Notational Conventions

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Microsoft® GW-BASIC® is a simple, easy-to-learn, easy-to-use computer programming language with English-like statements and mathematical notations. With GW-BASIC you will be able to write both simple and complex programs to run on your computer. You will also be able to modify existing software that is written in GW-BASIC.

This guide is designed to help you use the GW-BASIC Interpreter with the MS-DOS® operating system. Section 1.5 lists resources that will teach you how to program.

1.1 System Requirements

This version of GW-BASIC requires MS-DOS version 3.2 or later.

1.2 Preliminaries

Your GW-BASIC files will be on the MS-DOS diskette located at the back of the MS-DOS User's Reference. Be sure to make a working copy of the diskette before you proceed.

Note

This manual is written for the user familiar with the MS-DOS operating system. For more information on MS-DOS, refer to the Microsoft MS-DOS 3.2 User's Guide and User's Reference.

1.3 Notational Conventions

Throughout this manual, the following conventions are used to distinguish elements of text:

bold

Used for commands, options, switches, and literal portions of syntax that must appear exactly as shown.
italic	Used for filenames, variables, and placeholders that represent the type of text to be entered by the user.
monospace	Used for sample command lines, program code and examples, and sample sessions.
SMALL CAPS	Used for keys, key sequences, and acronyms.

Brackets surround optional command-line elements.

1.4 Organization of This Manual

The GW-BASIC User's Guide is divided into six chapters, nine appendixes, and a glossary:

Chapter 1, 'Welcome to GW-BASIC,' describes this manual.

Chapter 2, 'Getting Started with GW-BASIC,' is an elementary guideline on how to begin programming.

Chapter 3, 'Reviewing and Practicing GW-BASIC,' lets you use the principles of GW-BASIC explained in Chapter 2.

Chapter 4, 'The GW-BASIC Screen Editor,' discusses editing commands that can be used when inputting or modifying a GW-BASIC program. It also explains the unique properties of the ten re-definable function keys and of other keys and keystroke combinations.

Chapter 5, 'Creating and Using Files,' tells you how to create files and to use the diskette input/output (I/O) procedures.

Chapter 6, 'Constants, Variables, Expressions, and Operators,' defines the elements of GW-BASIC and describes how you will use them.

Appendix A, 'Error Codes and Messages,' is a summary of all the error codes and error messages that you might encounter while using GW-BASIC.

Appendix B, 'Mathematical Functions,' describes how to calculate certain mathematical functions not intrinsic to GW-BASIC.

Appendix C, 'ASCII Character Codes,' lists the ASCII character codes recognized by GW-BASIC.

Appendix D, 'Assembly Language (Machine Code) Subroutines,' shows how to include assembly language subroutines with GW-BASIC.

Appendix E, 'Converting BASIC Programs to GW-BASIC,' provides pointers on converting programs written in BASIC to GW-BASIC.

Appendix F, 'Communications,' describes the GW-BASIC statements required to support RS-232 asynchronous communications with other computers and peripheral devices.

Appendix G, 'Hexadecimal Equivalents,' lists decimal and binary equivalents to hexadecimal values.

Appendix H, 'Key Scan Codes,' lists and illustrates the key scan code values used in GW-BASIC.

Appendix I, 'Characters Recognized by GW-BASIC,' describes the GW-BASIC character set.

The Glossary defines words and phrases commonly used in GW-BASIC and data processing.

1.5 Bibliography

This manual is a guide to the use of the GW-BASIC Interpreter: it makes no attempt to teach the BASIC programming language. The following texts may be useful for those who wish to learn BASIC programming:

Albrecht, Robert L., LeRoy Finkel, and Jerry Brown. BASIC. 2d ed. New York: Wiley Interscience, 1978.

Coan, James. Basic BASIC. Rochelle Park, N.J.: Hayden Book Company, 1978.

Dwyer, Thomas A. and Margot Critchfield. BASIC and the Personal Computer. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1978.

Ettlin, Walter A. and Gregory Solberg. The MBASIC Handbook. Berkeley, Calif.: Osborne/McGraw Hill, 1983.

Knecht, Ken. Microsoft BASIC. Portland, Oreg.: Dilithium Press, 1982.

GW-BASIC
Stable release
Developer	Microsoft
First appeared	1983; 37 years ago
OS	DOS
License	Proprietary MIT License (v1.0)^[1]
Influenced by
IBM Cassette BASIC, IBM Disk BASIC, IBM BASICA
Influenced
QBasic, QuickBasic, MSX BASIC

GW-BASIC is a dialect of the BASICprogramming language developed by Microsoft from IBM BASICA. Functionally identical to BASICA, its BASIC interpreter is a fully self-contained executable and does not need the Cassette BASIC ROM found in the original IBM PC. It was bundled with MS-DOSoperating systems on IBM PC compatibles by Microsoft.

The language is suitable for simple games, business programs and the like. Since it was included with most versions of MS-DOS, it was also a low-cost way for many aspiring programmers to learn the fundamentals of computer programming.^[2]^[3] Microsoft also sold a BASIC compiler, BASCOM, compatible with GW-BASIC, for programs needing more speed.

According to Mark Jones Lorenzo, given the scope of the language, 'GW-BASIC is arguably the ne plus ultra of Microsoft's family of line-numbered BASICs stretching back to the Altair--and perhaps even of line-numbered BASIC in general.'^[4]

With the release of MS-DOS 5.0, GW-BASIC's place was taken by QBasic, the interpreter part of the separately available QuickBASIC compiler.^[5]

On May 21, 2020, Microsoft released the 8088 assembler source code for GW-BASIC 1.0 on GitHub under the MIT License.^[1]

Features[edit]

IBM BASICA and GW-BASIC are largely ports of MBASIC version 5.x, but with added features specifically for the IBM PC hardware. Common features of BASIC-80 5.x and BASICA/GW-BASIC include:

WHILE...WEND loops
Variable names of up to 40 characters
OPTION BASE statement to set the starting index of array variables as either 0 or 1
Dynamic string space allocation
LINE INPUT, which allowed field separator characters like comma to be ignored
CALL statement for executing machine language routines
CHAIN and MERGE commands
Ability to save programs in either tokenized binary format or ASCII text

The ability to 'crunch' program lines by omitting spaces, a common feature of earlier Microsoft BASIC implementations, was removed from BASIC-80 5.x and BASICA/GWBASIC.

BASIC-80 programs not using PEEK/POKE statements run under GW-BASIC. BASICA adds many features for the IBM PC such as sound, graphics, and memory commands. Features not present in BASIC-80 include the ability to execute the RND function with no parameters and the ability to also save programs in a 'protected' format, preventing them from being LISTed. BASICA also all