TURBO BASIC COMMAND LIST Compiled and Translated by Dave and Laura Yearke This documentation is provided by the Western New York Atari Users Group and may be reprinted freely provided this credit is included. In case you've just landed from Mars, or just plain haven't heard yet, TURBO BASIC is the exciting new Public Domain Basic Interpreter that we recieved from the Atari Users Group in Holland. It works on the XL or XE series of Atari computers. It's almost too good to be true and should be a definite must for all XE or XL Atari owners. Turbo BASIC, in addition to offering 42 more commands and 22 more functions than Atari BASIC, gives the user 1603 more bytes of program space by "hiding" part of itself under the XL/XE's operating system. It also runs 3 times faster than Atari BASIC, includes most DOS commands, has advanced graphics and programming functions, and is insensitive to lower case or inverse characters for most commands. TURBO BASIC COMMANDS (note: these are new keywords; watch for conflict with old programs) ->DISK I/O BLOAD BLOAD "D:name" Binary loads file 'name' (DOS option L with /N). BRUN BRUN "D:name" Binary load and run file 'name' (DOS option L). DELETE DELETE "D:name" Deletes the file 'name' (DOS option D). DIR DIR Disk directory (DOS option A). DIR "Dn:*.*" Directory of drive 'n', note that wildcard extenders may be used. LOCK LOCK "D:name" Locks the file 'name' (DOS option F). RENAME RENAME "D:old,new" Renames the file 'name' (DOS option E). UNLOCK UNLOCK "D:name" Unlocks the file 'name' (DOS option G). ->GRAPHICS CIRCLE CIRCLE x,y,r Plots a circle with center at x,y and radius r. CIRCLE x,y,r,r2 R2 is an optional "vertical radius" for true circles or ellipses. CLS CLS Clears the screen. CLS #6 Clear screen opened in channel 6. FCOLOR FCOLOR n Determines fill color. FILLTO FILLTO x,y A fill command analagous to the BASIC commands "POSITION x,y: XIO 18,#6,0,0,"S:" PAINT PAINT x,y Another type of fill command, this one is a recursive routine that will fill any closed object as long as x,y are inside it. TEXT TEXT x,y,a$ bit-blocks text in a$ at x,y. MEMORY DPOKE DPOKE m,v Pokes location m,m+1 with 2-byte integer v (0-65535). DPEEK DPEEK(m) Double-PEEK of m,m+1. MOVE MOVE m,m1,m2 Block transfer; moves m2 (number of bytes) from starting position m to new starting position m1. -MOVE -MOVE m,m1,m2 Same as MOVE but copies starting with the last byte of the block. BPUT BPUT #n,adr,len Block Put; same as FOR I=0 TO len-1:PUT #n,PEEK (adr+I):NEXT I BGET BGET #n,adr,len Block Get; same as FOR I=0 TO len-1:GET #N,A: POKE adr+I):NEXT I %PUT %PUT #n,a Until now, there was no convenient way to put numeric values onto disk or cassette files other than by using PRINT, which converted them to strings first, a slow and cumbersome process. %PUT puts the number to the device "as is," in 6-byte FP format. %GET %GET #n,A Get a number stored with %PUT from the device and store it in variable 'A'. Again, this is faster than using "INPUT #n, A". ->STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING REPEAT REPEAT Start a REPEAT-UNTIL loop. UNTIL UNTIL Terminate when condition met. WHILE WHILE Start a WHILE-WEND loop that will run as long as condition is met eg. 10 WHILE X<255 WEND WEND Terminate a WHILE-END loop. ELSE ELSE Optional extension for IF. The IF condition must not be followed by a "THEN", but terminated by end-of-line or colon. ENDIF ENDIF Ends an IF-ELSE-ENDIF or IF-ELSE condition. Note that this allows an IF condition to span more than one BASIC line, provided the "IF" statement is structured like so: 10 IF X > 10 20 PRINT X-10 30 GO# TOO_BIG 40 ELSE 50 PRINT X 60 GO# X_IS_OK 70 ENDIF (Note also the use of line labels in the GOTO statements.) DO DO Starts an "infinite" DO loop. LOOP LOOP Cycle back to the start of a DO loop. EXIT EXIT Exit a DO-LOOP loop. PROC PROC name Start definition of procedure. ENDPROC ENDPROC End definition of procedure. EXEC EXEC name Execute procedure 'name'. 10 EXEC SETUP 20 END 30 PROC SETUP 40 CLS:POKE 710,12:POKE 709,0 50 POKE 729,15:POKE 730,3 60 ENDPROC ->GENERAL PROGRAMMING PAUSE PAUSE n Pause processing for n/50 seconds. RENUM RENUM n,i,j Renumber the program starting at line 'n',first number is 'i', increment is 'j'. This function will handle GOTOs, TRAPs, and all other line references except those which involve variables or computed values. DEL DEL n,i Delete lines n-i. DUMP DUMP Display all variables and values. For numeric arrays, the numbers are the DIMed values plus one. For strings, the first number is the current LENgth of it and the second number is the DIMed size of it. DUMP also lists procedure names and labels with their line values. DUMP name DUMP to device 'name', such as "P:" or "D:DUMP.DAT". TRACE TRACE Trace