First of all, you are a life saver. I have 50+ GW-Basic programs written over the years which were facing extinction until you wrote PC-Basic. Thanks and a huge sigh of relief!
So far, everything works perfectly, even the graphics on screen 9, which don't always work on some Win XP graphics cards.
However, I have a couple of database programs which can currently (GW-Basic + Win XP) access files over an Ethernet network from another PC.
The path in GW-Basic is:" \[target PC][directory]\ " but this returns "file not found" in PC-Basic. Is there any (simple) way to 'escape the box' and access other directories higher up the tree?
Hope this makes sense. I'm not a programmer, just someone who bodges code to save myself tedious brainwork.
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Hi, great that you find PC-BASIC useful! 50+ programs is a good stash to test out all the features -- do let me know if you run into things that don't work correctly.
Windows network paths as you describe them (let's say \\HUMMINGBIRD\Documents) are not directly supported but I think you can make it work if you mount the network drive to a GW-BASIC disk drive letter and adjust your BASIC code to use that drive letter.
You could try using the PCBASIC.INI option mount=N:\\HUMMINGBIRD\Documents
and then see if you can access the files at \\HUMMINGBIRD\Documents from PC-BASIC through FILES "N:"
I'm actually not sure if this will work, but it's worth a try. If it fails, you could map the network location as a Windows drive letter (using Map Network Drive on XP, not sure if it's called differently on current Windows versions) and then mount that drive to a PC-BASIC drive letter. Note that PC-BASIC doesn't directly recognise Windows drives unless you mount them (which is a bit confusing but I think it's the right thing to do).
So if you've mapped \\HUMMINGBIRD\Documents to Windows drive E:, the option mount=N:E: would make it available as N: under PC-BASIC. If you want it as the same letter, you still need a mount option, e.g. mount=E:E:. Alternatively, you could use the option map-drives=True to assign all Windows drives to the same letters in PC-BASIC; careful with this as it may give your BASIC programs access to things you didn't want it to.
Note that if you're running PC_BASIC from the command prompt, you can give these options without having to edit PCBASIC.INI; just precede them with two dashes. E.g. C:\Program Files\PC-BASIC\pcbasic --mount=N:E:
Hope this helps, let me know if it works!
Rob
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Anonymous
-
2015-06-22
Thanks for the quick reply. I'm not sure how Win 7 & 8 map network drives so it might take me a bit of time. I will have a go and report back.
PS- I haven't tried it yet, but if I can also get PC-Basic to run SoundBlaster utilities through Dosshell my world would be complete!
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You can enable it (at least in the current version) using shell=native which will connect to a CMD shell. In other words, if the utility doesn't run in a Windows CMD shell, it will not run in PC-BASIC either. You can try running the program in DOSBox instead.
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Anonymous
-
2015-06-24
Hi Rob. I thought I ought to report back. Unfortunately I haven't tried your suggestions yet but I may have accidentally found a workaround.
After making the directory containing pc-basic.exe & the databases in PC1 fully shareable in Windows, I created a desktop shortcut to that directory from the other networked PC (PC2). Clicking on the shortcut in PC2 runs pc-basic.exe on PC1 and gives read & write access to files in the PC1 directory (and subdirectories).
I wasn't sure about running the same exe file from 2 places simultaneously so I created a copy of pc-basic.exe in the PC1 directory, called 'pc-basic2.exe', and used it as a target for the PC2 shortcut.
When running 'pc-basic.exe' from PC1 and 'pc-basic2.exe' from PC2 I can run the same 'READDB.BAS' program in PC1 simultaneously from both PCs and access the same database in PC1 with no conflicts (so far).
Sorry it's a long-winded explanation. Hope it makes sense.
Thanks for your help though. Even though I didn't use your suggestions it gave me the inspiration to start experimenting.
I will have to find time to experiment with SHELL later!
All the best,
Nick
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Well, I can't say I quite understand what you're doing but I'm glad it's working :)
In principle you should be able to run the same EXE more than once, either on the same or on different computers.
