Subject: [Coco] 512K Basic by Microcom

Robert Gault robert.gault at worldnet.att.net
Sun Dec 4 19:32:14 EST 2005


Disk Basic adds the command MERGE[,R] which indeed permits spreading a 
program out over several disks. The program would need to be saved in 
ASCII format and there couldn't be any duplication of line numbers. So 
that is one way to handle large programs. You could try putting the 
MERGE command into the first program segment, but perhaps MERGE can only 
be used from the command line.

You can also write short programs that call each other with RUN. They 
can share data space in memory if you are careful but that is not a 
built-in function of Basic.

John R. Hogerhuis wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-12-04 at 07:42 -0500, Robert Gault wrote:
> 
> 
>>The value of this program is questionable as on most Coco systems there 
>>would be no way to store the large programs created under 512K Basic. 
>>This is stated by Microcom who also said, "Future Versions of 512K Basic 
>>will support hard drives." I don't know whether they got further than 
>>the version 1.0 which I have.
> 
> 
> Isn't it possible to merge disk basic programs together? I have a vague
> recollection that it is possible. I'm certain you can chain programs
> together, but I suspect you can merge them too. If that's the case, then
> you could save different files to different floppy's and swap them in
> one after another during load.
> 
> Not that it is practical to do so... alternatively you could have the
> first link in the chain be a decompressor, so maybe you could fit a huge
> program on one diskette.
> 
> Also it was mentioned you only get 16K of variable space. That kind of
> stinks. Considering BASIC uses descriptors for strings one would think
> you could make a lot better use of extended RAM.
> 
> -- John.
> 
> 



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