they were moving lock, stock, and barrel I find it surprising that they did not mention it in the Cafe sometime beforehand with the expectation that there would be a potential for some disruption in service. Many, if not most, of us have been around the block enough times to accept such things. Of course, if the move was a bolt out of the blue then there may not have been sufficient time to let us know. Having said that a quick note on Monday would not have gone amiss unless they thought the disruption was behind them and a few days 'out' did not warrant a note.

It has been mentioned above that moving servers is not a trivial event. Moving offices as well is a whole new ball game and not mentioned, it would seem, in the email referred to above.

These must be traumatic times for PB, as they would be for any of us. John Strasser wrote "I also remember them saying how they were looking forward to their upcoming vacations once things smoothed out." I bet they are.

Lack of communication, sounds like amateurism, and it is not a good signal when all the lurkers around are so upset.

...

> I don't remember whom I spoke with though.

I could put you in a light trance, and perhaps we could retrieve the name.

-- Eric

Quote from: Theo Gottwald on December 12, 2012, 07:02:57 AM
Couldn't you call them again, hypnotize them and make them say the truth about the future ?  ;D
Or change their past in a way so they just forget the last weeks ?  :D

How do you know I *didn't* and am now planning some insider trading deal... ;D  :-X

And whist the second (forgetting) *is* possible, the fact that the events have reshaped their external world as well makes it impracticable.

Quote from: Eric Pearson on December 12, 2012, 12:18:09 PM
> I don't remember whom I spoke with though.

I could put you in a light trance, and perhaps we could retrieve the name.

-- Eric

If the memory was actually recorded, then that would retrieve it...

On another note, I didn't know you played with hypnosis Eric

Eric is right, John.

Sit down and repeat slowly .... I feel so light and so light and so ....
now remember the phone call .. a man took the phone ... he said a name "Hello here is ... "
what was that name?

Write it below my post.

When i Make SNIP you will be wake ap and have forgotten anything about what we were talking before...

SNIP ...  ;D

If I was less busy I would code an app to send a tweet to report  the PowerBASIC website status.
Yes, it is down again.

John --

> I didn't know you played with hypnosis Eric

I was named for Milton Erickson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Erickson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Erickson)).  My dad was one of his protégés; I was a toddler when I was hypnotized the first time.

I grew up on the grounds of the Nothern Michigan Asylum for the Insane, where my father was the head head-shrinker.  (Ok, it was called the Traverse City State Hospital when I lived there, and the house was part of dad's compensation, but it's more dramatic the other way.)  Dad was president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis when I was in grade school.

Yeah, I guess you could say I have played around with it.  ;D  But I don't practice it any more; being a doctor's kid doesn't make me a doctor.  But I could tell you some stories...

-- Eric

While i know Thomas Hanlin for long, i have never heard of Jim Bailey until now, who knows him?

...

Quote from: Chris Holbrook on December 13, 2012, 09:39:02 AM
Yes, it is down again.

It came back for a few hours, Chris, and then died again.

I had been getting time-outs up until now.

For the forums I am now getting:

QuoteNot Found

The requested URL /support/pbforums/ was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Apache Server at www.powerbasic.com Port 80

and for the homepage I am getting

QuoteIndex of /

cgi-bin/
Apache Server at www.powerbasic.com Port 80

I am not au fait with Internet protocol - any idea what they are up to now?

Patrice --

Jim has been around for a year, at least. 

http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pbforums/showthread.php?t=49115

My first email communications with him were at the end of December.  Good guy.

-- Eric

Eric,

QuoteJim has been around for a year, at least.

I know he has not been there for long (myself i have been using PB since the start of compuserve).
But because he is the new official spokeman of the company, i would like to know more about himself, could be a good guy, but is he a skilled programmer?

...

I understand Jim is now the General Manager at PowerBASIC and he does answer his e-mails.

Marc

FWIW, this seems to be his Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/tunedin76

Eric posted a link but I was still not able to get to PB. I use OpenDNS. I disabled it and got to PB. On enabling I got the"not found on this server" messages again. It should settle down in a few days - if not then I'll kick a stink at OpenDNS.  ;D

Perhaps the PowerBASIC website is keeping office hours EST.

Its down again ... 14.12.12.-08:57 MEZ.

Theo--

This disorganization doesn't give much confidence...
And it is kind of answer to the question you have been asking in the title of this thread.

Quote"Un seul être vous manque et tout est dépeuplé"
Lamartine

...

Today i thought "If Bob had been there, it would not have been happened like this."
I would expect an explanation, some official statements ... something that makes us believe that there is somebody who cares.
Now people report that even the mail bounces.

Good we have Jose's Forum.

Strange things can happen when key people leave the scene (for whatever reason). Third parties can be difficult. We should not rush to judgement.

Patrice --

Maybe I remember things differently, but I always thought that Bob was very brusque when dealing with BBS outages.  And customers in general.  He probably hired people like him.

> but is he a skilled programmer?

It will take a lot more than a good coder to run PowerBASIC.  We should be hoping for a good businessman, somebody who understands the PowerBASIC market, and lots of other things.  We won't know if he is the right person until we can say "the company didn't fail after Bob died"  How long will that take?  You may as well make a pot of coffee.

Guys, as far as I know PowerBASIC had exactly two things of great value: Bob's brain, and a loyal customer base.  Now they have only one.  They probably don't want to offend their most loyal and vocal customers.  So maybe they can't say anything yet.  How long does it take to appraise and sell a company?  Maybe negotiation are still in progress, maybe they are looking for an investor, maybe they are interviewing people... who the hell knows?  Maybe THEY don't know anything yet.

I have no insider information about this. I'm as in the dark as you are.  Considering the ongoing business relationship between PowerBASIC and Perfect Sync, think about that.

-- Eric

Theo --

> Now people report that even the mail bounces.

PB runs its own web server "in house".  When that server is down, emails bounce.

-- Eric

It seems that almost nobody on this board knows enough about Jim Bailey at this time to say more about the future of PowerBasic Inc.
If you look at his twitter account then we can learn that he characterize himself as a "Conservative Activist". If you read some of his tweets where he expressed his opinion, did read the warning yesterday against Patrice in the PB-Forum, for just making his opinion public (and no Beta-Details!), did see that Jim Bailey edited Tom's forum entry describing his relation to Bob Zale, find no serious information at any place about the ongoing problems with the PB-Forums, I feel that Eric is right with his opinion:

Quote"Maybe I remember things differently, but I always thought that Bob was very brusque when dealing with BBS outages.  And customers in general.  He probably hired people like him."

Booted this morning and got "not found on this server" so disabled OpenDNS and then got a timeout. I put the kettle on.  :)

QuotePerhaps the PowerBASIC website is keeping office hours EST.

They may be working out of a tent.  :)

QuoteWe should not rush to judgement.

In twelve hours, for me, this fiasco will have been going on for a week with downtime exceeding uptime.

Each time the site has been up there has been an opportunity to say something. Eric said: "So maybe they can't say anything yet." Saying nothing is not damage limitation best practice.

"Some of you may be pulling your hair out this week. If it is any consolation, so are we. Bear with us folks, we will get there."

That has told us nothing but it does say, as Theo wrote, "something that makes us believe that there is somebody who cares."

As Stephen Hawking said on one of the Pink Floyd's albums: "Keep talking"

Guenter--

Quotedid read the warning yesterday against Patrice in the PB-Forum, for just making his opinion public

I have always been a problem for Bob, because i am using several programming tools.

He kept me in the beta team, only because i was pushing PB to the limit, but our 20 years relation has always been tumultuous.
Some of his PM to me, are true pieces of anthology, due to his "very thin skin".

He has always been upset by the existence of this forum and especially by this thread:
http://www.jose.it-berater.org/smfforum/index.php?topic=1129.0

But all in one, i always been faithful to him, because PowerBASIC is such a little gem when it comes to create tiny fast DLL, especially those requiring real time processing.

