Date   : Mon, 20 Nov 2006 10:51:38 +0000 (WET)
From   : PCOGHLAN@... (Peter Coghlan)
Subject: BASIC variations

 
>
>Is there a definitive list anywhere of the differences between the various 
>BBC BASICs?
>
>I am particularly interested simply in differences between BASIC IV (on the 
>Master) and the earlier versions. Ones I can remember, off the top of my 
>head, are:
>
>    OSCLI keyword
>    TIME$ keyword (for RTC)
>    EXT# being read/write rather than read only (depending on FS)
>    new values for OPT
>    the 65C02 extra assembly instructions, of course
>    new values for LISTO
>    conditional LIST
>    EDIT
>
>Are there any others I have forgotten?
>

Hi David,

Another one is the OPENIN/OPENUP change between Basic I and Basic II.

As far as I recall, OPENIN in Basic I and OPENUP in Basic II do the
same thing (open a file for read or update) and have the same token value.
OPENIN in Basic II opens a file for read only and this functionality does
not exist in Basic I.

There are also differences which are not related to particular keywords
such as IIRC BASIC IV being able to accept and tokenise an ASCII program
presented to it in memory (primarily used when returning to BASIC from
the editor).

On a very slightly related note, some of the older BASICs sometimes
use JMP (&20E) internally instead of JMP &FFEE. I can't recall if the newer
ones also do this or not. Anybody know why this was done? Is it just an attempt
to save a few cycles at the expense of not quite following the standards? It
seems a bit strange as as otherwise BASIC seems to stick pretty ridgidly to
the standards.

Regards,
Peter.