Atari 400 BASIC Programming Cart question

[sgtdave]

I am using the BASIC Computing Language cart on an Atari 400, and I am finding a lot of standard BASIC commands not working. I am trying to write some games from David Ahl's BASIC Computer Games Microcomputer Edition. For example, I get errors when I type the following simple lines:

 

30 INPUT "HOW MANY GAMES";Q

40 IF Q<11 THEN 60

 

I don't have the manul for the cart, what flavor of BASIC is it?

[Bill Lange]

In ATARI BASIC you would have to do

 

30 PRINT "HOW MANY GAMES"; : INPUT Q

40 IF Q < 11 THEN GOTO 60 (I think)

[sgtdave]

Thank you. Did they ever publish Atari BASIC game books to create simple, text-based games, like the Ahl book? I want something to give my 8-year old so he can program the games by himself.

 

EDIT: Nevermind, I found this awesome page - http://www.atarimania.com/documents-atari-400-800-xl-xe-books_1_8.html

 

 

In ATARI BASIC you would have to do

 

30 PRINT "HOW MANY GAMES"; : INPUT Q

40 IF Q < 11 THEN GOTO 60 (I think)

Edited August 29, 2017 by sgtdave

[Rybags]

You'll find other "essentials" missing too such as ELSE but that can be overcome.

The string handling is way different as well which takes a bit more work.

 

Also annoyingly since the INPUT statement doesn't allow the printed portion it always generates the "?"

But there's a trick to get it to suppress it, use:

 

INPUT #16,A$

[Level42]

Why is anyone still using Atari Basic while there has been Turbo Basic XL since the mid 80's ??

[+slx]

Why is anyone still using Atari Basic while there has been Turbo Basic XL since the mid 80's ??

Because it's built in I suppose...

Or why is anyone still using Ataris at all

[Level42]

Indeed. It's too bad Turbo Basic won't fit in an 8k EPROM....but even so....100's of ways to load it almost instantly these days from SD card, MegaSpeedy floppy drives or all sorts of multi-cartridges

[+slx]

I think one of the reasons is also that it is not that widely known in the US. It was more of a German phenomenon due to its Happy Computer magazine roots. There was less connection across the Atlantic then. I read Antic and Compute! and Compute! books in Austria but many Atari people only knew the (IMHO inferior) Data Becker books and German magazines.

 

It would have been more widely known in the US had ANTIC or Analog translated that article. I doubt that they took notice of what happened in Germany and even if they had found and published it, in 1985 it came quite late in the Atari's life, with power users already eying the STs and the ubiquity of programming your own computer probably starting to decline.

[+MrFish]

I think one of the reasons is also that it is not that widely known in the US. It was more of a German phenomenon due to its Happy Computer magazine roots. There was less connection across the Atlantic then. I read Antic and Compute! and Compute! books in Austria but many Atari people only knew the (IMHO inferior) Data Becker books and German magazines.

 

It would have been more widely known in the US had ANTIC or Analog translated that article. I doubt that they took notice of what happened in Germany and even if they had found and published it, in 1985 it came quite late in the Atari's life, with power users already eying the STs and the ubiquity of programming your own computer probably starting to decline.

 

"Not that widely known in the US"? Come on, a free BASIC that's in the class of BASIC XL/XE. People were all over it. It was distributed in every user's group in the country, documentation was translated by Dave and Laura Yearke of the Western New York Atari Users Group, and there were MANY people still programming away at their 8-bits in mid and late 80's, and into the 90's.

 

It was featured in many magazine articles, inlcuding this one in Antic: BASIC Bonanaza

 

I think the relatively few people you see on here who aren't aware of it are either coming from another computer camp (C64, Apple II, etc.), or just weren't into programming much back in the day (just "dabbled"), or never really programmed at all.

 

The OP doesn't even know about Atari BASIC (I.E.: "What flavor of BASIC is it?"), how much less will he know about Turbo-BASIC XL?

Edited August 30, 2017 by MrFish

[Level42]

Good to hear people knew about it back then in the US

 

In all honesty: Turbo Basic won't run on a standard 400 or 800 because of the memory required (64k). (Hense Turbo Basic XL)

There has been a modded version of TB that would run on them though but it would be much better to get some memory upgrade for the 400 and run the regular TB

[+MrFish]

In all honesty: Turbo Basic won't run on a standard 400 or 800 because of the memory required (64k). (Hense Turbo Basic XL)

There has been a modded version of TB that would run on them though but it would be much better to get some memory upgrade for the 400 and run the regular TB

 

No, it won't run because part of the interpreter sits in RAM under ROM only available on the XL/XE's (that's how it provides more features/commands and yet has more free RAM available for programs than Atari BASIC does). Upgrading memory on a 400/800 won't help.

 

The version that runs on 400/800 requires 48K min.

Edited August 30, 2017 by MrFish

[+MrFish]

Upgrading memory on a 400/800 won't help.

 

The version that runs on 400/800 requires 48K min.

 

To be more clear, upgrading memory on a 400/800 won't help/allow you to run Turbo-BASIC XL, but it is necessary to enable running the version of Turbo-BASIC made for 400/800's.