...

Quote from: Patrice Terrier on December 14, 2012, 12:39:23 PM
He has always been upset by the existence of this forum and especially by this thread:
http://www.jose.it-berater.org/smfforum/index.php?topic=1129.0

I got a similar blast from him a couple of years ago when I made a "disparaging remark about DDT" in one of my FireFly sales ads. The text was not malicious and only indicated that DDT was limiting versus SDK. Nonetheless, I quickly changed the text (and apologized) but lo and behold the next day I got very nasty emails from him digging up snippets from some of my posts over the past *10 years* wherever I mentioned the power of SDK over DDT. The man could not accept apologies, nor could he objectively see two sides of a disagreement. If he wanted a fight then by God he would fight tooth and nail until he hammered you into the ground. I learned a valuable lesson after that encounter. I respected him as a programmer but was very leary in dealing with him on any other level.

When Bob found out that the new FireFly Visual Designer product was also now tied to a private, members/customers only forum, he lost it. He went ballistic on me during a telephone conversation with him. He told me that the only reason for the private forum was so that I could hide malicious conversations about PB without him or PB staff seeing it. Think about that. Why in the world would I create a private forum with 100% PB and FireFly customers just to bash PB? I would be killing my own market immediately. The man was somewhat paranoid or at the very least way too overly sensitive and hot tempered. Once you got on his bad side then I don't know if you could ever get into his good graces again. The private forum was created merely to prevent FireFly software pirates from getting free support. Nothing more. Nothing less.

He was a great programmer though and even though I doubt that we would have been best friends hanging out with food and drink, I do miss him.

I am very surprised that PB has not posted something in Jose's forum explaining what's going on. Some of the strongest supporters of PB come here every day (some of us every hour).  :)   I have sent an email to Jim Bailey asking a few questions. If he answers and allows me permission to share then I will update people here with what I've learned.

Patrice--
Paul--

it seems that more than one of us did make the same experiences and share the same view.

It is my hope that PowerBasic Inc. will change some of the old business politics and show their customers that there will be a valid future for PowerBasic and show into what direction Powerbasic will be heading under new ownership and/or control.
Maybe I'm expecting too much - in that case, maybe PowerBasic is expecting too much from the existing customer base.

Quote from: Guenter Fuessner on December 14, 2012, 01:51:04 PM
Patrice--
Paul--

it seems that more than one of us did make the same experiences and share the same view.

List me in the club.
Can you imagine how many mails I got from him about thinBasic programming language having a syntax so close to PB compiler?
But in my case he has always been opened to discussion about my interpreter and never tried to really stop me going on. He was much more upset about my forum having people talking bad about PB.

Quote from: Paul Squires on December 14, 2012, 01:13:55 PM
He was a great programmer though and even though I doubt that we would have been best friends hanging out with food and drink, I do miss him.

I'm feeling the same.

Shortly after somebody "Has gone" all people praise the person as usual, and if some time goes by, we remember also that this person had - like anybody - also some bad sides.
I also have some mails from Bob that he would not want me to share.

Having a genius in some part of the brain often comes with less intelligence in another.
I can not take me out from this. Possibly none of you all will call me to repair your car.

If i see how fast the actual PB Compiler works, its amazing each time, when i press compile.
And thats exactly what i want remember from Bob.

Those who knew Bob, knew all his sides and most often also knew how to get around with it.

Imagine somebody was a great mathematician, while stil drinking too much from time to time.
And while drinking too much, this has an influence on personality (while not immediately on mathematics).
So the world may remember his formulas and hopefully forget about his other unwanted behavior.

This the right way to go especially with people that are personally not more able to defend themselves.

So lets face the fact that now PB also has some chances they may not have had before because of such  behavior. There is a real chance for them to more incorparate user contributions and concentrate their own powers on core bussines.

It has never made sense to make own include files after those from Jose (and Jose as person...) was available.
It was just a lot of wasted time.
Now we see Visual Designers like Firefly 3.6 and (if it becomes stable) Phoenix that will beat not only competition in the PB Market but could even get respect from "outside".

To just ignore that and try to make an own skeleton VD and own "Incomplete" include files that is what i believe is wasted time.

Instead they should contract with those people that are ready to contribute.
They can influence the design a bit, help with testing, and then sell alltogether as a package.

PB is just not large enough to "alone" compete in the growing software market with any month increasing competition anywhere.

Concentrating their power on what they can do best - that is the compiler - would be the best answer to this situation. As  I see it.

After we have Jose's CWindow Class and Wrappers, we may need some better explanations on how it works, but we may not urgently need new DDT systems. As long as other features that are need in the compiler are missing.

The DDT as it is there can stay, it doesn't cost a thing. However from windows 8 surfaces will develop away from the old structures and a small company trying to follow that development will get terribly lost. Thats my impression.

For wathever reason, he was always nice to me and never had any dispute.

Where light is there is mostly shadow.
Lets remember the light and forget the shadow.
And hope there will be more light  ;D

I realized very early that Bob could be a difficult personality to deal with.  I always kept that in mind, and my 25 years of dealing with him were consistently straightforward and pleasant.  Yes we had some significant conflicts, but I always treated him professionally, with the genuine respect and trust that I felt for him, and he responded in kind.

He didn't like direct criticism, especially criticism that he could not answer.  He was very receptive to suggestions, but preferred creative questions.  He was The Boss, at least under his own roof.

Fact is, I hope somebody with an equally strong hand takes over where Bob left off.

-- Eric

What I would like to know is whether writing compilers eventually causes brain damage and consequent changes to the personality. The task is so complex - do the neurons eventually tie themselves in knots.  :o

Charles

Alcohol causes brain damage ... not writing software.
This is a general statement as i have no direct informations about Bob himself.
Anyway if you ask me for my personal opinion, thats my statement.
If you have to do with a very polite person, that you can hardly believe its the same person some hours later, Alcohol is a possible explanation.
Besides that ... did you notice that newer employees at PB have names like "Jeff Daniels" and "Jim Bailey"?
What does it remind you to?
Was it possibly a hidden call for help?
We'll possibly not be able to find it out, possibly its also too private to look closer.

@Charles: Neurons will never get lost in complicated stuff. If you want to now more, WHY the possibilities of the human brain are in fact unlimited, see videos from Doug Bench.
Below is a starting link. Think like that: A moquito has a brain and if you want to catch it, you will find out how clever and how fast it is. Now how much lager is your brain?

Doug Bench (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbi2xdfxKMA)

Jeff Hawkings - How brain science can change computer science. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6CVj5IQkzk)

This is not really something new. We are just re-finding old "knowledge".

Quote"An ultimate desire is nothing but the existence of the mind working. One can even say that this is the proof that the person has left His mind uncontrolled. Or one can say that this is the stage where the mind is present, or a plus mind stage. The person progresses when he achieves the minus-mind stage, when the mind is not present at all. Naturally, now he will not get the impacts of either happiness or un-happiness. This minus mind state is also called Amanska Sthiti. But how to achieve this Amanska Sthiti? Mind travels from one thought to another, but the time between this travel, when not thinking anything, is known as Amaska Sthiti . Once you achieve this state of mind, achieving Samadhi Sthiti will not be difficult, and the whole purpose of life should be only to achieve this state of mind. Bringing back the mind from the directions after which it is running, and controlling it, and then forgetting it, is what is known as Nir Vikalpa Sthiti . If one achieves this, either happiness or unhappiness will have no effect on the person. There won't be any desire left, and there won't be any cycles of birth and rebirth. Then alone will one get the Atma Darshan (Self Realization). The sole object of life should be to realize this again, again, and again. This is the real objective of life, and once you achieve it, heaven is with you."

I've just realised that Theo has a sense of humour. Keep 'em coming, Theo!

I have added up, Chris :-).

> A moquito has a brain and if you want to catch it, you will find out how clever and how fast it is.

