[Coco] [Color Computer] pagetable.com > Blog Archive > Bill Gates' Personal Easter Eggs in 8 Bit

[wdg3rd at comcast.net]

Both shortcuts were available in Level 2 BASIC for the TRS-80 Model One several years before the Color Computer, and I suspect and assume in a number of other early Microsoft BASIC interpreters.  (The only other device of that vintage I have is a TI 99/A, and I don't believe it used a Microsoft BASIC -- and I'm not going to check, as that machine belongs to La Esposa, its algebra program is what she says got her through the math requirement in nursing school umpty-ump years ago, and it holds a special place in her heart even though it hasn't been plugged in in over 20 years, so the electrolytics are all probably dry anyway and the house would burn down if I did).
--
Ward Griffiths    wdg3rd at comcast.net

"What I know [about the art of the sword] boils down to this:  If you see a guy running at you with a sword, put two rounds in his chest to slow him down, then one into his brain to finish him off".  Aaron Allston, _Sidhe Devil_

The two halves of the ruling Party are arguing over who gets to be the Top this time.  Either wins, Top or Bottom, they both win by the situation.  For us individuals, BOHICA.

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu>
> PRINT and '?' both get tokenized to the single-byte token for the print command
> (which is different from the Ascii code for '?'.)  I'd guess PRINT got special
> treatment because of its frequent use in direct mode to print out the values of
> variables to aid in debugging.
> 
> I'm pretty sure I recollect the question mark being used as a substitute for
> PRINT in various BASICs prior to the introduction of the CoCo.  I'm less certain
> about the apostrophe substitute for REM predating the CoCo, though I suspect it
> does.
> 
> Art
> 
> On Thu, 2 Oct 2008, John wrote:
> 
> > Hello Art,
> > 
> > Is this tokenization to one byte the functionality that provides "shortcuts"
> > like typing "?" for "PRINT" ?  I've always wondered why that one command had
> > such a shortcut.
> > 
> > Just curious,
> > John
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On
> > Behalf Of Arthur Flexser
> > Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 12:06 AM
> > To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
> > Subject: Re: [Coco] [Color Computer] pagetable.com > Blog Archive > Bill
> > Gates' Personal Easter Eggs in 8 Bit
> > 
> > All CoCo commands are tokenized to a single byte.  (Functions, to
> > distinguish
> > them from commands, use two bytes.)  This excludes commands like SAVEM, in
> > which
> > the "M" essentially acts as an argument to the SAVE command, which is
> > efficient
> > for saving ROM space and adds negligibly to execution time.
> > 
> > Art
> > 
> > On Wed, 1 Oct 2008, James Diffendaffer wrote:
> > > 
> > > The Dragon's interpreter is faster than the CoCo's. 
> > > That alone should tell you the CoCo's Basic wasn't optimized well.
> > > They didn't even bother to worry about what tokens were one or two
> > > bytes.  The most commonly used commands should have used single byte
> > > tokens but not all do.
> > > 
> >