4 Dec
2003
4 Dec
'03
10 a.m.
On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Tom Jennings wrote:
But what exactly was "standalone BASIC". I
recall it, I even had OEM
distribution diskettes of it, but paid it no attention.
Did it in fact have a filesystem integral? I just haev no idea.
It was a Microsoft BASIC, that had some rudimentary file handling
built in, including the capability of launching programs.
The best known is Coco RS-DOS (6809), but there were earlier versions,
on NEC8001 (Z-80) and some non-US Okidata machines (Z-80)
The directory structure was on a middle track (35 or 40), with a one
sector FAT (called a "GAT" "granule allocation table").
"Clusters"
("granules") were often half a track, and the table used 8 bit entries.
The FPDEs included a file size and a starting block number.