Omni Basic

A structured dialect of Basic with a few extensions taken from C that is primarily intended to be used to develop console application.

History
OmniBasic is the C output version of CDL Basic, a native code compiler for the OS9/68000 (OSK) operating system.

The original idea behind the product was to have a Basic compiler that was as fast, flexible and as portable as C compilers and offered people the opportunity to use the same code for multiple target systems. The system actually did not produce native code but used used GCC as its back end. With that in mind the company developed compilers for a whole host of target systems including 32 bit Windows, DOS, OS/2, Linux, Microware OS-9, HP-UX, Free BSD and Amiga.

Around 2000 the company dropped support for all CLI systems except OS/2, 32 bit Windows and DOS but added support for rudimentary graphical programming under Linux and announced that they were working on an new Windows 32 compatible system with graphical capabilities. In 2002 the company delivered the graphical capable version for Windows that used the same XForms technology as the Linux version and marketed Omni Basic as a cross platform Linux/Windows tool. At the same time they stopped development of all other versions of the compiler but offered those interested a CD-ROM at a reduced price that included all the console compiler the company had developed with the exception of the OS-9 and Amiga version.

In 2005 the company dropped development of the Linux version although like the older console versions they continued to sell and support the last Linux graphical development system at a reduced price. However the main author of the system unexpectedly passed away in 2007 and all sales and support for the OS/2 version ceased although some basic (sic.) support for the Windows version was offered for a couple of years more.

Version

 * CDL Basic (Dec 1994) - renamed from the former PowerBasic for OS-9
 * UniBasic (Jul 1996) - renamed to OmniBasic
 * 1.25 (1997)
 * 1.26 (Aug 1997)
 * 1.27 (1997-08-12) - XForms support
 * 1.30 (1997)
 * 1.31 (1997)
 * 1.32 (1997)
 * 1.36 (Oct 1997)
 * 1.40 (Nov 1997) - last version for DOS / ob140os2.zip
 * 1.43 for OS/2 (2001)


 * Prerequisites
 * EMX 0.9c or later

Authors

 * Computer Design Lab (Original developer)
 * Innomation Systems, Inc. (Windows and Linux versions)
 * Michael L. Smith

License

 * Discontinued Commercial Software

Links

 * ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/dev/basic/ob140os2.zip Demo version of Omni Basic 1.40 for OS/2.