Microsoft KB Archive/66591

= ALT+240 Hangs QBX.EXE/QB.EXE with Phoenix BIOS =

Article ID: 66591

Article Last Modified on 11/21/2006

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft BASIC Professional Development System 7.0
 * Microsoft BASIC Professional Development System 7.1
 * Microsoft QuickBasic 4.5 for MS-DOS

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This article was previously published under Q66591



SUMMARY
The extended ASCII characters can be typed into a Basic program using the combination of the ALT key plus the three digits that correspond to the character. However, in Microsoft QuickBasic version 4.5 and in Microsoft Basic Professional Development System (PDS) versions 7.0 and 7.1, typing ALT+240 (on the numeric keypad) can hang the QB.EXE and QBX.EXE environments temporarily. This problem has been reproduced on a Wyse 80386 with a Phoenix BIOS version 3.53. Pressing CTRL+BREAK will get you out of the hang.

To work around the problem, use the PRINT CHR$(240) statement instead.

This problem also occurs in a WYSE 80286, running Phoenix 286 ROM BIOS version 2.72, and has been reported with a clone computer running Phoenix ROM BIOS version 3.07.

A customer has also reported this problem under MS-DOS 5.0 on a NEC PowerMate 80386/20 with Phoenix 386 ROM BIOS Plus version 1.10.14, but the problem does not occur on this machine under MS-DOS version 3.3. (The same customer also reported that in the EDIT.EXE editor program shipped with MS-DOS 5.0, pressing CTRL+P or ALT+240 displays the MS-DOS message &quot;Unable to write to device PRN&quot;.)

For more information about how to enter extended ASCII and control characters into QB.EXE and QBX.EXE, query on the following words in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

extended and ASCII and ALT and 240 and 255

Additional query words: QuickBas BasicCom 4.50 7.00 7.10

Keywords: KB66591

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