Squeezing some cool from Windows GDI

[Vortex]

Hello MrBcx,

Thanks for the explanation, you helped me a lot. I downloaded the same package and managed to install the necessary components.
All the 32\64-bit compilers are located in the same folder, C:\Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\Studio\22.0\bin
A nice extra tool in the binary ( bin ) folder is Turbo Assembler Version 5.4. Only the 32-bit version of this utility is offered.

[MrBcx]

Hello MrBcx,

Thanks for the explanation, you helped me a lot. I downloaded the same package and managed to install the necessary components.
All the 32\64-bit compilers are located in the same folder, C:\Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\Studio\22.0\bin
A nice extra tool in the binary ( bin ) folder is Turbo Assembler Version 5.4. Only the 32-bit version of this utility is offered.

Yes ... same with RAD Studio: 

Turbo Assembler  Version 5.4  Copyright (c) 1988, 2010 Embarcadero Technologies, Inc.

Borland's Tasm was my preferred assembler back in my MsDos days of asm coding. 

But now days, Pelles' tools are hard to beat for ease of access, functionality, support, performance and reliability.

[John Z]

Hi MrBcx,

Even if folks prefer C\C++ over BASIC, BCX will save us a lot of time
when beginning a project.  It's useful for prototyping ideas and for learning
about Windows API programming.

Very correct. Almost every Windows Program I've written in Pelles C was first prototyped in VB5.  I was a big
VB proponent, but when it went into the huge Visual Studio I had to give up.  I also missed buying VB6.
Then I bought PowerBasic and PowerBasic Forms - became frustrated with that so .....
I took the challenge to duplicate in C what I did/could do in VB5 and learn Windows programing that way. 
See attachments.  All of my prior C programing had been DOS, Unix, VMS, etc.

I recall many years ago I tried to dump my VB5 code straight into BCX I was not successful at that time and
didn't invest the time in it, unfortunately....

John Z

[MrBcx]

I recall many years ago I tried to dump my VB5 code straight into BCX

John Z

BCX is incapable of performing most forms of magic and miracles.

But it does a lot of other stuff really well.   

[Vortex]

BCX is a very nice compiler to convert Basic to C. Also, Pelles C and the accompanying utilities are very good.

[John Z]

BCX is incapable of performing most forms of magic and miracles.

any sufficiently advanced technology will look like magic to the less advanced (paraphrasing)
i.e. magic to me ....  )

John Z

[WiiLF23]

I recall many years ago I tried to dump my VB5 code straight into BCX

John Z

BCX is incapable of performing most forms of magic and miracles.

But it does a lot of other stuff really well.   

Implement a AI library, and it will more than possible. At this time, you can simply paste VBx code into GPT for example, and convert it to pure C in a matter of seconds depending on the lines generated. Your application should utilize this to support advanced conversion supporting the entire pre-CLR days.

My application carries a conversion mixture of Python, C++ & BASIC (all converted to C). GPT 3.5 made this easily available. No need for the newer data set (GPT-4).

Search for a library in your language of choice, work the prompt parameters and parsing procedures, and you will be well on your way.

What I don't know is if you need to detect the code format, and trigger pre-defined prompts while including the code in question, because you need to establish the request on the basis of "Convert this <language> code to BASIC \n\n <code insert, from file, etc).

As you can see in the last statement, you can allow your application to easily convert most languages <--> back and forth. But since this to tailored to generate BASIC code, that is where the focus would be met when interacting with the library.

Just a thought.

[John Z]

Thanks WiiLF23!

Hadn't thought of trying this.  I may give it a try with a few aged VB programs just to see.  I have some VB using WINSOCK so that will be interesting....

John Z

[MrBcx]

I recall many years ago I tried to dump my VB5 code straight into BCX

John Z

BCX is incapable of performing most forms of magic and miracles.

But it does a lot of other stuff really well.   

Implement a AI library, and it will more than possible. At this time, you can simply paste VBx code into GPT for example, and convert it to pure C in a matter of seconds depending on the lines generated. Your application should utilize this to support advanced conversion supporting the entire pre-CLR days.

My application carries a conversion mixture of Python, C++ & BASIC (all converted to C). GPT 3.5 made this easily available. No need for the newer data set (GPT-4).

Search for a library in your language of choice, work the prompt parameters and parsing procedures, and you will be well on your way.

What I don't know is if you need to detect the code format, and trigger pre-defined prompts while including the code in question, because you need to establish the request on the basis of "Convert this <language> code to BASIC \n\n <code insert, from file, etc).

As you can see in the last statement, you can allow your application to easily convert most languages <--> back and forth. But since this to tailored to generate BASIC code, that is where the focus would be met when interacting with the library.

Just a thought.

I've used ChatGPT, Gemini, LLama, and even You.com to produce code directly or by conversion.  Because ChatGPT
allows for default custom instructions, it tends to generate better BCX code.  The other AI's do a worse job but still
fulfill useful purposes of cross-checking other AI's code.  Right now, these AI tools can be quite helpful at helping
to create prototypes but they are all still in their infancy, so caution must be exercised before relying on their outputs.

[Vortex]

Hello,

I agree with MrBcx. We must be careful while intepreting the output of the artificail intelligence. One can receive tricky replies to questions related to assembly programming.