Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 17

Thread: Using ThinBasic to emulate the old HP Basic for GPIB Instrument Control

  1. #1
    Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Location
    Phoenix, Arizona, usa
    Age
    74
    Posts
    54
    Rep Power
    19

    Using ThinBasic to emulate the old HP Basic for GPIB Instrument Control

    I'm thinking of using ThinBasic as a front end Basic intrepreter
    for GPIB instrument control -- just like the old Rocky Mountain Basic.

    Anyway my question (suggestion) is as follows:
    Is there anyway a user defined function can be called without having to preface it with CALL?
    And can it assign the return value in the following way: y=sin(x)

    - Mike Peralta
    peralta_mike@hotmail.com


  2. #2
    thinBasic MVPs
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    1,427
    Rep Power
    159

    Re: Using ThinBasic to emulate the old HP Basic for GPIB Instrument Control

    Mike is this what you are after.

    Dim z As DWord
    
     z = Dothings(2,1)
     
     MsgBox 0, z
    
    Function Dothings(x As DWord, y As DWord)
    
     Return x+y
     
    End Function
    
    Last edited by ErosOlmi; 18-03-2016 at 11:19.
    Home Desktop : Windows 7 - Intel Pentium (D) - 3.0 Ghz - 2GB - Geforce 6800GS
    Home Laptop : WinXP Pro SP3 - Intel Centrino Duo - 1.73 Ghz - 2 GB - Intel GMA 950
    Home Laptop : Windows 10 - Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4210U CPU @ 1.70GHz, 2401 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s) - 4 GB - Intel HD 4400
    Work Desktop : Windows 10 - Intel I7 - 4 Ghz - 8GB - Quadro Fx 370

  3. #3
    Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Location
    Phoenix, Arizona, usa
    Age
    74
    Posts
    54
    Rep Power
    19

    Re: Using ThinBasic to emulate the old HP Basic for GPIB Instrument Control

    Thanks Michael,

    That is what I needed.

    - Mike


  4. #4
    thinBasic author ErosOlmi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Milan - Italy
    Age
    57
    Posts
    8,777
    Rep Power
    10

    Re: Using ThinBasic to emulate the old HP Basic for GPIB Instrument Control

    Hi Mike,

    as Michael already replied, you can call sub and functions the way you like.
    CALL statement it absolutely optional when calling a Sub or a function.

    CALL statement can be handy when you need to call a function whose name is not know but you can compose it dynamically at runtime using a string expression.
    Dim z As DWord
     
     Dim FunctionNumber As Long
      
     FunctionNumber = 1
     '---Call a function name whose name is composed at runtime
     Call "Dothings" & Format$(FunctionNumber, "00") (2, 3) To z
     
     MsgBox 0, z
     
    Function Dothings01(x As DWord, y As DWord)
     
     Function = x + y
     
    End Function
    
    Function Dothings02(x As DWord, y As DWord)
     
     Function = x * y
     
    End Function
    

    On returning a value from a function you can use different ways:
    FUNCTION = <...value...>
    RETURN <...value...>
    NameOfTheFunction = <...value...>

    Function Dothings(x As DWord, y As DWord)
     
     '---All thinBasic valid ways to return a value from a function
     Function = x + y  '---Execution will continue to the next line
     Return x + y    '---Execution of function will stop and value returned. Following line(s) will never be executed
     Dothings = x+y   '---Execution will continue to the next line
     
    End Function
    
    Also remember you can pass parameters BYREF so changes to a parameter value will be applied to passed variable.
    Last edited by ErosOlmi; 18-03-2016 at 11:20.
    www.thinbasic.com | www.thinbasic.com/community/ | help.thinbasic.com
    Windows 10 Pro for Workstations 64bit - 32 GB - Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-10855M CPU @ 2.80GHz - NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000

  5. #5
    Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Location
    Phoenix, Arizona, usa
    Age
    74
    Posts
    54
    Rep Power
    19

    Re: Using ThinBasic to emulate the old HP Basic for GPIB Instrument Control

    Thanks.

    One of the primary goals in porting Rocky Mountain Basic (RMB) code to thinBasic is that any code (or as much as possible) of the RMB code works under thinBasic without any modification.

    Over time this may mean some redundancy in thinBasic but hopefully this will not be too troublesome for the thinBasic developers. Ultimately (as much as possible) I would like to see the RMB language be a subset of the thinBasic language whereby any code in RMB can be run "as is" within thinBasic.

