"Format: SAVE filespec [,A] > SAVE filespec [,P] >...The A option saves the program is ASCII format. Otherwise, BASIC saves the >file in a compressed binary (tokenized) format. ASCII files take up more space,... > >The P option saves the program in an encoded binary format. This is the >protection option..."There was a DOS BASIC from MS (late 80's) that could produce stand-alone executables. It proceeded QuickBASIC (which could do likewise). I think it was called Microsoft Profession BASIC (or some such) and the version numbers went up to 7.0.