It's kind of sad in a way. If you read the posts from about the time, all the noise was about 'we need to cement Bob's legacy', 'we need to do him proud' etc, and in the end his legacy got spaffed up the wall before his coffin could even get dirty.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150924080657/http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pbforums/showthread.php?t=59383 wrote:
Watch for new products to be announced. Bob created them before his death and I WILL release them for his customers to be able to use the new features he created in them. They are 11 for windows and 7 Console Compiler. He also created 64 bit for both compilers.
It won't be the same without Bob, but I will do my best for PowerBASIC to live up to his standards.
I'm not sure which I will release first, 11 and 7 or the 64 bit compilers. If you and friends have an idea which should come first I would appreciate feed back.
Thanks,
Vivian C. Zale
I wonder if that was really true. Be interesting if one of the apparent testers ever leaked such things and the compilers are just sitting somewhere on one of the warez CDs on archive.org. OK, maybe not things originating in the 2010s but still.
Also wonder how much Drake actually paid for it in the end, can't have been more than single-digit thousands right? I mean after two years of messing around, half the customers having disappeared and moved on, god knows how many people having fingers in the code and all that. I expect there'd have been an element of resignation and just accepting anything in order to make it someone else's problem by the end too
If PB was just slightly more notable, I'm sure someone would've made a documentary or a book about its downfall. It'd probably be quite interesting if you could get inside perspectives. Like Drive to Survive on Netflix, except Zale to Fail.