Major new release 14.10

[Rob Hagemans]

I've uploaded release 14.10. A selection of improvements:
- Support for East Asian DBCS codepages
- Copy & paste to clipboard on Windows and Linux
- MDA, Hercules, Olivetti, and monochrome EGA (SCREEN 10) video mode support
- Better sound
- Screen border emulation
- Ability to specify alternative configuration files
- Zipped packages for easy distribution of BASIC applications
- Improved command-line interface, including Windows support
- Support for reading UTF-8 encoded BAS files
- Support for BAS files with Unix newlines
- More & better documentation
- Lots of bug fixes.

Note that many command line options and defaults have changed since release 14.08. Please check info/USAGE or run pcbasic -h for more information.

Have fun
Rob

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the release! Many of the new features listed above are very useful. Most of my programs work fine with it too. Nice work!

However, I found that the output of a subprogram within the WERSPEC.BAS program that I have attached earlier in another thread looks a little strange when running in this version (it does not occur in 14.08). It is the "Clock" program (Program #8 in the secondary menu). There are many circles shown on the screen when running in this version, as opposed to just one when running in GW-BASIC or earlier versions of PC-BASIC.

[Rob Hagemans]

Ok, thanks for letting me know. I'll have a look at it - I've collected a few more bug and regression fixes for 14.10 so I think I should be able to release a .1 version fairly soon.

[Anonymous]

There is another thing I would like to know - I am not able to get help by running "pcbasic -h" for the release version, and I don't know why. I have tried this on at least two different (Windows) computers and got the same result. With Git versions however I am able to get help information by running "python pcbasic -h".

[Rob Hagemans]

OK, that's strange. What's your exact command line (including working directory etc.)?

Meanwhile, you can just consult the text file info\USAGE which gives the same information.

[Rob Hagemans]

The CIRCLE issue is now solved in git, btw.

[Anonymous]

The command line I use is simply "pcbasic -h" or "pcbasic.exe -h" (I also tried "--help" instead of "-h"). The pcbasic.exe file (along with all other files extracted from the Win32 zip package) is obviously in the current directory. It does not matter which directory I put these files in, and the result will be the same. For example:

C:\pcbasic>pcbasic -h

C:\pcbasic>

I have also tried the MacOS X version, which will work properly however (e.g. ./pcbasic -h).

[Rob Hagemans]

The issue seems to be that Windows executables made with PyInstaller have to be either console applications (in which case they'll open an ugly console window when started from the GUI) or "windowed" applications (in which case printing to the console doesn't work). Not sure if that is easily fixable, there would have to be two separate executables. Did this work in earlier versions?

[Anonymous]

This worked in PC-BASIC 14.01 and 14.03 for example. But it probably won't work in later Win32 releases (e.g. 14.04) any more.

[Rob Hagemans]

Apparently this is a Windows issue, not a PyInstaller issue. Unlike Linux and Mac, the Windows kernel needs to know in advance whether an executable is a console or a GUI app. From what I read, there's no elegant solution for this, but it's possible to hack around the issue by including two binaries (one console and one GUI) and renaming the console EXE to pcbasic.com. It's not an issue that it isn't really a COM file, and CMD gives precedence to COM over EXE so from the command line the correct version is picked. I tried this and it works. Downside is that I need to include two almost identical 3M executables and that the packaging workflow becomes quite convoluted.

[Rob Hagemans]

I've uploaded a bug-fix release 14.10.1. This release solves the following issues:
- Command-line functionality and -h option now work on Windows
- Copy and Paste now works on OSX
- Fixed unpredictable behaviour with paths with forward slashes
- Fixed regression in CIRCLE for zero-length arc sections
- Implemented GET (a,b)-STEP(c,d)
- and a few more bug fixes.

Thanks to everyone who reported bugs and sent in fixes!

Rob

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the new release!

