Future of powerbasic

[Patrice Terrier]

The count down started on november 6, 2012.

I have a deep thought for Christopher, Paul, Dominic, because they are all in the same boat.

...

[Theo Gottwald]

Our website was only supposed to be down for no more than 2 hours last Saturday.

Major issues with our new ISP ensued, and they did not have us on priority, especially through the weekend.

It took me to go to their main HQ - big trip - to get actions finished.

Our phones are up, website normalized, and with that the last action is to get our mail server (for the forums, feedback, etc...) completed.

I do regretfully apologize for any inconvenience, and will next time have the foresight to post at least a week in advance for any changes or service to be made.

There has been a lot of discussion on other fora regarding PB. We have moved into a larger area, and have acquired more personnel for DOC building, tech support, and marketing.

Rest assured that PB is not going away, BETA forums will be restarted for a few new projects that are top secret .

If there are any other questions, please email me at jim@powerbasic.com

There is no planned scheduling of server maintenance that may leave the site down for more than 5 minutes in the future.

Thank all of you for your loyalty in PB and with our direction I am sure all of you will be pleased and surprised with future products. As always, our no-vaporware policies deem that I can not give you a date, I can only tell you that we are going to be beginning beta testing on our new products in the next month / month and a half.

Is he an good actor - like Obama?

[Frederick J. Harris]

The only problem is that MS plans to switch off x32 rather sooner then later.

What do you mean by that Theo, if you don't mind my asking?

[James C. Fuller]

The only problem is that MS plans to switch off x32 rather sooner then later.

What do you mean by that Theo, if you don't mind my asking?

I too was puzzled by that comment. Any links to back that up Theo? I see x32 for at least 10 if not 20 years down the road.

James

[George Bleck]

I'd like to see some documentation stemming from Microsoft to support that theory.

On the contrary, I expect to see 32bit around for at least a decade.  There are too many existing 32bit applications written for Microsoft to stop supporting it quickly. 

Simply extending it to their own products like Office.  YES there is a 64bit office, but you cannot leverage automation tools, plugin-ins, and interfaces that are 32bit with a 64bit Office suite.  I cannot fathom any large scale company that will be able to deploy 64bit Office and leave all their tools behind that intergrate with it.  For this reason alone I can see 32bit support in the OS surviving quite a long time. 

[Chris Holbrook]

Windows 7 support is supposed to continue until 2025.

[Brice Manuel]

I still haven't gotten either my disks, the files or any info as to when I can be expect them.

File a complaint with the consumer protection division of the Florida Attorney General:

http://myfloridalegal.com/Contact.nsf/Contact?OpenForm&Section=Consumer_Protection_Division


Since it involves something being mailed to you, file a complaint with the US Postal Service:

http://ehome.uspis.gov/fcsexternal/default.aspx


Since your order was placed online, and out of state, file a complaint with the FTC:

https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/GettingStarted?NextQID=203&Url=%23%26panel1-6


There is not a legitimate excuse for not receiving your purchases by now.  Do let us know when you receive your products or receive a refund.

[James OShea]

There is no excuse for taking this long.  I have taken action with the payment service I used.  I now believe that is the only reason I got the email about the accident, whether true or false.  They can resolve it very easily by sending the disks.

Ill try calling them tomorrow.  Last time I tried calling the line was busy.  Odd for a business.

[David Roberts]

The email about the accident was received less than five hours after mentioning here the delay in dispatching. This thread is being read by PB.

After reading Brice's post another email will be winging its way to you James. This one will be from Jim Bailey saying how disappointed he is that they still have not been sent and he has taken the matter into his own hands and is putting the disks into an envelope as he types.

Another four or fives days will pass and no disks.

I'm cynical but you put me to shame.

Not cynicism, I have seen it all before.

Although we are getting toward the end of the hurricane season, a small one did occur but not big enough to get a mention in the nationals. It was big enough, however, to blow down the premises were PB's disks are manufactured.

You read it here first. 

[Brice Manuel]

I have taken action with the payment service I used.

That will get your money back, but the legal channels should still be pursued, even if it is just reports filed as it may help keep them from doing this to somebody else.  If it does happen to somebody else, at least there will be a record of their abuse and it will increase the likelihood of action being taken.

[Theo Gottwald]

What i can say is that in the past it was alwys the server technology that came later down to the workstations.

WinNT -> Win2K
64 bit ...

And now we see that in the new Server OS the 32 is getting obsolete already.

32 bit optional in Windows Servers

[James OShea]

That will get your money back, but the legal channels should still be pursued, even if it is just reports filed as it may help keep them from doing this to somebody else.  If it does happen to somebody else, at least there will be a record of their abuse and it will increase the likelihood of action being taken.

If I thought their actions were criminal in intention I would pursue the actions you suggested.   I believe that it is a breakdown in the function of the company.  Whether the accident story is true or not, if there were going to be a delay in shipping I should have been told that immediately, not 30 days later, and offered a chance to cancel the order.  Giving me two different ship dates when you know that it was not possible to meet those dates is my biggest issue.  My hope is I will get the software.  A refund would be an acceptable alternative. 

You would think that they read this forum but the lack of response when their own website was down would suggest otherwise.

If PowerBASIC as a company is so broken that they can't perform the basic function of shipping disks out than there will not be a PB/Win x64, maybe not even a PB/Win 11.

[Patrice Terrier]

Stop dreaming all of you!

Who do you think in the company, would be really able to write a 64-bit version, or even a PB11 32-bit, now that Bob Zale is dead. And how would they do to pay this miraculous employee.

The only viable solution would be to turn PB into a pre-processor and use a C compiler to create the real EXE under the hood.

...

[Brice Manuel]

If I thought their actions were criminal in intention I would pursue the actions you suggested.

Criminal in intention, or not, the end result is the same.  It is generally considered illegal to collect money for something and never actually deliver the product paid for.

Whether the accident story is true or not, if there were going to be a delay in shipping I should have been told that immediately, not 30 days later, and offered a chance to cancel the order.  Giving me two different ship dates when you know that it was not possible to meet those dates is my biggest issue.

Mentioning dates brings to mind something else when I ordered the manuals several years ago.  I was told by email they had shipped on a date that was about a week prior.  When I did finally receive the manuals, the Pitney Bowes postage meter that PB Inc. had in their office had stamped the postage with the date of the email, so it had not been sent out a week prior as they claimed.

Bob never would explain that when I called him on it.

If PowerBASIC as a company is so broken that they can't perform the basic function of shipping disks out than there will not be a PB/Win x64, maybe not even a PB/Win 11.

The new man in charge is supposedly a teacher, but can't figure out how to address an envelope, stick your discs in it and mail it?  When such a task is too challenging, it is hard to hold out hope for anything else out of PB Inc.

Who do you think in the company, would be really able to write a 64-bit version, or even a PB11 32-bit, now that Bob Zale is dead. And how would they do to pay this miraculous employee.

It would depend on how much work was done on the 64-bit version before Bob died.  Hopefully more work was being done on it than on the Linux version or PB DOS 4.0. 

The only viable solution would be to turn PB into a pre-processor and use a C compiler to create the real EXE under the hood.

Any compiler not doing this is using a dated methodology for compiling.  A compiler needs to be portable, whether for platforms other than Windows or architecture other than x86.  A windows-only 32-bit compiler is a very hard-sell nowadays.

[James C. Fuller]

One direction PowerBASIC could take is to use jwasm as the assembler.
I would think it would be easier to port tasm to jwasm than to "c".
There are versions of jwasm for 32/64 Windows,32/64 Linux, and DOS.

James