Greetings!

I got a serious introduction to programming in high school in 1983, when I took a course named "Computer Math." We used dumb terminals to access a Hewlett-Packard 2000 minicomputer that was shared by all the high school students in the district. Several of the dumb terminals were teletype machines; they had no screens, only rolls of low quality paper onto which the characters were typed as we pressed the keys on the keyboard. There were no backspace keys; if you mis-keyed, you had to retype the entire line. There were two dumb terminals with screens, and it was a real treat to use them! A couple of the teletype machines even had paper tape readers, but at least I never had to use punched cards...

Anyway, I learned some of the fundamentals of Basic programming in that class. All of the programs we wrote for it were designed to solve math problems of varying degrees of complexity. I was hooked! Once I got to college in 1984, I programmed often on the IBM PCs that were available on the campus.

Unfortunately, I missed out on a lot of the "basics" (pardon the pun) in my high school class. The HP 2000 Basic interpreter only had two variable types (floating point numeric and strings), I had never learned how to do file i/o, and the only way I could get keystrokes from the user was with INPUT. Over time, I learned many of the intricacies of programming, graduating from GW-Basic to Turbo Basic 1.1, then to PowerBASIC 2.0. PowerBASIC 3.2/3.5 is now my main DOS programming language, and I enthusiastically recommend it. I also program in the PowerBASIC Console Compiler and PB/DLL, and I have done a little work with Microsoft's Visual Basic.

In addition to Basic, I am a competent Delphi programmer, and I dabble in Assembler and Perl. I've translated a few C programs and routines into other languages (mostly Basic and Assembler), and I have the scars to prove it. I do not understand why C has such devoted followers; I found it highly unpalatable.

Although I greatly enjoyed working with computers, I decided to major in Business. I received a BS in Marketing from Brigham Young University. After graduation, I started Information Management Systems, Inc. with a friend. He was going to handle the programming (in Turbo Pascal), and I was going to run the business side of things.

Our first product, a database of the members of Congress and their staff, aimed at professional lobbyists, was a complete failure. But while my partner was writing that program, I had written a few programs in Turbo Basic and PowerBASIC to help manage the office. We took the core routines I had written, generalized them, added several more routines, wrote a manual, and released the Full Power Toolbox in April 1991. In October 1991, we launched BASICally Speaking, a monthly newsletter for PowerBASIC programmers, and I still serve as the editor-in-chief.

Over time, we licensed several PowerBASIC add-on products written by independent authors, took over EllTech Development's PowerBASIC products when they decided to focus on Windows programming products, and acquired the PB Wizard's Library from Tom Hanlin. I also developed two major new versions of the Full Power Toolbox and wrote the Mouse Cursor Factory (a graphical mouse cursor designer, code generator, and support library).

Since sales of DOS programming tools have been decreasing throughout the industry, we've discontinued several of our products. We've been doing a lot more contract programming (single routines, modules, and complete applications) and web site design. We still publish BASICally Speaking (you can read about it on our web site; you may wish to request a free trial issue while you're there.)

In addition to computers, I enjoy listening to music (primarily rock and roll from the 70s and early 80s and classical music, especially from the baroque period), reading books (both fiction and non-fiction), and collecting stamps (particularly from the US). I enjoy watching videos upon occasion, but I seldom watch broadcast television, and I haven't been to a movie theater since 1995.

I have an interest in politics (as a citizen, not as a politician), and I consider myself to be rather Conservative in my political leanings. I am an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I served as a missionary for the Church in the Rochester, New York area, and I have held a number of other volunteer positions in the Church. I currently serve as the early morning Seminary teacher in the Dearborn Ward (Westland, Michigan Stake). (Seminary is a 45 minute class for high school students held before their regular high school classes begin. We'll be starting class at 6:15am each day, which is why it's called "early morning." This year, we are studying the Old Testament, of which I am particularly fond.) I also teach the (adult) Gospel Doctrine class in Sunday School. I enjoy teaching both adults and adolescents; it's fun to see the differences in their perspectives on life.

Create a File with a Unique Name (great for temporary files)
Sample code from the Full Power Toolbox
Scan the Source of a PowerBASIC IDE Help File for Errors

Happy programming!

Alan C. Earnshaw