QBasic Games and More!, is it a good book for QB64?

[EricE]

This appears to be the only book published specifically about programming games in QBasic.

QBasic Games and More! Paperback – May 1, 1993
by Fred Sexton Jr.
https://www.amazon.com/QBasic-Games-More-Fred-Sexton/dp/1565292316

The book came with a floppy disk.
Is this a good book for learning to make QB64 games?

Used copies of this book are rather pricey, and there is no guarantee that a used copy of the book will have the floppy disk.
A person does not want to pay $56.75 plus shipping (the lowest price currently at Amazon) and get a book with the disk missing!

[TerryRitchie]

Normally I can find any book on-line in PDF format. I was going to do that for you so you check it out but I could not find it any where, which may mean two things: it was unpopular or the publisher has done one heck of a job keeping PDFs of the book from popping up. The only other time I have seen this book mentioned is when Pete made a post for Dustinian some time back. Dustinian was giving away some Qbasic books and this was one of them.

I read some reviews online about the book and it seems without the diskette the book will be useless. It appears the programs in the book are based off custom TSRs that are included on the diskette. Seeing that I would say this book is probably not right for you. More than likely those TSRs will only run in a 16bit operating system environment (DOS/win95/98)

[Unseen Machine]

I actually bought a copy of that book many moons ago when i was first starting to code properly...It's no good for QB64 as it's strictly qb and as far as i know/remember relies on some library files that would be included with the book...I never had the disc...QBasic for dummies was a much better reference.

[Dav]

I think I still have that book and 3 1/2 floppy disk, in my old room at my dad's house.  It was well written, easy to understand, but not that helpful for me to learn how to write games.  Mostly it was a showcase of the authors games.  Terry is right, most of those games required a TSR helper file to be run.  I forget why it was needed.

- Dav   

[EricE]

The table of contents is online, at two different places!

QBasic Games & More!
http://gamedesign.wikidot.com/qbasic-games-more

Appendix 6: Content Overview of the Book
"QBasic Games & More!"
http://www.antonis.de/qbuecher/qb_games_content_overview.htm

Appendix A details the functions of the TSR.

The QBasic Extender TSR

• TSR Function 0 Key Table Address
• TSR Function 1 Mouse Presence
• TSR Function 2 Button Status
• TSR Functions 3 and 4 Get / Set Mouse Position
• TSR Functions 5 and 6 Mouse Cursor On / Off
• TSR Functions 7 and 8 Set Mouse Limits
• TSR Function 9 File Exist / Size
• TSR Function 10 File Count
• TSR Function 11 File List

[EricE]

I have received a used copy of the book that included the floppy disk.

The installer on the floppy will run without error only on either a MS-DOS or Windows 98 computer.

Now I have to devise a QB64 substitute for the MS-DOS TSR that most of the book's games require.

[SMcNeill]

I have received a used copy of the book that included the floppy disk.

The installer on the floppy will run without error only on either a MS-DOS or Windows 98 computer.

Now I have to devise a QB64 substitute for the MS-DOS TSR that most of the book's games require.

Try DosBox with it.

[EricE]

DOSBox version 0.74-3 is working well.
https://www.dosbox.com/

Here are some other free tools that I am using for this project.

FlexHex (Windows)
http://www.flexhex.com/

IDA Disassembler 5.0 (freeware) (Windows)
https://www.scummvm.org/news/20180331/

QView, a powerful file/disk/memory viewer/editor for DOS.
https://www.enlight.ru/qview/download.htm

Once I load the TSR into DOS memory I use QView to disassemble the code.
I can also use QView to save selected memory regions to disk either in binary or as a disassembly listing.

The saved binary files can be opened using the Windows IDA tool.
IDA will also disassemble the binary code and produce listings that contain useful comments about the MS-DOS interrupts being used.