BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College in 1964. They wanted to enable students in non-scientific fields to use computers. At the time, nearly all computers required writing custom software, which only scientists and mathematicians tended to learn.
Cygwin is a POSIX-compatible programming and runtime environment that runs natively on Microsoft Windows. Under Cygwin, source code designed for Unix-like operating systems may be compiled with minimal modification and executed.
The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces (APIs) available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. The name Windows API collectively refers to several different platform implementations that are often referred to by their own names ; see the versions section. Almost all Windows programs interact with the Windows API. On the Windows NT line of operating systems, a small number use the Native API.
Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC) is a compiler for the C, C++ and C++/CX programming languages by Microsoft. MSVC is proprietary software; it was originally a standalone product but later became a part of Visual Studio and made available in both trialware and freeware forms. It features tools for developing and debugging C++ code, especially code written for the Windows API, DirectX and .NET.
Visual Basic, originally called Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), is a multi-paradigm, object-oriented programming language, implemented on .NET, Mono, and the .NET Framework. Microsoft launched VB.NET in 2002 as the successor to its original Visual Basic language, the last version of which was Visual Basic 6.0. Although the ".NET" portion of the name was dropped in 2005, this article uses "Visual Basic [.NET]" to refer to all Visual Basic languages released since 2002, in order to distinguish between them and the classic Visual Basic. Along with C# and F#, it is one of the three main languages targeting the .NET ecosystem. As of March 11, 2020, Microsoft announced that evolution of the VB.NET language has concluded.
A cross compiler is a compiler capable of creating executable code for a platform other than the one on which the compiler is running. For example, a compiler that runs on a PC but generates code that runs on an Android smartphone is a cross compiler.
Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC) is a C++ object-oriented library for developing desktop applications for Windows.
Delphi is a general-purpose programming language and a software product that uses the Delphi dialect of the Object Pascal programming language and provides an integrated development environment (IDE) for rapid application development of desktop, mobile, web, and console software, currently developed and maintained by Embarcadero Technologies.
MinGW, formerly mingw32, is a free and open source software development environment to create Microsoft Windows applications.
CodeView is a standalone debugger created by David Norris at Microsoft in 1985 as part of its development toolset. It originally shipped with Microsoft C 4.0 and later. It also shipped with Visual Basic for MS-DOS, Microsoft BASIC PDS, and a number of other Microsoft language products. It was one of the first debuggers for MS-DOS to be full-screen oriented, rather than line-oriented.
In computing, text-based user interfaces (TUI), is a retronym describing a type of user interface (UI) common as an early form of human–computer interaction, before the advent of graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Like GUIs, they may use the entire screen area and accept mouse and other inputs. They may also use color and often structure the display using special graphical characters such as ┌ and ╣, referred to in Unicode as the "box drawing" set. The modern context of use is usually a terminal emulator.
GFA BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language, by Frank Ostrowski. The name is derived from the company, which distributed the software. In the mid-1980s to the 1990s it enjoyed popularity as an advanced BASIC dialect, but has been mostly superseded by several other programming languages. Official support ended in the early 2000s.
Object Pascal is an extension to the programming language Pascal that provides object-oriented programming (OOP) features such as classes and methods.
Windows Console is the infrastructure for console applications in Microsoft Windows. An instance of a Windows Console has a screen buffer and an input buffer. It allows console apps to run inside a window or in hardware text mode. The user can switch between the two using the Alt+↵ Enter key combination. The text mode is unavailable in Windows Vista and later. Starting with Windows 10, however, a native full-screen mode is available.
Borland Kylix is a compiler and integrated development environment (IDE) formerly sold by Borland, but later discontinued. It is a Linux software development environment based on Borland Delphi and Borland C++ Builder, which runs under Microsoft Windows. Continuing Delphi's classical Greek theme, Kylix is the name for an ancient Greek drinking cup. The closest supported equivalent to Kylix is the free Lazarus IDE package, designed to be code-compatible with Delphi. As of 2010 the project has been resurrected in the form of Delphi cross compiler for Mac and Linux, as shown in the Embarcadero's Delphi and C++ Builder roadmap. As of September 2011 with Kylix discontinued the framework for cross-platform development by Embarcadero is FireMonkey.
The Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) is an x86 assembler that uses the Intel syntax for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. Beginning with MASM 8.0, there are two versions of the assembler: One for 16-bit & 32-bit assembly sources, and another (ML64) for 64-bit sources only.
A DOS extender is a computer software program running under DOS that enables software to run in a protected mode environment even though the host operating system is only capable of operating in real mode.
Microsoft QuickC is a discontinued commercial integrated development environment (IDE) product engineered by Microsoft for the C programming language, superseded by Visual C++ Standard Edition. Its main competitor was Borland Turbo C.
Intel Fortran Compiler, is a group of Fortran compilers from Intel for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Absoft Fortran Compilers are set of Fortran compilers for Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, and Linux produced by Absoft Corporation. The compilers are source code compatible across platforms.
