Date   : Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:10:13 -0700
From   : Angus Duggan <angus.duggan@...>
Subject: Re: BASIC IV: Coded Line Number

Peter Craven wrote:
> Thanks Richard
>  
> I do not quite understand the reason for having encoded line numbers 
> within the program when you have the &8D line number token alerting you 
> that the three bytes following represent an encoded line number. Why 
> could they not just have the line number token &8D followed by the line 
> numbers in standard LSB, MSB format??

Because that would make scanning for end of line and end of program harder; 
the MSB/LSB might conflict with other tokens. If I remember correctly, it's 
designed so that none of the following three bytes are a legal end of 
program sequence.

a.