QBasic 1.1 in the Browser
Details
- External ID
- 49821937
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- QBasic 1.1 in the Browser
- Website domain
- vahidyousefzadeh.com
- Launched
- Sept. 23, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 8
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.5015948963317385
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 27, 2026, 5:02 p.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 27, 2026, 5:02 p.m.
Description
I built an independent reimplementation of the QBasic 1.1 compiler, virtual machine, and IDE that runs entirely in the browser. TypeScript with a Svelte 5 frontend.
Enrichment
- Theme
- Claude integrations and coding agents
- Vertical
- Horizontal
- Function
- Dev tools
- Audience
- Prosumer
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Hobby / open-source project
- Normalized one-liner
- browser-based qbasic emulator for retro enthusiasts
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
Partial Building a basic web IDE is easy with AI assistance, but implementing a full, accurate compiler, runtime virtual machine, and legacy graphics/audio emulation for QBasic 1.1 requires formal compiler design and emulation skills.
What it would actually take: The stack consists of a parser generator or hand-written recursive descent lexer/parser in TypeScript for Microsoft BASIC syntax, compiling down to custom bytecode for an in-browser virtual machine. The hardest parts are faithfully emulating legacy DOS quirks, 16-bit integer semantics, GOTO/GOSUB execution flows, and VGA/CGA screen modes (including SCREEN 13 drawing primitives and SOUND/PLAY audio synthesis) via Web Audio and HTML5 Canvas.
Discussion
5 comments analyzed.
Concerns raised: Keyboard does not trigger on mobile run screen, Screen cursor positioning between program executions without CLS
Feature requests: Keep keyboard visible during emulation on mobile
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 61 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #30 of 62 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 319 days after the earliest competitor.
- QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled) · hn · 2026-07-16 · 31 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- SharpTS · hn · 2026-01-09 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- Browser-based .NET IDE with visual designer, NuGet packages, code share · hn · 2026-02-26 · 8 upvotes · similarity 0.41
- Ironwall, a safety-first native programming language and compiler · hn · 2026-06-06 · 16 upvotes · similarity 0.39
- Belgie · hn · 2026-07-06 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.39
- A C/C++ IDE written in C from scratch with zero dependencies · hn · 2026-03-22 · 10 upvotes · similarity 0.38
- Typebase · hn · 2026-08-26 · 119 upvotes · similarity 0.38
- I built a 30x faster svelte-check in 2 days with AI · hn · 2026-01-03 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.38
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.
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