Each summer, a Tarentola mauritanica, a specie of gecko native to the Western Mediterranean region of Europe and North Africa ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarentola_mauritanica ), keeps my house clean of mosquitoes and other insects.

I love geckos, Jose. Once i had some in my house, phelsuma laticauda madagascariensis.
Can you believe they can not resist if you feed them honey?
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3060/2995054890_c987b2294c.jpg)

And because they watched me with so big eyes, i gave them honey three or four times.
Soon they got Parodontitis (Gingivitis).
Once i found out it was from the honey it was too late. All of them died.
From them i learned how dangerous it is to eat too much sugar and to fullfill all wishes.

I also had some of those geckos that you had.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/Gecko_with_moth.jpg/240px-Gecko_with_moth.jpg)

In the night when its dark, they cry as loud as if they would be children.
I don't know if they locate Insects this way or if they call their mate.

It was funny because i had no idea WHO was crying.

And always when i made light the crying stopped immediately.
Later i realized it were the geckos.
Their cry is like from a child that is crying. And its so loud, you can hardly believe its from that small animal.

Bob Zale struck as a passionate and focused individual who had more talent at programming than any us.  It would have been nice if he had a better bedside manner but artists are sometimes a little hard to deal with especially when critiquing their work.  Bob's work was probably a large part of his identity.  I will miss him.

I think it might be good to give PowerBasic a break here.

First, they are likely still reeling from the loss of Bob Zale. Remember, he was not only their boss, but their friend. Don't think things will get to normal over night.

Second, most of us don't realize what it is like to be the developer of a tool which is used by so many programmers with so many different views. Everybody is a critic ! One may be able to deal with it when it is all new and you are young, but over the years I am sure it takes a toll. It is easy to become overly sensitive to criticism.

Also remember the history of Powerbasic. Borland could not hold on to TurboBasic simply because it was just too hot a product to deal with. QuickBasic was Microsoft's baby and the business world can be very cut throat and it was in those days. When Bob got the compiler back and started PowerBasic, he was "going against the tide". Since the advent of managed languages, even Microsoft is trying to put such languages (like VB classic) in the past and burry them. PowerBasic stands out as uniquely different and likely Bob Zale was not going to have a lot of friends in the software industry being supportive (other than his customers).

For example, I have written a number of articles for betaNews.com and every time I even mention the word BASIC, I got so much grief from commentors that is was disturbing. You get called names and people treat you like you are ignorant. Imagine what it has been like for PowerBasic all these years. The only comfort you have are your customers and when they start getting critical, how is one to feel ? Now this does not excuse Bob when he at times may have pushed back too hard, but one can definitely understand the feelings.

The problem with customers is they often want to do more than make suggestions. They may want to push you to make the product exactly to their specs, forgetting about all the other people who also use the product which may want things differently. The only way to deal with this is to simply make the choices yourself as a developer and to go with your own gut feelings about the product. You can't please everyone, simply put.

For example, I may not always like every aspect of DDT and its implimentation, but I do appreciate its purpose and recognize that PowerBasic had good reasons for its design. I have also learned to not be too disparaging of DDT when posting on the forums, or even on my own, since I appreciate how core it is to the compiler. You have to have some kind of GUI command set in a compiler. You can't just expect everyone to just use the API. I had to deal with than in the old days when using PB 5.0, before DDT, which is why I created my own GUI engine. I surely wasn't going to code SDK style for the rest of my life. My SDK style coding is only so I can build a better GUI engine, not because i like it.

DDT was necessary !

DDT works !

Not everybody may like it, but you don't have to use it, which is the beauty of PowerBasic.

So how about the IDE ?

Why PB Forms ?

I can also see why PowerBasic did not got the route of a full blown visual environment. Too much of a "black box" and too restricting. PowerBasic was made for coders, not "drag and droppers", which is what most programmers today in the Microsoft world have become. Programmers want "application builders", not compilers today. That is not what PowerBasic is all about. Yet again, the beauty of PowerBasic is that one can "addon" using all sorts of tools and Bob Zale obviously appreciated that. His provision of the Third Party forum for example. They want third party developers.

The purpose of third party developers is to coexist with PowerBasic, not compete with it.

When I pushed too hard, Bob Zale communicated with me. He was polite, but firm and in most (if not all) cases it was my own fault. I had no desire to push back, even if I disagreed. I simply wanted to work closely with PowerBasic as best I could.

James, yes "Artist" is a good word for Bobs programming.
His compiler will possibly never be beaten and it was never beaten.
Especially not in terms of speed of compilation.
If we remember earlier days (possibly not the last versions), then also reliability was unmatched in the market.

However the speed of development decreased last time and also there were some bugs that i think would not have happend in earlier times. As said i have made my own conclusions why things were like this.

Bob will be remembered as an artist of computer programming.
In his case i am not sure if it was really a talent. I think it  was rather hard work over lots of years.

If somebody is talented, then he is born with a talent.
You get born with a Talent. In indian Mythology you get born with a talent from hard work in your past life.
You see these cases if small children can play the piano like nobody else.
Everybody wonders about their Talent. You need to get born "with a talent".

While Bobs code was really fast code, possibly the fastest code.
I believe he was an artist by hard work and  unmatched experience in compiler building.
Hard work, over long years, realy long years. He took the challenge and he did it, no matter how hard it was.
He never chose the easy way. This is how we knew Bob.

If you see a person that is talented, you will see a higher speed of output.
I know talented persons here, and we all know them. They move a mountain in short time.
What looks so hard for the average person, looks so easy if they do it.
Bob was rather a person who worked hard, but the development speed of new PB versions was traditionally not so high.
Personally I would have loved a double speed of new versions.
If we take a look on PB, it was great and unmatched, but the development speed was never fast compared to a person with a real "Talent" by definition. PB was always the product of hard work and never choosing the easy way.

All the tools that have been available to C++ programmer for years were also necessary to PB's, DDT not, because there was nothing with it that couldn't be done with the existing API, that's my point.

For me PB is just a tool among others from my toolbox, i would never select it to build complex CRM database applications, however it is the best tool when i need to create small and fast DLL, or when i have to work around the bugs of the other languages.

Moreover, using different programming tools, has forced me to become objective, some of you have too much affect with PB and this alter your perception of the truth.

...

I like your advice and take on this Chris.  You talk a lot of sense.  I was wondering on what you meant by this statement though ...

Quote
Also remember the history of Powerbasic. Borland could not hold on to TurboBasic simply because it was just too hot a product to deal with.

I feel bad that at the time I was a Microsoft 'groupie' and was loving my QuickBasic.  I was aware of TurboBasic, but didn't know anything about it except that Borland made (actually marketed) it.

Turbo Basic (and Borland) was basically constantly on the defensive when it came to Microsoft. It was a threat that Microsoft took seriously and the competition was just too much for Borland. Sadly, businesses can play dirty, so from the days of Turbo Basic likely Bob felt the effect of that. Consider this, if Bob had not worked as hard as he did to keep Powerbasic (aka. TurboBasic) alive, it would have disappeared a long time ago. Likely this made him very protective of his "baby", which could explain why he may at times have been a little too strong when dealing with critics of PowerBasic.

Up and down, up and own, up and down.

Saturday morning down again, probably until monday, or perhaps after the vacations  :-X

...

Powerbasic was known for its reliability in the past.  ::)

Hi folks,

I have this horrible vision that the server is located in someones basement and gets shut off at bed time :o

This yo-yoing is extremely negative for PowerBASIC's reputation, of which a large part is the user community on the forum. If the forum is offline then this will give hundreds of potential new users a bad impression. Not to mention the existing community as we see here. We expect these things (server down,lack of info) of the numerous tinpot languages out there, not PB.

I was very sad to hear of Bob passing away, I communicated with him by email many times over the years and always got a professional response. As some on here know I have been an avid PB user since age 15, dropping VB6 in favour of it in 1999. I expect Bob would never had let something like this happen and it's a great shame.