Rob
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First of all, you are a life saver. I have 50+ GW-Basic programs written over the years which were facing extinction until you wrote PC-Basic. Thanks and a huge sigh of relief!
So far, everything works perfectly, even the graphics on screen 9, which don't always work on some Win XP graphics cards.
However, I have a couple of database programs which can currently (GW-Basic + Win XP) access files over an Ethernet network from another PC.
The path in GW-Basic is:" \[target PC][directory]\ " but this returns "file not found" in PC-Basic. Is there any (simple) way to 'escape the box' and access other directories higher up the tree?
Hope this makes sense. I'm not a programmer, just someone who bodges code to save myself tedious brainwork.
Hi, great that you find PC-BASIC useful! 50+ programs is a good stash to test out all the features -- do let me know if you run into things that don't work correctly.
Windows network paths as you describe them (let's say
\\HUMMINGBIRD\Documents) are not directly supported but I think you can make it work if you mount the network drive to a GW-BASIC disk drive letter and adjust your BASIC code to use that drive letter.You could try using the
PCBASIC.INIoptionmount=N:\\HUMMINGBIRD\Documentsand then see if you can access the files at
\\HUMMINGBIRD\Documentsfrom PC-BASIC throughFILES "N:"I'm actually not sure if this will work, but it's worth a try. If it fails, you could map the network location as a Windows drive letter (using Map Network Drive on XP, not sure if it's called differently on current Windows versions) and then mount that drive to a PC-BASIC drive letter. Note that PC-BASIC doesn't directly recognise Windows drives unless you mount them (which is a bit confusing but I think it's the right thing to do).
So if you've mapped
\\HUMMINGBIRD\Documentsto Windows driveE:, the optionmount=N:E:would make it available asN:under PC-BASIC. If you want it as the same letter, you still need a mount option, e.g.mount=E:E:. Alternatively, you could use the optionmap-drives=Trueto assign all Windows drives to the same letters in PC-BASIC; careful with this as it may give your BASIC programs access to things you didn't want it to.Note that if you're running PC_BASIC from the command prompt, you can give these options without having to edit
PCBASIC.INI; just precede them with two dashes. E.g.C:\Program Files\PC-BASIC\pcbasic --mount=N:E:Hope this helps, let me know if it works!
Rob
Thanks for the quick reply. I'm not sure how Win 7 & 8 map network drives so it might take me a bit of time. I will have a go and report back.
PS- I haven't tried it yet, but if I can also get PC-Basic to run SoundBlaster utilities through Dosshell my world would be complete!
By default, the
SHELLcommand is disabled.You can enable it (at least in the current version) using
shell=nativewhich will connect to aCMDshell. In other words, if the utility doesn't run in a WindowsCMDshell, it will not run in PC-BASIC either. You can try running the program in DOSBox instead.Hi Rob. I thought I ought to report back. Unfortunately I haven't tried your suggestions yet but I may have accidentally found a workaround.
After making the directory containing pc-basic.exe & the databases in PC1 fully shareable in Windows, I created a desktop shortcut to that directory from the other networked PC (PC2). Clicking on the shortcut in PC2 runs pc-basic.exe on PC1 and gives read & write access to files in the PC1 directory (and subdirectories).
I wasn't sure about running the same exe file from 2 places simultaneously so I created a copy of pc-basic.exe in the PC1 directory, called 'pc-basic2.exe', and used it as a target for the PC2 shortcut.
When running 'pc-basic.exe' from PC1 and 'pc-basic2.exe' from PC2 I can run the same 'READDB.BAS' program in PC1 simultaneously from both PCs and access the same database in PC1 with no conflicts (so far).
Sorry it's a long-winded explanation. Hope it makes sense.
Thanks for your help though. Even though I didn't use your suggestions it gave me the inspiration to start experimenting.
I will have to find time to experiment with SHELL later!
All the best,
Nick
Hi Nick,
Well, I can't say I quite understand what you're doing but I'm glad it's working :)
In principle you should be able to run the same EXE more than once, either on the same or on different computers.
Rob