My dirty little secret involved QB45. I local shoe chain had their POS running on true-blue IBM PCs with BASICA, the ROM-based BASIC that was only on real IBM machines. The code had the “protection” bit set so mere mortals couldn’t alter the code. The chain was looking to get out of the IBM-only requirement and also wanted some minor code tweaks.
So I “unprotected” the BASICA program, made the requested tweaks, and compiled the whole thing with QB45. They now had a stand-along executable that could run on any DOS clone machine. And since it was compiled, performance jumped, it was super fast!
Took me 15 minutes, client was thrilled, I charged them $5,000. Easiest money I ever made.
No, I don’t feel guilty about it. Was it difficult? Not for me. I just so happened to know where to hit the hammer while no one else did.
So I “unprotected” the BASICA program, made the requested tweaks, and compiled the whole thing with QB45. They now had a stand-along executable that could run on any DOS clone machine. And since it was compiled, performance jumped, it was super fast!
Took me 15 minutes, client was thrilled, I charged them $5,000. Easiest money I ever made.
No, I don’t feel guilty about it. Was it difficult? Not for me. I just so happened to know where to hit the hammer while no one else did.