Unfortunately PB was written in very well coded assembly language which would be hard for 99.9% of any modern programmer to maintain, at least to a good standard. I hope they find a good, skilled team to take it on, or even an investor/buyer to guarantee a future for this language. Turbo Basic was BIG in the 80s, many serious apps were written with it, and it is a tribute to the language that it's still going strong in the 2010s (30 years), so it would be such a loss for it to end now.

I personally have a bridge between PB and MSVC, working with both, so it would not harm me as much as others here if there were no new developments with PB. Even so, a compiler runs forever so I will always have it at hand on my desktop even if the worst happens and we get no more updates. I recommend you do the same -- this would be the ultimate tribute to Bob in my opinion.

Whew! thanks for reading.

If it is true that PB is developed using ASM language, why they didn't switched to PB to develop PB?
PB developed using PB would have been a logical move

We are UP again (15-12-12/ 12:24 MEZ)

Quote
Even so, a compiler runs forever so I will always have it at hand on my desktop even if the worst happens and we get no more updates. I recommend you do the same -- this would be the ultimate tribute to Bob in my opinion.

Yes, that's a done deal for me Kev (good to hear from you too!). 

We are DOWN at 07:37 GMT
That's 02:37 EST

The last exiting from the office ... switch off the light and ... switch off the server

Thats just what i thought now, Eros.
16-12-12 09:28 we are down again.
I suggest that if we are up again that you get this Tool from Garry to download the forum to your local computer.
Slowly i get the strange Idea, that they are afraid that peple write things and nobody can check it.
So if the office is empty they shut down the server?
No its not possible  ;D

French: Lamentable.
English: Pathetic.

...

Quote from: Eros Olmi on December 15, 2012, 11:10:37 AM
If it is true that PB is developed using ASM language, why they didn't switched to PB to develop PB?
PB developed using PB would have been a logical move

It IS developed in ASM but I suspect the sheer size of the source would prohibit a move to PB.

I did suggest (In an email to Bob - with no response ) to investigate JWasm. I assumed it would be easier to do a TASM -> JWasm translation than TASM -> "c" which would be needed for cross platform versions. JWasm is 100% masm compatible with versions for both Windows and Linux supporting 32/64.

James

http://beprepareduniversity.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/bioelectrical_power_pedal_power_generator_human_power.jpg (http://beprepareduniversity.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/bioelectrical_power_pedal_power_generator_human_power.jpg)

The lady needs to rest...

This is from the Firefly Forum:

QuoteI called PB today and talked to Jim Bailey.   He confirmed that Tom Hanlin is one of their
off site programmers.   Jim said all the staff is off for an early Christmas Holiday.  He's the
only one in the office today.   Said they had moved the website to their in house servers
and have been having some issues with their ISP.   He believes the issues have been resolved.
Over the holidays PB may be a little slow in responding to emails and questions left on the
forum as he is the only one in the office but asked for patience during this transition period.

http://www.planetsquires.com/protect/forum/index.php?topic=3234.msg23789;topicseen#msg23789

I'm sorry, but this is THE time where everyone should be cancelling their leave and showing the metal required. The amount of up and down is not a good reflection, even here in Africa it is frowned on :)

As I said in an earlier post, the time to provide bug fixes to PB 10 will be an indication of future possibilities. For me however, this is a BIG wake up call.

Today I have asked  Jose if he could not Team up with Hutch, Paul Dixon and Dominic etc. and make a PB compatible compiler, that the PB Syntax would survive.

His answer was very short and did not make me much hope for now.

He gave me a hint that he plans to enjoy the coming years and that he does not plan to sit in front of the computer as long as until now.
With the result that only a few people will even recognize the difference between his work and the other stuff out there that is lower quality and less in quantity.

I would like the PB Syntax to survive and get extended, but how can it be done, does anybody have a Plan B?

I'm just not getting why everybody is so negative.  We are operating on virtually null data here, and IMO people's fears are getting the better of them. Recruiting people to create a replacement compiler?  Really?

Gentlemen, haven't you ever had the rug pulled out from under you by an unexpected death or sudden event?  Besides this one, I mean.  When you got up one morning and everything was different?  How long did it take you to put things back together?

Bob died on November 6.  Today is December 16.  Unless I'm mistaken, Vivian is in her seventies and has a medical history, as they say.  PowerBASIC is a relatively small company, just a few employees.  Their job is probably just to keep PB on the rails, not keep their online fans posted as their plans evolve.

If was running PB, Inc. right now I would not want to start a communication with the forum regulars until I had all the details in place.  An investor, a new staff member, a plausible game plan, whatever.  Seriously, I would turn off the forums during the hours when I could not monitor them in real time.  Just to keep a lid on comments and fear-based speculation like I see here.  And I'd make sure that my staff could take a break for the holidays, after the death of somebody so close.  The fate of the world is not at stake.

I have to say that I'm disappointed in some of you.

-- Eric

Eric, it's about survival for a few of us who, unlike Patrice, have been riding one horse. It is also about fear of the unknown and hope diminishes for each time the web site is down. I don't believe it is about control of posts. PB is used across many time zones and the forums is a big repository of knowlege which I use daily for that purpose.

Today, more than ever it is about communicating and keeping your customers informed. Yes, the PB community is most loyal, and of course, the employees and Viv have our sympathies and all the more reason to communicate better and alay my fears.

In the case of PowerBASIC, Bob was the "keyman", and when you loose the "keyman" very few company can survive, even those having contracted a special insurance for that typical situation, because money could never replace such an atypique brain.

Trying to imagine that a leading group of talented programmers could take up on Bob's work is an unrealistic expectation.

On the other way, when the member of the PB's permanent staff is not himself an assembly programmer, and when he needs to rely on external resources, sooner or later that would lead to other (ego) problems.

Eric--

I am afraid, i could not see any reasonable forthcoming future for PB.

...

I see the problem that the money "that is in there" may not be intersting to seriouse bussiness people unless the whoile thing could be modernized and attract more then just a handfull of long year fans.
But my impression on that this could happen is not very high.
Like Jose said "I think that they never have liked suggestions about using third party tools."

Therefore i assume that it will go on for a while. But no bussiness that is not earning enough money can last long, unless idealistic people are behind.
Thats what i do not see. So i am checking NOW if somebody ha s a plan B.

The point is that writing a compiler need soiphisticated ASM knowledge, and i do not have that.
Otherwise I'd been starting today. Aside from that COM stuff I'd just do it. If I'd have Hutch or Paul Dixons ASM Knowlegde.
The algorhytms for a compiler-language are not secret bussiness, its normal IT and anybody with enough ASM knowledge can do it.

I have no expectation that any compiler in the future will ever beat Bobs compiler in terms of compilation speed.
Besides that i believe that it was possibly the last compiler that was made in pure ASM.
Hardware is doubling speed every year therefore this would not be not my main concern.

As said, my point here is, that i would like to see PB Syntax to be kept alive and also to see an x64 version of it.
I have Purebasic and  Modula and other  Alternatives, but i like PB ... its so easy.

Having said that ... we are UP again :-). (16-12-12 14:37)

Looks like they made some changes and took time off ... might be the right thing to do under the circumstances.

QuoteThe point is that writing a compiler need soiphisticated ASM knowledge...

Not anymore.
You'd probably use LLVM.
You parse your code into IF (intermediate form).
LLVM then spits out binary machine code for; X86, X86-64, PowerPC, PowerPC-64, ARM, Thumb, SPARC, Alpha, CellSPU, MIPS, MSP430, SystemZ, and XCore.
It can also spit out C.

This is used and backed by Apple for Objective-C, it's industrial strength.

LLVM currently supports compiling of C, C++, Objective-C, Fortran, Ada, Haskell, Java bytecode, Python, Ruby, ActionScript, GLSL, D, and Rust, using various front ends.

Stan beat me to it. See http://llvm.org/

So, LLVM back end, maybe a front end from adapting Eros's interpreter?

