BASIC
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== Line Numbers and Colons: BASIC's Responses to Changing Hardware (Sidebar) == | == Line Numbers and Colons: BASIC's Responses to Changing Hardware (Sidebar) == | ||
| − | Microsoft has used its position as a corporate supporter of BASIC to make many changes to the language, adding and removing components that became necessary or obsolete as hardware progressed. For example, to allow programs to be written more compactly -- an important feature given the Altair's switch and toggle interface, which could literally be painful to program -- Microsoft's Altair BASIC introduced the colon (:) to place separate statements on the same line. Used this way, the colon allowed lines such as: | + | Microsoft has used its position as a corporate supporter of BASIC to make many changes to the language, adding and removing components that became necessary or obsolete as hardware progressed. For example, to allow programs to be written more compactly, an important feature given the Altair's switch and toggle interface, which could literally be painful to program, Microsoft's Altair BASIC introduced the colon (:) to place separate statements on the same line. Used this way, the colon allowed lines such as: |
<code>160 R=16:PRINT"HOW MANY DECKS (1-4)";</code> | <code>160 R=16:PRINT"HOW MANY DECKS (1-4)";</code> | ||
