Quick Basic and I seem to recall all or most of M$ Quick compilers were released at 99$ US. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. As I think on it maybe QB i itially was 150$.
Those were the cheap compilers I was referring to. By 1987/88 the cost was less then 1/2 a week's take home earnings no matter what you did. I found QB 3 at a computer show in 1990 and it wasn't much at all, maybe 25$. Sent with Proton Mail secure email. On Friday, May 3rd, 2024 at 9:40 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Fri, May 03, 2024 at 02:51:06AM +0000, Just Kant via cctalk wrote: > > > BASICs available at bootup were nice, but really were only useful with 8 > > bit micros. IBM ROM BASIC was hobbled until you ran BASICA from disk. And > > if you had a floppy it only made sense to buy a cheap compiler (Quick > > Basic, Turbo Basic, etc.). Whatever you were missing by not dropping > > 4-500$ for a full product probably wasn't worth the expense. > > > A bit of perspective: the equivalent of $400-500 (~£200-250) was a couple of > weeks salary in the UK at the time. Unless it could be written-off as a > business expense, the purchase of that "cheap" compiler just wasn't > happening.