QBasic Commands

PRINT

Print something out, whatever, in quotes
PRINT "Hello World!"

COLOR fore,back

Select foreground and background colors;
fore = 0-31
back = 0-7
COLOR 12,3 This sets the colors to be light red on cyan;
COLOR ,5 This sets the background to magenta, while leaving the foreground alone;
Note that these only take effect on subsequent PRINTs; nothing is changed on the current screen.

CLS

Clear the screen to the current background color

LOCATE row,col

Move the cursor to a particular row, column
row = 1-25
col = 1-80
LOCATE 5,40 This places the cursor in row 5, column 40;

CHR$(n)

Specify a character whose ASCII code is n
PRINT CHR$(3) This will print out a heart;

*** Nifty Alternative ***

For the extended graphics set (namely characters 128-255) you can use the following method to display the character right in your program!

Hold down the [Alt] key;
While you are holding down the [Alt] key, enter the ASCII code for the character you want from the numeric keypad on the right of the keyboard.

Hence, if you want to use the Greek letter beta (ASCII 225), you would do this:

Hold down [Alt]Press [Keypad 2], [Keypad 2], [Keypad 5]Release [Alt]

Note that this only works within DOS; it does not work in Windows.

FOR/NEXT

Carries out a task any number of times

FOR n = 1 to 15

    COLOR n

    PRINT "Color"; n

NEXT n

This prints out the numbers 1 through 15 in their respective colors;

GOSUB/RETURN

This allows you to create re-usable subroutines, for example:

PRINT "Here is a test..."

GOSUB 1000 

PRINT "I'm back now."

END



1000 'Subroutine 

PRINT "Here I am in the subroutine!" 

RETURN