Cool, I like it! 😃👍 As a child, I was watching COMPRESS doing its job (COMPRESS was like DEFRAG). It had an hypnotic effect on me, kind of.
Thumbs up for using QBasic/QB, too! 😊👍

Ha. And I could not wait for the sound from Norton's SpeedDisk.

Cool! QuickBASIC 4.5 actually came with an example very much like this (SORTDEMO.BAS), but doing it yourself is much more interesting and now I'm tempted to try it out too, but I'd need to get out my algorithms textbook from university to actually remember what the different sorting algorithms are 😁

doshea wrote on 2023-04-04, 01:37:

Cool! QuickBASIC 4.5 actually came with an example very much like this (SORTDEMO.BAS)

Oh, wow. I didn't know that. My old copy of QB45 didn't come with that program! Just downloaded it and tried, much more refined than my version of course. Interesting.

There were different versions of QB4.x, apparently. Version 4.0, 4.5, 4.51..

Also worth a try are Visual Basic for DOS and PDS Basic 7.x, I think.

VB DOS is directly based on QB45, but got a form designer and some extra Syntax from VB/Win.
However, these features are optional. It's possible to open *.BAS files as it was possible in QB45.
With a few exceptions (no Olivetti graphics mode anymore), it can compile QB45 programs without modifications.

PDS 7.x.. It's not based on Quick Basic. It relates more to M-BASIC, the professional predecessor to GW-BASIC/QuickBasic.
It can use Expanded Memory, can compile OS/2 compatible programs, etc pp.

Edit: There's also Turbo Basic / Power BASIC. Quick Basic's dark nemesis!
It can optimize for different CPUs, use different types of floating math etc.
But beware, the CGA support is flakey (Power BASIC). I ran and quit a CGA application multiple times, then it no longer worked correctly. Anyway, just saying. 😅

New video: Building a 386 computer for programming and games

System specs thread here: 386DX-33 build video and notes