Project History
 
Chronology of the FreeBASIC project.

Chronology

2004 September
    • Project started by Andre Victor T. Vicentini, written in VBDOS

2004 October 22
    • Project Registered on SourceForge.net

2004 November ???
    • FreeBASIC compiles itself, becoming a self hosting compiler.

2004 November 30
    • Version 0.01 released
2004 December ???
    • Version 0.02 released
2004 December 2
    • Version 0.03 released
2004 December ???
    • Version 0.04 released
2004 December ???
    • Version 0.05 released
2004 December 7
    • Version 0.06 released

2004 December 9
    • Version 0.07 released

2004 December 15
    • Version 0.08 released

2004 December 31
2005 January 8
    • Version 0.10 released

2005 January 31
    • Version 0.11 released
    • Improved GFXLib2 by Angelo Mottola replaced the original SDL-based gfxlib by Sterling Christensen
    • DOS port added by Daniel R. Verkamp
2005 March 4
    • Version 0.12 released
2005 April 14
    • Version 0.13 released

2005 July 27
    • Version 0.14 released
    • Full debugging support
    • Function overloading

2005 December 6
    • Version 0.15 released
    • Support for Unicode strings
    • Complete WinAPI headers

2006 June 11 - 19
    • Version 0.16 released
    • Namespaces
    • Implicit scope blocks

2006 July 15
    • FBHELP "help viewer" 0.1 released, some bugs present, fixing in following months

2006 July 30
    • First 0.17 "testing" version
    • addition of Macro support, which would be later used in the compiler itself
2006 August 1
    • DOS graphics bug fixed (worked never before), "unofficial" patch provided
2006 September - December
    • Heavy rewrite of FreeBASIC, neither "stable" nor "testing" releases
    • introduced compiler dialects qb, deprecated, and fb, along with a new -lang compiler switch (no fblite dialect yet)
    • beginnings of OOP
    • Introduction of the BFD library from the GNU binutils, providing additional link-time information in libraries.
2006 November
    • Started providing CVS versions of FB, Win and Linux, later also DOS
2006 December 08
    • FBHELP "help viewer" 0.5 released, pretty mature now

2007 January - April
    • Types (structures) allow member functions, operator overloading, properties, constructors and destructors.
    • Graphics library has capabilities for screen control, events, and alpha blending.
    • Built-in support for 64 bit file operations.

2007 May 2
    • The next 0.17 "testing" version, very much new.
    • Shortly after this release, the version number in CVS was increased to 0.18, but before any full release of 0.17 had been made.

2007 May 14
    • Version 0.17 released, similar to previous testing releases, but complete with installers.
    • Because the 0.17 sources can only be compiled with a version 0.16+2006-July-Testing combination, a release was made to allow users to install and compile FreeBASIC without applying any patch.
    • Major installation problems on the Linux release, so an additional Linux release was made a week later to correct the problems.
    • Some users found minor installation problems on DOS/Windows and workarounds made available.
    • First full release with graphics working (almost) with DOS target also
    • The major change in this full release compared to version 0.16, was that all procedure parameters now defaulted to passing BYVAL.

2007 Jun 7
    • The FreeBASIC source code moved from CVS to SVN.

2007 Aug 16
    • FreeBASIC 0.18.1 full release uploaded.
    • No ground breaking additions, only minor fixes compared to previous version 0.17.
    • Strings and UDT's are passed BYREF with other data types being passed BYVAL.

2007 Oct 12
    • FreeBASIC 0.18.2 full release uploaded.
    • many, many bug fixes
    • MILESTONE: PCOPY in text mode added ( dos/window only )
    • QB Compatibility improvements for RND, SCREEN, ERASE
    • Changed default field alignment to 4 bytes on DOS and Linux such that the BFD in binutils-2.17 compatibility problems should finally be resolved for DOS and Linux users.

2007 Dec 29
    • FreeBASIC 0.18.3 full release uploaded.
    • Various bug fixes (graphics, threading)
    • QB compatibility mode further restricted compared to FB mode, and improved compatibility to QB
    • Experimental serial port driver for DOS added

2008 Mar 27
    • FreeBASIC 0.18.4 full release uploaded.
    • INSTRREV added
    • Many bug fixes in various areas
    • More OOP, finalizing dialect split into -lang fb and -lang qb, added -lang fblite
    • Fixed Linux packages
    • Fixed old shell/path/spawn trouble in DOS

2008 Apr 18
    • FreeBASIC 0.18.5 full release uploaded.
    • Bugfix release. Linux: packaging, Win32: graphics, DOS: GDB