Edited August 30, 2017 by MrFish

[BillC]

 

To be more clear, upgrading memory on a 400/800 won't help/allow you to run Turbo-BASIC XL, but it is necessary to enable running the version of Turbo-BASIC made for 400/800's.

For those interested I believe the 400/800 version is in the TB32Q.ARC file on the second Holmes CD, in the Programming/Turbo Basic folder.

[+DrVenkman]

Why is anyone still using Atari Basic while there has been Turbo Basic XL since the mid 80's ??

1. Because it's what we used throughout the 80's

2. It's built into every XL/XE

3. The carts are cheap and ubiquitous for 400/800/1200XLs

4. English language books and magazines covered it exhaustively at the time and are now available widely for anyone who wants to revisit their early years

 

That's enough for most of us, I imagine.

 

My liquor store also sells multi-thousand bottles dollars of Scotch whisky but you know, I'd rather spend $15 and get my growler filled with a good regional IPA.

[+MrFish]

For those interested I believe the 400/800 version is in the TB32Q.ARC file on the second Holmes CD, in the Programming/Turbo Basic folder.

 

That's a special version made for use with SpartaDOS 3.2 (hence the matching version numbers).

 

The version for use with 400/800's is Turbo-BASIC 1.4, or what is commonly referred to as "Frost BASIC".

 

Both versions can be found here: Serious Computerist - Turbo-BASIC & Tools

Edited August 31, 2017 by MrFish

[Level42]

 

1. Because it's what we used throughout the 80's

2. It's built into every XL/XE

3. The carts are cheap and ubiquitous for 400/800/1200XLs

4. English language books and magazines covered it exhaustively at the time and are now available widely for anyone who wants to revisit their early years

 

That's enough for most of us, I imagine.

 

My liquor store also sells multi-thousand bottles dollars of Scotch whisky but you know, I'd rather spend $15 and get my growler filled with a good regional IPA.

 

1. Maybe you. I switched to Turbo Basic from 1985. So I only used Atari Basic for about 1.5, maybe 2 years. Even so...is that a reason to let go of all the advantages Turbo Basic offers ?

2. sadly, yes, if you're lucky you get Rev.B which is a lot of fun (I learned about the bug in 1983, the hard way)

3.Turbo Basic is free to download, that's better than cheap

4.And everything in those books still work for Turbo Basic XL because it is fully compatible with Atari Basic. You still get the speed advantage though.

 

About your liquor: Turbo Basic is free so that's a really weird comparison.

 

No...you just think "It's European, it can't be good, it is hard to learn because it's all in German (wrong), I need to learn something new (yeah, boot a floppy disk, pretty hard stuff) and that's SO scary":....

that's it....none of the other reasons.

Edited August 31, 2017 by Level42

[+slx]

So I'll have to take back everything I said after 'good morning'

 

Glad to hear that TBXL was valued in the US and I just missed the ANTIC article as I was on the ST by that time and my 800 (with a copy of TBXL) in exile with my nephews.

[+MrFish]

So I'll have to take back everything I said after 'good morning'

 

Glad to hear that TBXL was valued in the US and I just missed the ANTIC article as I was on the ST by that time and my 800 (with a copy of TBXL) in exile with my nephews.

 

It's valued by me even more now because we have a cross compiler (basicParser),

which means I can write TBXL code that looks like this.

 

The only line numbers I look at anymore are the ones that are just used for reference in Notepad++.

 

 

[+DrVenkman]

 

About your liquor: Turbo Basic is free so that's a really weird comparison.

 

No...you just think "It's European, it can't be good, it is hard to learn because it's all in German (wrong), I need to learn something new (yeah, boot a floppy disk, pretty hard stuff) and that's SO scary":....

that's it....none of the other reasons.

First, beer is not liquor. If you don’t understand that, there’s no help for you. Also, “metaphor.” Look up the concept.

 

Second, I’m an aerospace engineer by undergraduate education. I guarantee you “It’s scary” is not the reason I’ve never bothered with Turbo Basic XL. Presumptuous much?

[sgtdave]

Why is anyone still using Atari Basic while there has been Turbo Basic XL since the mid 80's ??

 

Because (1) I only have a stock 400, and (2) I only have the BASIC Programming Language cart, and (3) nostalgia.

 

Of course there's newer stuff, but if that was the point why would anyone use any flavor of BASIC at all? I'm just tinkering with some old tech from my childhood and sharing the experience with my son. He's been having a lot of fun with my old 8-bit collection, and I want to take advantage of that before he outgrows it (like his brother did). I learned (like many of us) on the school's Apple II, and got a $50 C64 in high school. That's the extent of my BASIC experience. But I recently found a tough-as-nails 400, with an Atari BASIC cart, for super cheap, and figured this would be a great first computer my son could learn from and abuse. That being said, I'm just trying to overcome some of those common BASIC commands that aren't available in Atari such as INPUT (as I know it), TAB, and CLS. We're just writing text games right now, we'll move up to graphics later.

 

If anyone else is interested, the best Atari BASIC book for simple programs for kids I've found so far is this: http://www.atarimania.com/documents/41-Fun-Projects-For-The-Atari.pdf.