    - Mike









  6. #6
    thinBasic author ErosOlmi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Milan - Italy
    Age
    57
    Posts
    8,777
    Rep Power
    10

    Re: Using ThinBasic to emulate the old HP Basic for GPIB Instrument Control

    If you drive me where I can get a RMB I can check syntax and see what I can do.
    www.thinbasic.com | www.thinbasic.com/community/ | help.thinbasic.com
    Windows 10 Pro for Workstations 64bit - 32 GB - Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-10855M CPU @ 2.80GHz - NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000

  7. #7

    Re: Using ThinBasic to emulate the old HP Basic for GPIB Instrument Control

    a commercial HTBasic provides the Rocky Mountain BASIC integrated program development environment including a syntax-sensitive, full screen editor and interactive execution and debugging statements.
    http://www.htbasic.com/products/soft...c/development/

    http://www.techsoft.de/documents/htbasic.html

    demo download:
    http://www.htbasic.com/index.asp 27 MB

    Limitations of the Demo version:

    - Save / store of program files not possible

    - Demo quits after 30 minutes (can be restarted)
    i am downloading now ( slow 512 KB/s)

  8. #8

    Re: Using ThinBasic to emulate the old HP Basic for GPIB Instrument Control

    Quote Originally Posted by peralta_mike
    Thanks.

    One of the primary goals in porting Rocky Mountain Basic (RMB) code to thinBasic is that any code (or as much as possible) of the RMB code works under thinBasic without any modification.

    Over time this may mean some redundancy in thinBasic but hopefully this will not be too troublesome for the thinBasic developers. Ultimately (as much as possible) I would like to see the RMB language be a subset of the thinBasic language whereby any code in RMB can be run "as is" within thinBasic.

    - Mike










    This is definately something I would not like to see. If Eros wants to go that way then we can throw in some other Basic dialects. FreeBasic, BlitzBasic, DarkBasic, LibertyBasic. What the hell. Put it all in.

  9. #9
    thinBasic MVPs
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    1,427
    Rep Power
    159

    Re: Using ThinBasic to emulate the old HP Basic for GPIB Instrument Control

    I'm with you Mike H. this is ThinBasic and not VB,Scriptbasic, Pascal,C if it was going to be compatible with anything then PowerBasic is the product of choice for obvious reasons.

    Why have 10 different ways of doing the same thing

    I think the interest HTbasic users has got something to do with the really poor support for customers of HTBasic i.e last update 2007 and I suspect Mike P is looking for an enviroment that is being developed, I dont want to speak for him I'm only guessing.

    All that being said it is for Eros to decide its his baby.

    Regards

    Mike C
    Home Desktop : Windows 7 - Intel Pentium (D) - 3.0 Ghz - 2GB - Geforce 6800GS
    Home Laptop : WinXP Pro SP3 - Intel Centrino Duo - 1.73 Ghz - 2 GB - Intel GMA 950
    Home Laptop : Windows 10 - Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4210U CPU @ 1.70GHz, 2401 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s) - 4 GB - Intel HD 4400
    Work Desktop : Windows 10 - Intel I7 - 4 Ghz - 8GB - Quadro Fx 370

  10. #10
    thinBasic author ErosOlmi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Milan - Italy
    Age
    57
    Posts
    8,777
    Rep Power
    10

    Re: Using ThinBasic to emulate the old HP Basic for GPIB Instrument Control

    Be sure I'm not going into RMB direction.

    What I can do is to have more constructs without changing current syntax.
    If this means changing current syntax, I will not add it.
    If this means adding new control flow like the quite intuitive REPEAT ... UNTIL ... why not? It will not break any previous thinBasic compatibility and if not used will not change anything.
    If this means just making a keyword optional (for example from SELECT CASE ... to SELECT [CASE] ...) than why not?

    Haven't we added all C assignment statement (*=, -=, ...) and few month later PB developed them?
    Haven't we added all UI controls specific keywords and again few month later PB developed most them?

    All programming languages must evolve possibly not breaking compatibility with previous versions.
    thinBasic evolved so much in recent years thanks to the requests all of you have asked. Why now we have to stop in this evolution?

    www.thinbasic.com | www.thinbasic.com/community/ | help.thinbasic.com
    Windows 10 Pro for Workstations 64bit - 32 GB - Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-10855M CPU @ 2.80GHz - NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Similar Threads

  1. thinBasic scripts and CodeSense control
    By ErosOlmi in forum Sources, Templates, Code Snippets, Tips and Tricks, Do you know ...
    Replies: 13
    Last Post: 01-02-2010, 21:29

Members who have read this thread: 0

There are no members to list at the moment.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •