I am trying to learn QuickBasic 4.5. I am using the files that I found here.

https://qbasic.net/en/top-ten-downloads/

I am learning from this tutorial.

https://www.pcjs.org/documents/books/mspl13/basic/qblearn/

Unfortunately, I don't have any of my real DOS machines or synthesizers available at the moment, so I am using Talking Dosbox. While I am familiar with VocalEyes, at the moment, I am using Flipper, since it comes with built-in speech and is quick. At any rate, the menu system looks like standard menus in Windows, and for that matter, in edit.exe. I can access them normally with the alt key, alt+f, then use the arrows and enter. I am trying to open qcards.bas. I have tried both entering it via the full path "c:\qb45\inc\qcards.bas", and looking for the file list as instructed by the tutorial. But how do I get to the file list? I tried tabbing as I would do in Windows, but that didn't work. Then, I saw "okay, cancel, help", but again, I couldn't activate either one. I tried the first letter of each with no success and tried using the arrow keys and enter, all to no avail.

Perhaps, it's just because I don't know how to use this particular screen reader very well, since I haven't yet read the manual for it. This machine also has ASAP and JAWS installed, and I do have a demo of VocalEyes that I can use if worse comes to worst, but I am very surprised that this isn't working, considering that it's all text-based!

I could skip this section and go straight to writing my first lines of code, but I really want to know how this works. I also know of Quickbasic 7.1, and even a 64-bit version, but I have no idea if they are accessible or how different from 4.5 they are. Any help would be appreciated, particularly from my blind peers. No, I have no interest in programming for Linux. I also prefer procedural-based languages and text-based programs, not graphical ones. If I programmed for Windows, it would be 32-bit XP or 7.

#accessibility #ASAP #blind #DOS #Flipper #JAWS #programming #QuickBasic #VocalEyes