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I would be grateful for recommendations of a version of the BASIC programming language that meets the following criteria:

required

    1. can create portable .exe files
    1. can input from .txt files
    1. can write to .txt files
    1. can carry out at least the four basic arithmetical operations
    1. has a clock function that can measure time in units at least as small as 1 second
    1. can run on Windows 10

would be greatly appreciated

    1. can create .txt files
    1. has readymade maths functions such as exp, log, and sin
    1. itself takes the form of a portable .exe
    1. is free

would be nice

    1. allows control over print size and text colour in output
    1. can read and display .jpg files (writing to and creating them is not needed)
    1. can work with a mouse
    1. has a friendly user community
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  • Why, might I ask do you want BASIC in particular. It isn't a very good language.
    – Eric S
    Commented Oct 3, 2023 at 1:09
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    @EricS - It may be the only language he's familiar with.
    – Jeff Zeitlin
    Commented Oct 3, 2023 at 10:51
  • @JeffZeitlin I’ve worked with BASIC and the small effort to pick up Python’s syntax would be well worth it, especially working with text files.
    – Eric S
    Commented Oct 3, 2023 at 15:47
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    And I felt more-or-less the same way about each of the languages I picked up, including Pascal, PowerShell, CA-Realizer, Euphoria, and ... well, I know quite a number of languages. But not everyone feels the same way, and the querent may have other things he feels are better uses of his time. One of my objections to python is that it's indentation-sensitive, as opposed to using delimiters for sub-blocks like Pascal (BEGIN...END) or C ({...}) or PowerShell ({...}) or...
    – Jeff Zeitlin
    Commented Oct 3, 2023 at 15:54

1 Answer 1

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Since you said free was appreciated, I assume it is not a requirement. This is not free, but it is not expensive either.

Just about any language will do what what you want to do, but it will not necessarily do it right out of the box. That is the point of programming languages, to allow you to "Build Things", not just "Do Things"

Power basic is a modern BASIC language, that can do all the things you have asked with proper coding.

https://www.powerbasic.com/powerbasic-compiler-for-windows

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    The link doesn’t work
    – Eric S
    Commented Feb 29 at 19:42
  • It was at the time, if you go now to the root domain, it reads the page is down for maintenance. So not sure what that means for the product. New version, new owners, or just new page.
    – GeneMoody-Action1
    Commented Mar 1 at 20:36

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