Commodore 16 User Manual
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INTRODUCTION
You've seen in Ihis manual an assortment ot exercises using Ihe BASIC
language,
to give you a
(eel tot computer programming and some ot
ihe
vocabulary Involved. This encyclopedia gives
a
complete list ol the
rules and lerms (SYNTAX) of the BASIC 3.5 language,
along
with a
concise description ot each Experiment with these commands, and
remember
that you can't damage your
Commodore 1
6 by typing
in
programs, and
that
Ihe
best
way
to
learn computing Is by doing
The
encyclopedia provides formats
and
briet explanations
and
examples
ol Ihe
BASIC
3 5
commands and statements. It Is not
intended
to
teach BASIC. It
you
are Interested in learning BASIC,
Appendix G lists tutorial books that witl help.
Commands and statements
are
listed In
separate
sections. Within
Ihe
sections, Ihe commands and statements are listed in alphabetical order.
Commands are used
mainly In
direct mode,
white
statements are most
ollen
used
In programs. In most
cases, commands
can
be used as
statemenls In
a
program it
you
prefix
them
wild
a
line numoer. You can
use many statements
as
commands by using them in direct mode (i.e.,
without
line numbers)
II you
are unsure
where a
term is
located, they
are all
'Isled
in tne reierence
chad.
The BASIC Encyclopedia
is
organized along the lines ot the
tallowing
•
COMMANDS: the commands used lo work
with programs, edit,
store, and
erase
them.
• STATEMENTS: the BASIC p*ogram statements
used
In numbered
lines ot programs.
•
FUNCTIONS: the
string
numeric, and prim
functions
•
VARIABLES AND
OPERATORS: the dllterent
types
of variables,
legal variable names, and
arithmetic
and logical
operators.
A luiler explanation
of
BASIC 3.5
commands
is provided in
Ihe
Series
264 Programmer's Reierence Guide, available from
your
Commodore
dealer
or
your local bookstore.
COMMAND AND STATEMENT FORMAT
The commands
and statements presented
in Ihis section of the
encyclopedia follow consistent format conventions to make them as
clear
as
possible.
In
most
cases,
there are several examples
to
Illustrate whal the aclual
command
looks tike The following example
shows some
of
the format conventions that are used
In
Ihe BASIC
commands
and
statements;
94
I
EXAMPLE
LOAD'program name",D0.
U8
\
ar
keywords
irgument
.additional arguments
(possibly
optional)
Ihe parts of the command or statement
that you must type In
exactly
as
they
appear are
highlighted
in
a
darker lype in Ihe format listing, while
the name of
the
command
is
in capital
letters. The words that you
don't
type in exactly, such
as the
name of
a
program,
are
printed in lighter
italic type. When
quote
marks
(" ">
appear (usually around
a
program
or
file
name), you should include them in the command or statement,
like
In Ihe
format example
• KEYWORDS appear in
uppercase
tetters
and boldface type. YOU
MUST ENTER THESE KEYWORDS EXACTLY AS THEY APPEAR
However, many keywords have abbrevialions that
you
can also
use
(see the
reference
chart).
Keywords
are
words lhat
are
part ot Ihe BASIC
language
that
your
computer knows Keywords are
the
central
part
of
a command or
statement They
tell
the computer what kind of action
you
wanl it
to
lake. These words
cannot be used
as
variable
names.
• ARGUMENTS (also called parameters) appear
In
lowercase letters
Arguments are the parts of
a
command or statement that
you select;
they
complemenl keywords by providing specific information aboul the
command
or statement.
For
example, a keyword tells Ihe computer lo
load
a
program, while
an argument tells Ihe computer which
specific
program
lo
load
and e second argument
specifies
which drive the
disk
containing
the
program
is in Arguments Include filenames, variables,
line numbers,
etc.
• SQUARE BRACKETS
[|
show
OPTIONAL arguments
You select
any
or none
ot the arguments iisted. depending on
your
requirements
• ANGLE BRACKETS <
>
indicate
that you MUST choose one of the
arguments listed.
•
VERTICAL
BAR
i
separates items in
a
list ot arguments
when
your
choices are limited
lo
those arguments
listed, and you can't use any
other arguments.
When
the vertical
bar
appears in
a
list enclosed in
SQUARE
BRACKETS, your choices are limited to the items in the list,
but
you
still have
the option not lo use any
arguments