Talk:The Commodore 64

From Maze

Revision as of 16:29, 10 July 2011 by MarkSample (Talk | contribs) (? for PRINT and "crunching" code)
Jump to: navigation, search

I was wondering if anyone knew about the origins of the question mark as a substitute for the PRINT command in BASIC?

The C64 Programmer's Reference Manual explains why you'd want to use abbreviations (to squeeze more commands on a 80-character line, see pp. 24-25 of the PRM), but not why a question mark is used for PRINT. The only other info I found is here: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2005-November/053488.html.

BTW, the PRM (obviously) has some other good stuff to include in the C64 chapter. There's a whole section on "crunching" BASIC programs, i.e. squeezing in as much as possible on a single line. These methods include abbreviations, the colon, and shortening line numbers. The fact that the C64 so explicitly encouraged crunching programs is another great example of how the C64 encouraged programming and experimentation.--MarkSample 20:29, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

NOTE: Discuss graphics for different characters sets - SCIIs. Atari, IBM, etc?

Personal tools