GWBASIC and XP Pro

[angrita]

I have just been requested by my wife's office to get a suite of GWBASIC vers 3.23 progs currently on W98SE to run on XP Pro . I have it running, however with 2 questions:
1. It runs in a very small fixed window. I can run full screen but on my large screen the clarity is poor. Can I enlarge the fixed window it appears in?
2. It says at GWBASIC start up only 60K free space. Is there any way I can increase this?
I have used some of the property options and have set W98 compatibility and increased memory to 200K but these do not appear to have any impact.
I am reasonably competent but not a complete techy, so any advice welcome.

I have also tried using QBASIC, but the same problem with Window size occurs and I am getting a gobbledegook character set appearing opening the source dode GWBASIC progs.
Only doing this as alternative approach if I cannot get GWBASIC fixed.

[mechbas]

The basic answer on both counts is no.
The basic progs. that you're running were written at at time when ram (head space) was limited and it's ram limits are built into the program itself which is why your ram expansions are having no impact.
You might try a search on more current GWBASIC programs, they do exist or at least they did as of last summer.
The gobbledegook (hex) character set that you're getting is probably because the read only attribute was set when the prog. was last edited. There are ways to remove the byte for editing but for the moment don't recall how it was done.

[angrita]

Thanks for the advice. What I feared, but better to know and stop chasing a rainbow.

[mechbas]

If you're still interested searce the net f/upbas11.zip. Use the right syntax and it'll usually take the /protected mode byte out of the file for editing.

[Duoas]

Actually, for the answer to (1), you can make the window text bigger by adjusting the font, but you'll need to do it in a shortcut.

1. Create a shortcut that starts your gwbasic application.
2. Use the shortcut to start the program.
3. Right click on the console window's menubar to get a pop-up menu. Choose "Properties".
4. Make all the changes you like until you are satisfied with the result.
5. Click "OK" and then select the option to modify the shortcut that started the program.

If you mean that you want more columns/lines than 80x25, then you will have to poke around in memory to do it (as XP still supports the old DOS subsystem). You will probably have to use some assembly language routines to change the display mode (it has been a while, so I don't remember how, exactly...). You are most likely to have success if you use 80x50.

You might also want to look through "Running GW-BASIC under Windows".

Hope this helps.

[glindhot]

Question 1 - Press Alt Enter will turn it into a full screen display.

[[I]line#[/I]] SCREEN 0 'text screen (default screen when you enter BASIC)
[[I]line#[/I]] SCREEN 1 'medium-resolution screen
[[I]line#[/I]] SCREEN 2 'high-resolution screen

either
[[I]line#[/I]] WIDTH 80 '80 columns of characters on the screen
or
[[I]line#[/I]] WIDTH 40 '40 columns of characters on the screen

[Duoas]

The OP already knows Alt-ENTER, and has complained that the resolution is poor, and asked how to fix the fixed-size Windows window.

I missed the 60k space question (sorry) but this is an old, 16-bit DOS program. You cannot increase the operating space.

Using WIDTH 40 is hardly helpful for increasing the character resolution.
The SCREEN modes listed don't help either. Mode 0 is MDI text. mode 1 is CGA 4 color graphics, 320x200 pixel, and mode 2 is 2 color, 640x200 pixel graphics --both of which are likely lower resolution than mode 0. The highest resolution graphics mode you can get with GWBASIC is SCREEN 9, which probably won't work... Read more here. In any case, switching to a graphics mode is not a good option unless you are doing graphics.

[jwenting]

there can be only one possible answer to such a "request", and that's "REQUEST DENIED".