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Show HN: QBasic 1.1 in the Browser

vahidyousefzadeh.com8 points5 comments
Screenshot of Show HN: QBasic 1.1 in the Browser

Vahidce posted a browser-based reimplementation of QBasic 1.1 - compiler, VM, and IDE written in TypeScript with a Svelte 5 frontend - and commenters reacted with a mix of praise, technical critique, and nostalgia. One commenter, vunderba, said they’ve been building a period-accurate QBASIC 1.1 simulator themselves and emphasized how many subtle platform behaviors matter for authenticity, citing old reference books and giving a concrete example: the cursor retains its position between runs unless the program clears the screen, so output can duplicate across executions. Vunderba framed those “last mile” quirks as hard but important for authenticity.

Another commenter, MobiusHorizons, focused on usability, reporting that the mobile keyboard didn’t appear on the run screen; the author tested on phones and initially replied it worked, then accepted Mobius’s clarification that the editor triggers the keyboard but the run screen did not, and promptly fixed it. The discussion thus split between concerns about historical fidelity and attention to subtle emulator behavior versus practical matters like mobile compatibility, with the author responding constructively to both types of feedback.

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