13 November 2009

Is GFABASIC 32 compatible to GFABASIC 16?

Yes it is. As a matter of fact I discovered when disassembling the runtime that GFABASIC 32 is much more compatible to GFABASIC 16 than was claimed. The question is; what does compatibility means? Does it mean that GFA-BASIC 16 programs should run without any change? No. Running in a 32-bits environment requires other prerequisites for data handling. An integer is now 32-bits, memory is flat, DLLs have no shared memory, API calls have become obsolete and many new ones are added. So, in this respect any language updated to 32-bits has evolved.

Is GFA-BASIC 32 compatible to the 'On Menu' event handling of GFA-BASIC 32? And compatible to the window and dialog handling? Yes. This is completely implemented, except for 16-bits HandleMessage (if you like to read more about it I might tell you why). There is no holding back for using GetEvent and using Menu(1) !!! It is perfectly well implemented. So, what else do you need?

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous18/12/09

    I have been given the task to upgrade an existing 16 Bit Desktop application written in GFA basic. I want to know if there is a possibility to access the functions inside these 16 Bit DLLs via c/JNi (or any other programming language).
    Your help would be highly appreciated.
    thanks for your time.
    Regards,
    Archana

    ReplyDelete