Regarding the existence of both PCBASIC.COM and PCBASIC.EXE in the Windows version, I have a suggestion. Currently when PCBASIC.COM is launched either from the command line or from the Windows Explorer, it will always occupy a console Windows which will stay until the GUI windows is closed. How about just call PCBASIC.EXE with the appropriate option and terminate itself when PCBASIC.COM is launched and finds that no console output is needed (i.e. when options such as -h are not used)? In this way no two almost identical 3M executables are necessary either.

[Rob Hagemans]

I've uploaded bug fix release 14.10.2, with a.o. the following improvements:
- Fix a number of issues with printing under Windows
- Enable the AltGr key under Windows. You can now type the backslash on German-language keyboards.
- Fix incorrect EOF characters in text files written with PRINT#1, WRITE#1
- Fix a minor issue with formatting of floating point numbers in PRINT USING

Note that from this version onwards, LPT1: is by default attached to your default printer. If you don't want any printing, use the option --lpt1= with no name specified.

Thanks to everyone who helped find and solve these issues!

[Anonymous]

Noob trying to execute in Linux. I tried to double click pcbasic in directory, buy nothing seemed to happen. Do I need wine, dosemu or dosbox to start pcbasic? Thanks in advance. - Chris

[Rob Hagemans]

Hi Chris,
In theory that should just work... You certainly don't need wine, dosemu or dosbox. Which version of pcbasic did you download (what's the filename?) And what linux distribution are you using?

If you're using pcbasic 14.10.2, could you also try 14.10.1 from the files section? I've only just uploaded the new version, perhaps I put the wrong file there.

Rob

[Anonymous]

Tried 14.10.1 as well... same results.

[Rob Hagemans]

We posted at the same time -- see my post below. If it still doesn't work that way, can you please post exactly what happens in the CLI? Just select everything from the terminal window and paste into a message...

[Anonymous]

Hi Rob - yes, I'm using the 14.10.2 on a Ubuntu 14.04 LTS box. Do I need to uninstall anything before trying the earlier version?

[Anonymous]

A reboot did not work, nor did running as root or using command line. In CLI, the system didn't find "pcbasic" in the directory even though it appeared to be there after listing all the files in the directory. Hope this info is useful. Thx

[Rob Hagemans]

Hi Chris, there's no need to uninstall anything, just extract to a directory of your choice. However, I've just double-checked the download for 14.10.2 and it works from CLI on my Ubuntu 12.04 system, so if it doesn't work for you I don't think the older version would do better (feel free to try, though).

On the CLI, after extracting the tarball with tar xvfz pc-basic-14.10.2-linux-i386.tgz, you need to change into the pcbasic directory and run the executable. Note that on most terminals I know you need to enter ./pcbasic to execute the file, including the dot-slash - it won't recognise simply pcbasic unless you've added the directory to your PATH variable.

I just noticed that double-clicking in a file manager (I use XFCE's Thunar) indeed doesn't work; seems I never tried to run it this way before. I suspect Thunar doesn't change the working directory to the one where the executable is located, so it can't find its libraries. I'll give some thought to making the packaging easier. For now you may have to run from CLI or create an entry in your applications menu with the correct working directory.

Let me know how you get on,
Rob

[Rob Hagemans]

I found out why clicking on the executable in a Linux file manager doesn't work - it's to do with PC-BASIC trying to be a little bit too clever about redirecting input and output. It'll run as a command-line filter if it detects redirected input. It seemed like a good idea at the time but on second thought it's probably more trouble than it's worth, as any executable started from a file manager will have standard input and output redirected too, and the end result is that PCBASIC basically does nothing, as you noticed.

The bad news is that this also means that you can't make a menu entry in your desktop apps menu; it probably just won't run.

The good news is that I'll change the behaviour for the next major release. We'll need to use an extra switch to get a command-line filter but it's not a common use case anyway, and it makes everything else easier. I'll also try to knock together a proper install script that creates a menu entry and a symlink in /usr/bin so that you can start the thing up like any other command.