I'll take one, thanks, Android target of course.

Nothing wrong with thinking big!

I'm with Eric on this.  Time to wait and see.  For those that wish to be pro-active, learning other languages can't hurt, in any event.

However, I can't help but feel that Bob would have hired folks with backgrounds similiar to his, i.e., knowledge of intel processor architecture, asm skills, maybe some compiler skills.  Put yourself in his shoes for a moment and think.  In hiring, he would probably value those candidates most who had skills similiar to his, with perhaps some additional backgrounds that complemented his skills in some way.  In the past I've seen processor specific questions answered by PowerBASIC staff other than Bob Z. 

You know, at times I've wondered (I'm sure we all have) of what avail Bob made of other compiler toolchain technologies out there, such as the LLVM just discussed by Stan and Chris.   While I know little to nothing of these issues and am only peripherally interested in them, I have always noted that the PowerBASIC compiler is several orders of magnitude faster than the GCC or Microsoft compilers.   This has led me to suspect that the PowerBASIC compiler design is wholly a creation of Bob's.  I doubt if LLVM was available when Bob was honing his compiler writting skills back in the early 80s. 

And an examination of the \bin subdirectory of the installation reveals the compiler itself to be an 840 KB executable which doesn't have many other dependencies.  Before PowerBASIC for Windows 7 the whole purchase of a PowerBASIC compiler was received on 1 or 2 3.5" floppies.  And the v6 win compiler was rather advanced - only lacking COM and unicode support.  When one reflects on this it becomes obvious that Bob Zale really meant it with 'smaller - faster'. 

Fred,
  For c try tcc sometime if you want fast compiles and small exe's
http://download.savannah.nongnu.org/releases/tinycc/tcc-0.9.25-win32-bin.zip
James

PB is "smaller-faster" but also appeals because it is easy -> lower cost of production.

However, it is a dedicated Intel/Windows language compiler and that restricts its appeal these days. 

For this old hack coder** it has been very, very useful, not to mention a lot of fun, but it isn't the only tool in the box.

In retrospect, Bob Zale has kept a plate-spinning act going for an amazingly long time.  I sincerely doubt if a suitable clone will be found and I believe that a very different future awaits for PowerBASIC devotees. Of course, one of Bob's skills was to keep development just abreast of one's sense of exasperation, and in these days of wonder, that will be hard for his successor to follow, as different constituencies in the user base will want to move in different directions, and loyalty cannot always be counted upon.

OTOH a diverse user base means that there will always be some sort of uptake of variants of the product ... but why speculate when you can just sit back and watch the show? Perhaps sparing a thought for those who convinced conservative managements to eschew M$ in favour of PowerBASIC, for their enemies are even now massing at the gates.

Interesting times, etc.


** nowadays one should say "dedicated and vastly experienced IT professional with a passion for his work"

Of course, Microsoft, being a legal entity rather than a singular person such as Bob Zale, can't die (I guess bankrupt is the operative word there).  However, if one uses their products one can count on having to throw one's code base away every few years for their latest must have programming tool.  Been there and done that.

Quote from: Theo Gottwald on December 16, 2012, 02:36:53 PM
As said, my point here is, that i would like to see PB Syntax to be kept alive and also to see an x64 version of it.

Doesn't Eros Olmi have something very like the PB syntax? Maybe with an open phone line to Eros and a copy of Niklaus Wirth's book on compilers, the Christmas Holidays could be used to good effect?

Hi Theo

This must be one of yours.

I am not touting for business but a few days ago, Aurel asked for help translating it from PowerBasic to OxygenBasic. So I did a rough translation, using our own headers and a few other bits with minimal alterations from your original:


'Program Name Form2.bas
'#Compile Exe
'#Include "Win32api.inc"  'Equates, declares, types translated from Windows.h

include "..\..\inc\minwin.inc"

'BOOL TextOut(
'  _In_  HDC hdc,
'  _In_  int nXStart,
'  _In_  int nYStart,
'  _In_  LPCTSTR lpString,
'  _In_  int cchString
');


%HWND_DESKTOP 0
%MK_LBUTTON   1

macro trim(s)
ltrim(s)
end macro

macro lowrd(a)
(a and 0xffff)
end macro

macro hiwrd(a)
(a >> 16)
end macro

macro codeptr(c)
@c
end macro

macro varptr(v)
@v
end macro

type tagMSG
  sys   hwnd
  int   message
  sys   wParam
  sys   lParam
  dword time
  POINT pt
end type

type TEXTMETRIC
  LONG  tmHeight;
  LONG  tmAscent;
  LONG  tmDescent;
  LONG  tmInternalLeading;
  LONG  tmExternalLeading;
  LONG  tmAveCharWidth;
  LONG  tmMaxCharWidth;
  LONG  tmWeight;
  LONG  tmOverhang;
  LONG  tmDigitizedAspectX;
  LONG  tmDigitizedAspectY;
  TCHAR tmFirstChar;
  TCHAR tmLastChar;
  TCHAR tmDefaultChar;
  TCHAR tmBreakChar;
  BYTE  tmItalic;
  BYTE  tmUnderlined;
  BYTE  tmStruckOut;
  BYTE  tmPitchAndFamily;
  BYTE  tmCharSet;
end type

'#recordof textmetric

Type WndEventArgs
  wParam  As Long
  lParam  As Long
  hWnd    As Dword
  hInst   As Dword
  wWidth  As Word
  wHeight As Word
  wX      As Word
  wY      As Word
  wCharHt As Word
  xPos    As Word
  yPos    As Word
  szText[128] as Asciiz '*128
  'szText[128]  As Asciiz '*128
End Type


Function fnWndProc_OnCreate(wea As WndEventArgs) As Long
  Local tm As TEXTMETRIC
  Local hDC As DWord

  hDC=GetDC(wea.hWnd)
  Call GetTextMetrics(hDC,@tm)
  wea.wCharHt=tm.tmHeight
  'MsgBox("wea.wCharHt=" & Trim$(Str$(tm.tmHeight))) 'If using Console Compiler remark this
  'Print "wea.wCharHt=" & trim$(str$(tm.tmHeight))  'line out and use Print instead!
  Call ReleaseDC(wea.hWnd,hDC)
  'fnWndProc_OnCreate=0
  return 0
End Function


Function fnWndProc_OnMouseMove(wea As WndEventArgs) As Long
  wea.wX=LoWrd(wea.lParam) : wea.wY=HiWrd(wea.lParam)
  Call InvalidateRect(wea.hWnd,ByVal %NULL,%TRUE)
  'fnWndProc_OnMouseMove=0
  return 0
End Function


Function fnWndProc_OnSize(wea As WndEventArgs) As Long
  wea.wWidth=LoWrd(wea.lParam) : wea.wHeight=HiWrd(wea.lParam)
  Call InvalidateRect(wea.hWnd,ByVal %NULL,%TRUE)
 
  'fnWndProc_OnSize=0
  return 0
End Function


Function fnWndProc_OnChar(wea As WndEventArgs) As Long
  'wea.szText=wea.szText+Chr$(wea.wParam)
  wea.szText+=Chr$(wea.wParam)
  Call InvalidateRect(wea.hWnd,ByVal %NULL,%TRUE)

  'fnWndProc_OnChar=0
  return 0
End Function


Function fnWndProc_OnLButtonDown(wea As WndEventArgs) As Long
  If wea.wParam=%MK_LBUTTON Then
     wea.xPos=LoWrd(wea.lParam) : wea.yPos=HiWrd(wea.lParam)
     Call InvalidateRect(wea.hWnd,ByVal 0,%TRUE)
  End If

