GWBASIC programming language with total size of 79KB only How?

Question

A programming Language only 79kb in size.

GWBASIC programming language confuse me, i download it and its size is only 79KB only how this is possible? i never seen a language with 79kb of size before.

Other programming language like mysql its size is 32.6M in setup.

Please exaplain whay GWBASIC is 79KB in size.

Thanks

Answer 1

A BASIC interpreter of the early desktop PC era like GW-BASIC is a language interpreter, and not much more than that. Libraries (for graphics or networking or database, for example) are not provided. The "IDE" is a simple line-oriented source code editor, and hence very small. Documentation and instruction guides are hard copy only. There are no external tools (config management, unit testing) that need to be integrated.

Why such a feature-poor environment? Developers are constrained by main memory limitations (hence how big an executable can be) and distribution media of small capacity (floppy discs, cassettes, etc.).