Microsoft Small Basic 1.0

Microsoft Small Basic is an easy-to-use programming tool. Microsoft Small Basic is a project that is aimed at making computer programming accessible to beginners.

The project comprises a simple programming language that gathers inspiration from the original BASIC programming language; a modern and attractive programming environment; and rich, extensible libraries. Together they make programming fun for kids and adults alike.

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· Firstly, the Small Basic compiler and runtime have been overhauled and the result is a big performance gain. Some tight loop programs run up to 4 times faster than the previous versions. This has been the primary focus of the release.

· Next, we have new additions to the library.
· - We now have a Controls object that allows you to add Buttons and TextBoxes and react to click and text change events.
· - The Shapes object adds support for adding/modifying, animating and zooming text. This is extremely useful for displaying and updating text frequently, like the score in a game.
· - The Sound object now has a new operation, PlayMusic, which plays music described by a subset of Music Markup Language supported by QBasic. An example is: Sound.PlayMusic("O5 C8 C8 G8 G8 A8 A8 G4 F8 F8 E8 E8 D8 D8 C4")

· And then, there are the bug fixes. I won’t go into the details but there are a ton of fixes. An important update is the change in the default extension for Small Basic documents. ...