  'fnWndProc_OnLButtonDown=0
  return 0
End Function


Function fnWndProc_OnPaint(wea As WndEventArgs) As Long
  Local szLine[48] As Asciiz '*48
  Local ps As PAINTSTRUCT
  Local hDC As Long
  hDC=BeginPaint(wea.hWnd,@ps)
  'szLine="MouseX="+Trim$(Str$(wea.wX)) & "  MouseY="+Trim$(Str$(wea.wY))
  szLine="MouseX="+Str$(wea.wX) & "  MouseY="+Str$(wea.wY)
  TextOut (hDC,0,0,strptr(szLine),Len(szLine))
  szLine="wea.wWidth="+Trim$(Str$(wea.wWidth)) & " wea.wHeight=" + Trim$(Str$(wea.wHeight))
  TextOut (hDC,0,16, strptr(szLine),Len(szLine))
  TextOut (hDC,0,32,strptr(wea.szText),Len(wea.szText))
  If wea.xPos<>0 And wea.yPos<>0 Then
     szLine="WM_LBUTTONDOWN At (" & Trim$(Str$(wea.xPos)) & "," & Trim$(Str$(wea.yPos)) & ")"
     TextOut (hDC,wea.xPos,wea.yPos,strptr(szLine),Len(szLine))
     wea.xPos=0 : wea.yPos=0
  End If
  EndPaint(wea.hWnd,@ps)

  'fnWndProc_OnPaint=0
  return 0
End Function


Function WndProc(ByVal hWnd As Long,ByVal wMsg As Long,ByVal wParam As Long,ByVal lParam As Long) As Long, callback
  Static wea As WndEventArgs

  Select Case As Long wMsg
    Case %WM_CREATE
      wea.hWnd=hWnd : wea.lParam=lParam : wea.wParam=wParam
      return fnWndProc_OnCreate(wea)
      'WndProc=fnWndProc_OnCreate(wea)
      'Exit Function
    Case %WM_MOUSEMOVE
      wea.hWnd=hWnd : wea.lParam=lParam : wea.wParam=wParam
      return fnWndProc_OnMouseMove(wea)
      'WndProc=fnWndProc_OnMouseMove(wea)
      'Exit Function
    Case %WM_SIZE
      wea.hWnd=hWnd : wea.lParam=lParam : wea.wParam=wParam
      return fnWndProc_OnSize(wea)
      'WndProc=fnWndProc_OnSize(wea)
      'Exit Function
    Case %WM_CHAR
      wea.hWnd=hWnd : wea.lParam=lParam : wea.wParam=wParam
      return fnWndProc_OnChar(wea)
      'WndProc=fnWndProc_OnChar(wea)
      'Exit Function
    Case %WM_LBUTTONDOWN
      wea.hWnd=hWnd : wea.lParam=lParam : wea.wParam=wParam
      return fnWndProc_OnLButtonDown(wea)
      'WndProc=fnWndProc_OnLButtonDown(wea)
      'Exit Function
    Case %WM_PAINT
      wea.hWnd=hWnd : wea.lParam=lParam : wea.wParam=wParam
      return fnWndProc_OnPaint(wea)
      'WndProc=fnWndProc_OnPaint(wea)
      'Exit Function
    Case %WM_DESTROY
      Call PostQuitMessage(0)
      return 0
      'WndProc=0
      'Exit Function
  End Select

  return DefWindowProc(hWnd,wMsg,wParam,lParam)
  'WndProc=DefWindowProc(hWnd,wMsg,wParam,lParam)
End Function


Function WinMain(ByVal hIns As Long, ByVal hPrevIns As Long, lpCmdLine as asciiz, ByVal iShow As Long) As Long
  Local szClassName[6] As Asciiz '*6
  Local wc As WndClassEx
  Local hMainWnd As Dword
  Local Msg As tagMsg

  szClassName="Form1"
  wc.cbSize=SizeOf(wc)                               : wc.style=0
  wc.lpfnWndProc=CodePtr(WndProc)                    : wc.cbClsExtra=0
  wc.cbWndExtra=0                                    : wc.hInstance=hIns
  wc.hIcon=LoadIcon(%NULL,ByVal %IDI_APPLICATION)    : wc.hCursor=LoadCursor(%NULL,ByVal %IDC_ARROW)
  wc.hbrBackground=GetStockObject(%WHITE_BRUSH)      : wc.lpszMenuName=%NULL
  wc.lpszClassName=VarPtr(szClassName)               : wc.hIconSm=LoadIcon(%NULL,ByVal %IDI_APPLICATION)
  Call RegisterClassEx(@wc)
  hMainWnd=CreateWindowEx(0,szClassName,"Form1",%WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,
  200,100,325,300,
  %HWND_DESKTOP,0,hIns,ByVal 0)
  Call ShowWindow(hMainWnd,iShow)

  While GetMessage(@Msg,%NULL,0,0)
    Call TranslateMessage(@Msg)
    Call DispatchMessage(@Msg)
  Wend
  return msg.wParam
  'WinMain=msg.wParam
End Function

char *c
@c=GetCommandline()
h=GetModuleHandle()
WinMain(h,0,c,SW_SHOWNORMAL)

' « Last Edit: September 12, 2007, 06:16:57 AM by Theo Gottwald »
'17:04 13/12/2012 cp


It will require a few more tweaks to get it going in 64 bit - mainly fixing long handles.

Would you like to see a 64bit version?

Charles

Quote from: Chris Holbrook on December 16, 2012, 07:53:27 PM

Quote from: Theo Gottwald on December 16, 2012, 02:36:53 PM
As said, my point here is, that i would like to see PB Syntax to be kept alive and also to see an x64 version of it.

Doesn't Eros Olmi have something very like the PB syntax? Maybe with an open phone line to Eros and a copy of Niklaus Wirth's book on compilers, the Christmas Holidays could be used to good effect?

:-[ The world is not ready to have a thinBasic Compiler  ;D

Yes I have also been talking to Eros already.
He said that he currently does not think to make the step to a full compiler language.
Did you look at this llvm-thing already, Eros?
Such a thing sounds like an interesting possible Add on.

While an intermediate code has its strenghts, i do not really believe it will be as effective as its PB.
@Charles i sent you an message. You have been the next on my list. :-)

http://llvm.org/

IS DOWN  ;)

Yes I checked it in the past at the beginning of thinBasic adventure but it was a too complex way for me.

In any case do not forget (I'm joking) a nice compiler called ... http://www.freebasic.net/
It has almost all a Basic compiler would need to have (no 64bit support though)

I have just added an LLVM-friendly layer (an aspirational layer :) ). It is not the easiest thing to work with because it does not knpw about stacks, unlike JVM or CIL. Temporary variables have to be used instead.

Thanks Theo, I have your message.

Dual 32/64 bit compiling

Attached binaries (some virus checkers may not like them)


'Program Name Form2.bas
'#Compile Exe
'#Include "Win32api.inc"  'Equates, declares, types translated from Windows.h

%HWND_DESKTOP 0
%MK_LBUTTON   1
% Filename "t.exe"

'include "..\..\inc\RTL32.inc"
include "..\..\inc\RTL64.inc"
include "..\..\inc\minwin.inc"

'BOOL TextOut(
'  _In_  HDC hdc,
'  _In_  int nXStart,
'  _In_  int nYStart,
'  _In_  LPCTSTR lpString,
'  _In_  int cchString
');



macro trim(s)
ltrim(s)
end macro

macro lowrd(a)
a and 0xffff
end macro

macro hiwrd(a)
a >> 16 and 0xffff
end macro

macro codeptr(c)
@c
end macro

macro varptr(v)
@v
end macro

type tagMSG
  sys   hwnd
  int   message
  sys   wParam
  sys   lParam
  dword time
  POINT pt
end type

type TEXTMETRIC
  LONG  tmHeight;
  LONG  tmAscent;
  LONG  tmDescent;
  LONG  tmInternalLeading;
  LONG  tmExternalLeading;
  LONG  tmAveCharWidth;
  LONG  tmMaxCharWidth;
  LONG  tmWeight;
  LONG  tmOverhang;
  LONG  tmDigitizedAspectX;
  LONG  tmDigitizedAspectY;
  TCHAR tmFirstChar;
  TCHAR tmLastChar;
  TCHAR tmDefaultChar;
  TCHAR tmBreakChar;
  BYTE  tmItalic;
  BYTE  tmUnderlined;
  BYTE  tmStruckOut;
  BYTE  tmPitchAndFamily;
  BYTE  tmCharSet;
end type

