Some littles notes about PowerBASIC in Germany, my person ond some future ideas

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    Prelude

    My PowerBASIC-Homepage may contain a lot of information about PowerBASIC, put something private about my person can not be found, although I have been planning on it for some time.

    This is why I thank Dave Navarro, who now finally gave me a kick for a page like this.

    So, let's get going {g}:

    About myself

    I was born in 1966 in a little city 100km north of Berlin. I grew up in Berlin, where I went to school, finished my education and still work and live in today.

    I started with computers pretty soon. I had my first tries in the 80's with a KC85, which was soon replaced by an ATARI 800XL with Datasette and later by an ATARI 130XE (with 128k RamDisk and 360k Floppy!). At this time I started writing my first programs using Turbo-Basic. But that Turbo-Basic didn't have anything in common with the TurboBASIC from Bob Zale {g}.

    The year 1991 was became an all important year because it became time to buy a real PC. My choice fell on a 386/25 from the company Vobis. Besides the good price this company offered a complete Software package.
    But just this Software package was supposed to be the one that causes me to write this page today, because:

    This Software-Package contained PowerBASIC 2.10f

    It was not a complete PowerBASIC 2.10f, as this version could not create EXE-Files, but in comparrison to the also existing QBASIC/ QuickBASIC and the PowerBASIC "2.10f" full version, PowerBASIC managed fast, althoug the IDE was something one had to get used to. I believe it was 2-3 moth later when I went to Vobis and finally officially {g} bought the full version of PowerBASIC.
    And the rest is just history. Short time later I bought a Modem, became Point in the FidoNet and User in the germna Z-Net. The later was soon replaced by a real InterNet-Address.

    Programing:

    One of the first things that interested me was, how can I produce good Sound in PowerBASIC. In the beginning it seemed that this Problem was only solveable with a big amount of work, but with PowerBASIC 3.0 the problems were solved thanks to the InLine- Assembler.
    At first I programmed PBSOUND only for private applications, but the need in FidoNet was very big for such a kind of ToolBox. So PBSOUND became a Shareware-Toolkit, because I didn't want to have done all the work for free.

    PowerBASIC-FAQ:

    In the meantime PowerBASIC 3.0 became more and more popular for many BASIC-Programmers in the BASIC.GER in FidoNet, many standard questions were solved in PowerBASIC and available in Source, but not in QuickBASIC.

    Later the questions about PowerBASIC increased, so that I began an attack on the 'PowerBASIC-FAQ' because of some hints from the Moderator and many readers of the BASIC.GER.
    The PowerBASIC-FAQ became an extensive work in a short period of time thanks to the help of the PowerBASIC-User in BASIC.GER.

    For me a special time began at this time, for normally Group Projects in an EMail-Network are doomed to die. This destiny did not hit the PowerBASIC-FAQ, the opposite has happened: It was translated into English with fast efforts.

    Currently the PowerBASIC-FAQ (in completely identical version) exists in German and English and is distributed regularily through the InterNet (comp.lang.basic.misc and alt.lang.powerbasic).
    The only thing sad is the "PowerBASIC Inc." has until today not sent any articles or corrections. But for that I get more and more international Mail about the FAQ.

    The PBSOUND Headquarter BBS:

    I have been playing with the thought of opening my own BBS for a long time, but it was only in Summer '96, when German Telekom supported the installation of an ISDN-Connection with up to 800.-DM, when this happened.

    Since then my BBS is a central meeting point concerning PowerBASIC sources and tools, because about 25MB source code in 16 PowerBASIC Fileareas are waiting here.

    There are so many source codes that I am thinking about burning the whole Filebase onto a CD {g}.

    Thanks to:

    • All readers of the old BASIC.GER and current PowerBASIC.GER
    • 'Kirschbaum Software GmbH', especially Bernd Richter and Josef Kirschbaum for the fast supply of the current Compilers.
    • Thomas Geiger (for all english translations).

    (c) 1997/2000 Thomas Gohel, All rights reserved
    (c) 1997 Thomas Geiger, english version