One interesting alternative, which I considered for
that project, was
the 1978 Super Basic for the Bally Astrocade (a Z80 machine, so we are
back to the start of this thread) which claimed to be self revealing. It
had GOSUB but also allowed you to define your own named functions (it
called them macros). These functions used INPUT to read the values
supplied as arguments at the call site, but if the argument was missing
it would print the associated prompt text and read the value from the
keyboard. And all the built in commands worked just like this, so typing
in a parcial expression would make the computer print out what
additional data it needed. This interpreter was not sold, so a
repackaged version of it was developed and sold as the Datamax UV-1 high
end machines for video artists and the language was renamed to Zgrass.
I have an Astrocade and wonder who's got those Datamaxen -- I'd sure love
one for mine.
Astro BASIC is a marvel, considering the severe constraints in which it
must operate.
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Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems *
www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at
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-- To be, or not to be -- that always confused me ... -- "In Living Color" ----