'#recordof textmetric

Type WndEventArgs
  wParam  As sys
  lParam  As sys
  hWnd    As sys
  hInst   As sys
  wWidth  As sys
  wHeight As sys
  wX      As sys
  wY      As sys
  wCharHt As sys
  xPos    As sys
  yPos    As sys
  szText[128] as Asciiz '*128
End Type


Function fnWndProc_OnCreate(wea As WndEventArgs) As sys
  Local tm As TEXTMETRIC
  Local hDC As sys

  hDC=GetDC(wea.hWnd)
  Call GetTextMetrics(hDC,@tm)
  wea.wCharHt=tm.tmHeight
  'MsgBox("wea.wCharHt=" & Trim$(Str$(tm.tmHeight))) 'If using Console Compiler remark this
  'Print "wea.wCharHt=" & trim$(str$(tm.tmHeight))  'line out and use Print instead!
  Call ReleaseDC(wea.hWnd,hDC)
  'fnWndProc_OnCreate=0
  return 0
End Function


Function fnWndProc_OnMouseMove(wea As WndEventArgs) As sys
  wea.wX=LoWrd(wea.lParam) : wea.wY=HiWrd(wea.lParam)
  Call InvalidateRect(wea.hWnd,ByVal %NULL,%TRUE)
  'fnWndProc_OnMouseMove=0
  return 0
End Function


Function fnWndProc_OnSize(wea As WndEventArgs) As sys
  wea.wWidth=LoWrd(wea.lParam) : wea.wHeight=HiWrd(wea.lParam)
  Call InvalidateRect(wea.hWnd,ByVal %NULL,%TRUE)
 
  'fnWndProc_OnSize=0
  return 0
End Function


Function fnWndProc_OnChar(wea As WndEventArgs) As sys
  'wea.szText=wea.szText+Chr$(wea.wParam)
  wea.szText+=Chr$(wea.wParam and 0xff)
  Call InvalidateRect(wea.hWnd,ByVal %NULL,%TRUE)

  'fnWndProc_OnChar=0
  return 0
End Function


Function fnWndProc_OnLButtonDown(wea As WndEventArgs) As sys
  If wea.wParam=%MK_LBUTTON Then
     wea.xPos=LoWrd(wea.lParam) : wea.yPos=HiWrd(wea.lParam)
     Call InvalidateRect(wea.hWnd,ByVal 0,%TRUE)
  End If

  'fnWndProc_OnLButtonDown=0
  return 0
End Function


Function fnWndProc_OnPaint(wea As WndEventArgs) As sys
  Local szLine[48] As Asciiz '*48
  Local ps As PAINTSTRUCT
  Local hDC As sys
  hDC=BeginPaint(wea.hWnd,@ps)
  'szLine="MouseX="+Trim$(Str$(wea.wX)) & "  MouseY="+Trim$(Str$(wea.wY))
  szLine="MouseX="+Str$(wea.wX) & "  MouseY="+Str$(wea.wY)
  TextOut (hDC,0,0,strptr(szLine),Len(szLine))
  szLine="wea.wWidth="+Trim$(Str$(wea.wWidth)) & " wea.wHeight=" + Trim$(Str$(wea.wHeight))
  TextOut (hDC,0,16, strptr(szLine),Len(szLine))
  TextOut (hDC,0,32,strptr(wea.szText),Len(wea.szText))
  If wea.xPos<>0 And wea.yPos<>0 Then
     szLine="WM_LBUTTONDOWN At (" & Trim$(Str$(wea.xPos)) & "," & Trim$(Str$(wea.yPos)) & ")"
     TextOut (hDC,wea.xPos,wea.yPos,strptr(szLine),Len(szLine))
     wea.xPos=0 : wea.yPos=0
  End If
  EndPaint(wea.hWnd,@ps)

  'fnWndProc_OnPaint=0
  return 0
End Function


Function WndProc(ByVal hWnd As sys,ByVal wMsg As sys,ByVal wParam As sys,ByVal lParam As sys) As sys, callback
  Static wea As WndEventArgs

  Select Case As sys wMsg
    Case %WM_CREATE
      wea.hWnd=hWnd : wea.lParam=lParam : wea.wParam=wParam
      return fnWndProc_OnCreate(wea)
      'WndProc=fnWndProc_OnCreate(wea)
      'Exit Function
    Case %WM_MOUSEMOVE
      wea.hWnd=hWnd : wea.lParam=lParam : wea.wParam=wParam
      return fnWndProc_OnMouseMove(wea)
      'WndProc=fnWndProc_OnMouseMove(wea)
      'Exit Function
    Case %WM_SIZE
      wea.hWnd=hWnd : wea.lParam=lParam : wea.wParam=wParam
      return fnWndProc_OnSize(wea)
      'WndProc=fnWndProc_OnSize(wea)
      'Exit Function
    Case %WM_CHAR
      wea.hWnd=hWnd : wea.lParam=lParam : wea.wParam=wParam
      return fnWndProc_OnChar(wea)
      'WndProc=fnWndProc_OnChar(wea)
      'Exit Function
    Case %WM_LBUTTONDOWN
      wea.hWnd=hWnd : wea.lParam=lParam : wea.wParam=wParam
      return fnWndProc_OnLButtonDown(wea)
      'WndProc=fnWndProc_OnLButtonDown(wea)
      'Exit Function
    Case %WM_PAINT
      wea.hWnd=hWnd : wea.lParam=lParam : wea.wParam=wParam
      return fnWndProc_OnPaint(wea)
      'WndProc=fnWndProc_OnPaint(wea)
      'Exit Function
    Case %WM_DESTROY
      Call PostQuitMessage(0)
      return 0
      'WndProc=0
      'Exit Function
  End Select

  return DefWindowProc(hWnd,wMsg,wParam,lParam)
  'WndProc=DefWindowProc(hWnd,wMsg,wParam,lParam)
End Function


Function WinMain(ByVal hIns As sys, ByVal hPrevIns As sys, lpCmdLine as asciiz, ByVal iShow As sys) As sys
  Local szClassName[6] As Asciiz '*6
  Local wc As WndClassEx
  Local hMainWnd As sys
  Local Msg As tagMsg

  szClassName="Form1"
  wc.cbSize=SizeOf(wc)                               : wc.style=0
  wc.lpfnWndProc=CodePtr(WndProc)                    : wc.cbClsExtra=0
  wc.cbWndExtra=0                                    : wc.hInstance=hIns
  wc.hIcon=LoadIcon(%NULL,ByVal %IDI_APPLICATION)    : wc.hCursor=LoadCursor(%NULL,ByVal %IDC_ARROW)
  wc.hbrBackground=GetStockObject(%WHITE_BRUSH)      : wc.lpszMenuName=%NULL
  wc.lpszClassName=VarPtr(szClassName)               : wc.hIconSm=LoadIcon(%NULL,ByVal %IDI_APPLICATION)
  Call RegisterClassEx(@wc)
  hMainWnd=CreateWindowEx(0,szClassName,"Form1",%WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,
  200,100,325,300,
  %HWND_DESKTOP,0,hIns,ByVal 0)
  Call ShowWindow(hMainWnd,iShow)

  While GetMessage(@Msg,%NULL,0,0)
    Call TranslateMessage(@Msg)
    Call DispatchMessage(@Msg)
  Wend
  return msg.wParam
  'WinMain=msg.wParam
End Function

char *c
@c=GetCommandline()
h=GetModuleHandle()
WinMain(h,0,c,SW_SHOWNORMAL)

' « Last Edit: September 12, 2007, 06:16:57 AM by Theo Gottwald »
'21:39 16/12/2012 cp


Definitely an over reaction here. PowerBasic is still in business and Bob set plans in motion just in this case. Not sure what the web site problems are, but I haven't had a problem accessing it at all for the last couple of days, but I am in the US. Much of the problems appear to be for those accessing the web site from outside the US so maybe the problem is with DNS servers adjusting with the server location change.

