programming in basic

[ardend]

Hi

I am new to programming and computers although i do know a little, anyway can you please tell me how i can restore my quite old PC to a state where there is no windows or Linux or any operating system (although i have worked out i will need some form of OS) all i want to do on my PC is develop pro-grammes using the basic language. About 25 years ago i used to have an acorn electron which had a black screen and a cursor and that was it. Can i do this on a modern pc's.

[kilgoretrout]

Just zero fill the hard drive and it will wipe everything off of it. You can do that with DBAN:

http://www.dban.org/download

Once that's done you are going to have to install some OS , a text editor to write your code and a Basic compiler to compile your code. The black screen and a cursor is called a command line interface(CLI) as opposed to a graphical interface(GUI) found on most modern OSes. You can certainly set linux up to boot to a CLI and there are very sophisticated standard text editors available in linux which can be used from the CLI like vi and emacs. However, there's a significant learning curve with most CLI text editors. There also appears to be a number of free basic compilers available:

http://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/basic.shtml

So the project sounds feasible to me.

[ardend]

Thankyou very much for your reply it was very helpful. I would just like to clarify, so after i have wiped the hd i will need to install a text editor and compiler from a cd? Did you also mean i would need an os aswell or is this the os. Thankyou for your patience.

[kilgoretrout]

You would have to install an OS first. By default, all linux distros install a text editor when the OS is installed. You would then need to download your Basic compiler and install that.

However, judging from your questions, all that may be beyond your technical expertise at the present time. Can you give me some information on the hardware that you want to use for this project? Also, could you explain why you want to wipe out your OS? If it's working OK now, you could just download a compiler from the website I gave you and install it on your present OS. Do you have a clear idea of the process involved in writing code and compiling the code into an executable file?

[ardend]

Yes your right i do not have much knowledge of computers at present, i would like to understand the programmes involved from the very basic start and to do this i emagine to have a pc with as much little info and programmes on from the start so i can build on it. The os that are available already have 1000,s of programmes running which i cant see the source of or understand. I would be able to learn programming language as a hobby but require a pc which is basicly empty or with an very small number of programmes running to provide an os to run drives, keyboard etc.

[kilgoretrout]

Unfortunately, I don't think that's a very good approach for you. The complexity of the underlying OS is not really relevant when doing elementary, beginning programing. You might want to take a look at this article giving some history and background of OSes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system

The OS just serves as a platform for you to install your compiler on and to run your text editor to write your code. The beginning programs you write and compile will be simple programs that can be run from a command line. And that can be done on any modern OS just fine. I would suggest starting with more modern languages than Basic like C# if you are on windows or java which is good for almost any OS. C# and java programmers are probably the most sought after in the job market right now. There are also many good books available on both languages.