Program like it’s 1980!
Just for fun, let’s pretend it is the summer of 1980, and you just walked in to a Radio Shack and saw the brand new TRS-80 Color Computer. Unlike the original TRS-80 Model I, this thing could hook up...
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Word wrapping in Extended Color BASIC
2015/1/2 Update: Please see my follow-up article for two improved versions of this. Last night, I began writing a program on my 1980s Radio Shack Color Computer. I am planning on going through hundreds...
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A tale of two word wrap routines
2015/1/4 Update: After reading this, you can check out the next installment, too. 2015/1/5 Update: The BASIC listings should be fixed now. In a recent article, I demonstrated a simple way to do a word...
View ArticleOptimizing Color BASIC
A recent post by Art “ADOS” Flexser on the CoCo mailing list mentioned a few commercial programs for the Radio Shack Color Computer that were designed to optimize BASIC programs: On Jan 2, 2015, at...
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Word wrap revisited…
2015/1/5 Update: Jim’s v3 code has been fixed. In the “CoCo Community”, Jim Gerrie is well-known for his prolific BASIC programs. He and his son have cranked out an endless assortment of games over...
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More BASIC word wrap versions
Welcome to another exciting installment of text word wrapping in Color BASIC! This time, I will share another word wrap submission, then compare all four versions in speed and code size. Be sure to...
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Even more BASIC word wrap versions
(Hello, Reddit.com visitors!) Be sure to check out part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4. Darren Atkinson’s second word wrap routine. Behold, the new champion of BASIC word wrap routines! Darren Atkinson...
View ArticleBASIC word wrap test program
This article is part of a series. Be sure to check out part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5. Here is a new word wrap test program. It has new test string cases, and now reports the code space used...
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PCLEAR 0 to get more CoCo BASIC memory
On the Radio Shack Color Computer, Extended Color BASIC added new commands to access high resolution graphics modes. The following modes of the CoCo’s Motoroal 6847 VDG chip (video display generator)...
View Article4K CoCo Programming Challenge update
We have new entries in the 1980 4K CoCo Programming Challenge. Check them out: Entry Page Thanks to Jim Gerrie, Nick Marentes, John Mark Mobley and Rogelio Pera for their initial submissions. A few...
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64K TRS-80 CoCo memory test
Updates: 2016/1/19 – Added reference to earlier article about more memory for BASIC (and an except about why BASIC is that way). Also added reference to Juan’s comment on improving the program. Added...
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Optimizing Color BASIC, part 6
See also: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5. Size Matters. Or Space Matters. You decide. Sometimes we want to optimize for code space, and other times for variable and string space. For...
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Optimizing Color BASIC, part 7
See also: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6. GOSUB Revisited In response to part 4, William Astle wrote a very nice expansion to my musings about INKEY and GOTO versus GOSUB. If you...
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Interfacing assembly with BASIC via DEFUSR, part 6
See also: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5. Previously, we finally got to do something semi-useful with assembly: we replaced a slow full-screen scrolling routine in BASIC with a turbo-charged...
View ArticleOptimizing Color BASIC, part 8
See also: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 and Part 7. Arrays and Variable Length In part 3, I demonstrated a simple “game” where you could move a character around the screen and try to...
View ArticleOptimizing Color BASIC, part 9
See also: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 and Part 8. Have no fear! Today’s installment is a short one. It will address a few miscellaneous things I have been told about. “.”...
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Building a Better BASIC Input
It looks like I am going to be writing an update to my 1983 *ALLRAM* BBS. It was a simple bulletin board system that could be operated from cassette (no disk drives required!). I have decided to use...
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Color BASIC String Theory, part 1
Many aspects of Microsoft Color BASIC have always been magic to me. I never gave too much thought to how the BASIC interpreter does what it does. String variables are one thing we all had to know a bit...
View ArticleColor BASIC String Theory, part 2
See also: Part 1 I had no intention of turning this in to another rambling multi-part article series, so maybe I can wrap this up in just two posts… But first, in a comment to the first part, William...
View ArticleBuilding a Better BASIC Input, revisited
Well, here we go again with a few more tidbits from comments to a previous installment… Lowercase to Uppercase John Klassek once again provides some interesting tips. He looked at my Building a Better...
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