It is also the time of year here in the US when many companies shut down for a week or so or run with minimal staff. Not a big deal.

Give PowerBasic a little time before every one starts crying the "sky is falling" (from a well known childrens story).

For me, things are running as usual and not in panic mode.

I'm just a couple hundred miles north of Chris (one US state up) and the PB site has been up for me for several days without problems.

Because the downs have happened while you were sleeping, but the Europeans were awake.

BED TIME !
17-12-12- 07.32 MEZ we are down again.

Maybe PowerBasic has a (electrical) Power failer?  ;D

Its not that we are not willing to give PB all chances they deserve.
As said we are looking for a Plan B, that is if Power fails.

PS: Soon is the 21. some people expect a power failure around that date ...

Quote from: Christopher Boss on December 17, 2012, 01:56:59 AM
Definitely an over reaction here... Not a big deal.

Give PowerBasic a little time before every one starts crying the "sky is falling"...For me, things are running as usual and not in panic mode.

Chris, for you things may be great, but for people outside of your time zones things are not great. 

We all hope it will end happily, but the lack of effective communication by the company means that we are not entirely confident in that outcome.

Perhaps the PowerBASIC transition team lacks the rudimentary business skills to understand the importance for a supplier to manage their customer's expectations of service.  Do we really need to spell it out?

Quote from: Chris Holbrook on December 17, 2012, 08:25:14 AM
Perhaps the PowerBASIC transition team lacks the rudimentary business skills to understand the importance for a supplier to manage their customer's expectations of service.  Do we really need to spell it out?

Chris. I know you. I know that your personal bussines behavior is far from that, what we experience here.

Yet there is nothing wrong in checking for plan B.
Just talking with Charles about an PB-compatible x64 Compiler.
If i had to bet today who is faster out with something like that ...

QuoteBecause the downs have happened while you were sleeping, but the Europeans were awake.

What a bad signal for the rest of the world living outside of the US.

Christmas time or vacancy is not an excuse, especially for a company that has worldwide ambitions.

But perhaps we are just the victims of the "vapor staff" syndrom, that turns us all into the dark  :)

...

Sad to say its stone dead here in OZ. Its been up and down over the last week or so so I guess they want the site to stay up but I have not heard any detail of why its suddenly turned unreliable.

Steve, you are one ofthe very few persons, which I believe that could maintain the PB Compiler Code.
Talk to them, if i would hear that you are in the Boat my trust would go 1000% upwards.

Quote
PS: Soon is the 21. some people expect a power failure around that date ...

For your seasonal entertainment, I am posting the choicest 2012 youtubes on the thinBasic open forum over the next few days. But nothing scary or depressing from the Survivalist genre.

http://www.thinbasic.com/community/showthread.php?11959-New-Galactic-Year-21-Dec-2012&p=87693#post87693

Theo,

I am flattered but it would not work, it would end up looking like MASM. Have no fear, there is some genuine talent in the dev team so as long as they get over this server problem, we will see more things over time.

QuoteChris Boss; Definitely an over reaction here.

I'm with CB on this.
They made some changes and took the rest of the year off.
Definitely the right thing for Vivian to do.

Moving the server didn't work out so well.

They'll be facing some tough decisions in the new year; Win64, Win8, ...

It doesn't hurt to consider plan B ... unless plan B is to write a new compiler.

Steve ... how do you get to this secret knowledge?
Besides that, even if there is somebody, your knowledge in Optimizations in just that area is unique as i see it.

From what i have seen in last times from PB i did not have the impression that there are hidden ASM Gurus available.
Stan ... you know that a PB x64 is just what we all want. But who cares at PB.inc?

As Plan B I am discussing with Charles Options, as he has already an "Compiler-sort of thing" (looks however actually a bit like C to me)
running and is very interested in modern technologies.

Means as Plan B it would be needed some modifications to eat PB Source code.
Some features he has will possibly even beat current PB Implementations.

PS: I have removed some posts that were off-topic. We should stay here about PB.

Does the PB Forum have a mirror?

http://mailpower.com/support/pbforums/ (http://mailpower.com/support/pbforums/)

Same IP so no, not a mirror. Both domains owned by PB

WHOIS says the IP is 1.1.1.1.  Just an alias for powerbasic.com, right?

No, simple nslookup did the trick for me. Both return IP 96.254.223.74

Yes, looks like both are DOWN 08:42 MEZ 20-12-12.
         21-12-10:56 PB is DOWN.

Could it be that that are attacked (in the same way like our forum some time ago)?

Today we got a statement from Jim Bailey: (http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pbforums/showthread.php?p=422120#post422120)

If i get it right, i would say that PB should now be a bit more stable from now.

He did not say much at all.

> He did not say much at all.

http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pbforums/showthread.php?p=421900#post421900

Actually PB seems to be down again?
Und up again ... 12:48

Down again?

PowerBASIC - First in starting a new trend of a web site with operating hours - If only they would post the hours on the home page?

14:04 MEZ ... we are DOWN again.
Is the site under attack, like our forums before?
Or do they have a Quota, if exceeded (per day) the y go down?

Maybe they have become Protectionist. After all, why should they run their servers while most of their customers are sleeping?

Jim Bailey has just posted  re the outages: http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pbforums/showthread.php?p=422822#post422822

Haven't read yet what Jim Bailey posted about the outages, but I'm having one of my common sleepless nights (I oftentimes don't sleep well), and I decided to get up n the middle of the night here (same time zone PowerBASIC is in) and see if the site was down.  It isn't.  My local time now is about 3:20 AM US Eastern Standard Time.  I haven't had any experience with the PowerBASIC site being down at all for weeks.  However, everyone seems to be saying its down while I'm sleeping.  Well, its the middle of the night, I'm not sleeping, and it isn't down.  Having settled that searing question, maybe I can get back to sleep!   ;D

I would not lose too much sleep over the intermittent availability of the PB website. Anyone who has ever had to handle changes over the holiday period knows what the problems are. people away on vacation, ISPs with skeleton staff, apparently some stuffup with getting rid of the old connection in their new office and so on. Jim's post makes it clear that the intent is to get it all up and going again reliably so its just a matter of time and everybody being available to get the job done.

Now don't you guys wish you had another language to play with as well, MASM for instance.  ;D

QuoteMASM for instance

then all your nights would be sleepless

Quote from: Steve Hutchesson on December 30, 2012, 08:39:04 AM
I would not lose too much sleep over the intermittent availability of the PB website.

M$ would care. Any small business should care. From the tone of Mr Bailey's remarks, he cares and communicates which is a pretty good start.

QuoteNow don't you guys wish you had another language to play with as well, MASM for instance.

If you make it a subset of PowerBASIC ... it could get more Fans.
Assembler - no matter which type of Assembler, it will not get a lot of newcomers interested these days.

Look out there --- when people get a new windows versions that consist of pictures you should touch ---.
And in a time where a iPhone is the "Highest" technology.

As I have told you in my post before, I would really like the idea, if you think about a cooperation with PB and also improve the builtin Assembler to MASM Standards.
This way you could beat a lot of flies with one strike.
Nobody (or near to nobody) will start with learning Assembler, unless you start to get an icon picture for each register and each command.
And even then it may fail :-).

Hutch, you are the one who just knows best about ASM optimizations. I believe you could be an important part of a team that could continue to make the best, and fastest Assembler/Compiler available.

Theo--

You are always pushing up for your PB's church, this is called lobbying ;D

...

I hope its not tooo late.  :D