The BASIC programs to be available here will all run with Microsoft QBasic, which is bundled in with MSDOS 5.0 and later versions of MSDOS. You will surely have it available. If you don't, you should be able to shop around and pick up a copy of MSDOS 5.0 cheaply (say about US $ 20). If you are running MSDOS 3.3 and you upgrade directly to MSDOS 6.22, for example, then you will find QBasic available, even though other items like DosShell will be missing.
Apparently QBasic is not supplied with Windows 95 in the floppy disk version, but it may be present on the CD-ROM version. On the CD-ROM version, you have to copy QBASIC.EXE over manually. This information may change. Look at your Windows 95 disk(s) to see if you can find QBASIC.EXE. Otherwise contact Microsoft to let them know what you think of this state of affairs.
So QBasic is somewhere between very cheap and free. JAVA might be the trend in the future, but QBasic is available for many people right now. The author has worked out how to give QBasic some of the facility of object-oriented programming, to a level that is good enough for most purposes. He certainly won't be overawed by the Dirac equation, which is a prime candidate for object-oriented programming (it may occur to you that Dirac was the inventor of the 'abstract data type').
You will need to install QBasic as a 'viewer' in your web browser. If you try to download a program like WPD.BAS without doing this, you will get a message that there is no viewer for the MIME type
application/octet-stream
There is no need to worry about what a MIME type is or what this computerspeak actually means. You only need to know how to plug it in to QBasic.
The author is running Mosaic as a browser, which he got free with his CompuServe subscription. From Mosaic select Tools, then Options, then File Types and then New. Then type in 'application/octet-stream' and click on OK. In the Extensions: window enter .bas (note the stop or period before the 'bas'). Position the cursor in the Program: window and select Browse. Look for QBasic. It is probably
C:\dos\qbasic.exe
Then click on OK. Click on OK again and you should be back in Mosaic. You have now installed QBasic as a viewer and associated it with 'application/octet-stream'. You never needed to know what this 'MIME type' meant.
If you are running some other browser you will need to do something similar, though the fact that you are using something else suggests that you know what you are doing anyway. This ability to install a viewer is a basic skill which is worth acquiring, so please persevere if you have difficulties. If the reported MIME type is not 'application/octet-stream' then please report this to the author on 100425.3501@compuserve.com so that he can collect information on this topic. Any other information would be appreciated. The benefits of everyone being able to run QBasic programs are obvious.
When you click on WPD.BAS again, it will be downloaded, and QBasic will be started up automatically. You will then see a listing of a BASIC program. You could run it now, but you may care to exit again, disconnect your telephone, and then click on WPD.BAS once more. Its link-colour will have changed to reflect the fact that it is now locally available. Then you can run it by clicking on Run and Start. You can make your way through most of the author's programs by pressing the RETURN key after reading each paragraph. Press ESC or hold down CTRL and press BREAK to get out of the program at any time. Click on File and Exit to go back to Mosaic hypertext if necessary.
Now you have a text with embedded BASIC programs which you can run any time. If only Max Born could have seen this! This is just what the Web is all about. A language like JAVA streamlines this operation. It uses C++ instead of BASIC, and normally you don't ever get to see the interpreter itself. JAVA will surely take over in the future, once everyone has their JAVA-compatible web browser.
Instead of QBasic, you might install Microsoft QuickBasic 4.5 or Visual Basic for DOS as your viewer, assuming you have enough memory. If anyone succeeds with PowerBasic or some other BASIC, could they please advise the author on 100425.3501@compuserve.com
A program like WPD.BAS will initially be hidden inside the Mosaic system. You can use QBasic to make a copy of it, for example on a floppy disk on your A: drive. Subject to the author's legal and moral rights, you can pass on a copy to a visiting lecturer to take home for bona fide non-profit educational or research use. That lecturer may not have the latest model of computer. WPD.BAS will run on an 8086 with CGA graphics. It won't be as good, but it will still teach the physics and then someday the students should become rich enough to afford something better.
Against each BASIC program's link is an estimate of the length of that program, rounded to the nearest kilobyte. This is so you know what to expect if you download it. The estimate is possibly out of date, but you can see the difference between a little file and a big file. There is often a second number which tells you how many times a file has been downloaded from CompuServe, so you can estimate its relative popularity.
WARNING - QBasic should be on the same logical and physical disk drive as the Mosaic system. Some people may partition their hard disk to hold Windows 3.1/MSDOS 6.22 and Windows 95/MSDOS 7.0 available in a dual-boot system. Then QBASIC.EXE may need to be copied across to the logical disk drive where Mosaic is running if it is not already available.