The IBM Basic Quiz

The IBM Basic Quiz is a video game in the educational genre and published by Softdisk Publishing originally released in 1989. It is currently playable on DOS.

Another excellent ASCII game by Scott Miller of Apogee game, IBM Basic Quiz was included in Softdisk's 'Big Blue Disk' issue 28. Here's a summary of the plot and gameplay extracted from the game's instructions, which includes a nice synopsis of the history of the BASIC computer language:

Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, better known by its acronym BASIC, was devised in the 1960s for use by students in the Dartmouth time-sharing system. It quickly became a popular language for educational computing on mainframes, and by the time microcomputers appeared in the mid-1970s, BASIC was the language included on almost all computers (or at least on those that were more advanced than the early hobbyist kits where owners toggled programs in binary via switches on the front panel).

Since then, BASIC has been mercilessly attacked by programming purists for what they see as encouraging an unstructured and messy style of programming. Pascal is generally preferred for educational use, although, as a compiled language, it lacks the 'instant gratification' of interpreted BASIC, which allows you to type a command and see it executed immediately. There are other advocates of COMAL, a language with Pascal-like syntax but BASIC-like immediacy; this language is standard in schools in some European countries, but has never caught on in the United States.

But, like it or not, BASIC is still the most widespread language for micros (remember, this is 1988, folks); and it's the language that most novices who want to start programming their PC must learn. BASIC compilers, such as Microsoft's QuickBASIC, bring BASIC into the realm of professional programming, albeit at the cost of sacrificing the immediacy of the BASIC interpreter (ZBASIC combines some elements of both; the immediacy of an interpreter and the speed of a compiler). This quiz tests your knowledge of BASIC. In particular, it focuses on BASIC (or GW-BASIC), the form of BASIC used on IBM PC's and compatibles. This is Microsoft BASIC, a descendant of the original Altair BASIC that got Bill Gates started in the software field in 1975, when he was still a college student. The first Microsoft BASIC led to later versions for: CPM; the Apple II (Applesoft); the Commodore Pet, 64 and 128; and the Macintosh. However, the version for IBM and its clones proved to be the most popular, building on the success of another Microsoft product, MS-DOS.

Try BASIC Quiz to see if you're a BASIC wizard for PC, or if you can stand to learn a few things from the more grizzled 'hackers'. If you like quiz games, you'll like this. As always, Scott Miller has a knack for making seemingly banal or commonplace concepts seem interesting, and there is no exception with his trivia games. All the questions are either interesting or entertaining, or both, and you're guaranteed to learn something new when you're done ;)

There is no time limit, and with 100 questions, it will take you at least a few hours to finish the game. Try the three games in their trivia series (Computer Quiz, IBM Basic Quiz and Astronomy Quiz): they are highly recommended.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.