program during execution. TRACE - Turns trace mode off (Default). DSOUND DSOUND n,f,d,v Form of SOUND which activates channel-pairing for increased frequency range. DSOUND Turns off all sounds. GO TO GO TO n Alternate form of GOTO. *L *L Turn line-indent on (Default). *L - Turns line-indent off. *F *F (or *F +) Special mode for FOR..NEXT loops which corrects a bug in Atari BASIC. Seems that in Atari BASIC, an "illegal" reverse loop like "FOR X=2 TO 1:PRINT X:NEXT X" will execute once even though the condition is met initially (X is already greater than 1). Turbo BASIC fixes this bug, but leaves it available for Atari BASIC programs which may take advantage of it. *F - Turns off the special FOR..NEXT mode to make Turbo BASIC act like Atari BASIC. *B *B (or *B +) Command which allows the break key to be trapped via the "TRAP" command within a program. *B - Turns off the special BREAK key mode. -- -- Special form of REM which puts 30 dashes in a program listing. ->LINE LABELS # # name Assigns the current line number to the label 'name'. This is a convenient way to get around the problem of renumbering when using variables as line numbers. Labels can be thought of as a special form of variable, as they occupy the variable name table along with the "regular" variables. We also believe that the number of variables allowed has been increased from 128 to 256 to allow for the addition of these labels. GO# GO# name Analagous to the GOTO command. CLOSE CLOSE Close channels 1-7. DIM DIM a(n) Will automatically assign a value of zero to all elements of the numeric array being dimensioned, and null characters to all elements of a string (The LEN is still variable, however, and initially zero). GET GET name Wait for a key press, assign the value to 'name'. Same as "OPEN #7,4,0,"K:":GET #7,name:CLOSE #7". INPUT INPUT "text";a,b... Prints 'text' as a prompt before asking for variable(s), a la Microsoft-BASIC. LIST LIST n, List program from line 'n' to end. ON ON a EXEC n1,n2,... Variation of ON...GOSUB for PROCedures. N1, n2 and so on are pre-defined procedures. ON a GO# n1,n2,... Similar to ON...GOTO except that line labels are used instead of line numbers. POP POP This command now pops the runtime stack for all four types of loops. PUT PUT n Same as "PRINT CHR$(n)"; RESTORE RESTORE #name Restores the data line indicated by the LABEL 'name'. RND RND Parentheses are no longer needed at the end of this command, but it will still work if they are there. SOUND SOUND Turn off all sounds. TRAP TRAP #name TRAPs to the line referenced by the LABEL 'name'. ->FUNCTIONS: HEX$ HEX$(n) Convert n to hex string. DEC DEC(a$) Convert hex string A$ to decimal. DIV n DIV i Integer quotient of n/i. MOD n MOD i Integer remainder of n/i (MODULO). FRAC FRAC(a) Fractional part of a. TRUNC TRUNC(a) Truncates fractional part of a. RAND RAND(n) Generates random number 0-n. $ $nnnn Allows input of hexidecimal numbers, but they are converted to decimal. Ex: "FOR I=$0600 to $067F" = "FOR I=1536 to 1663". & n & i 8-bit boolean AND. ! n ! i 8-bit boolean OR. EXOR n EXOR i 8-bit Exclusive-OR. ->MISC TIME TIME Time of day(numeric). TIME$ TIME$ Time of day string, HHMMSS. Unfortunately, the time commands don't work properly because they were written for European Ataris which operate at 50 Hz, instead of 60 Hz like American ones, the net result being that they gain 12 minutes each hour. INKEY$ INKEY$ Returns last character typed. INSTR INSTR(x$,a$) Returns relative location of start of string A$ within X$ (returns 0 if not found). The match must be exact; strings with the same letters but differences in case or type (normal or inverse) will not be found. INSTR(x$,a$,i) 'i' specifies the starting point of the search. UINSTR UINSTR(x$,a$) Same as INSTR, does not distinguish between case or inverse characters. Ex: UINSTR("HeLlO","hello") returns 1. UINSTR(x$,a$,i) Specifies optional starting point. ERR ERR Value of last error number. ERL ERL Line last error occurred at. ->Constants %0 %1 %2 %3 These four 'commands' simply stand for the numbers 0-3. The difference with using these in a program is that "X=1" requires 10 bytes, whereas "X=%1" only needs 4 (numbers require 7 bytes, 6 for the number plus an identifier preceeding it. It is always a good practice to make variables for numbers that are used more than three times in a program). ->NOTES: 1. Variable, Procedure and Label names may contain the underscore (_) character. 2. To print a double-quote (") in a text string, use two of them together, instead of the Atari BASIC method of using CHR$(34). Ex: "TEST";CHR$(34);"TEXT" becomes "TEST""TEXT" in Turbo-BASIC, both of which produce the output => TEST"TEXT. 3. Upon initial boot-up, TURBO-BASIC looks for a BASIC file named AUTORUN.BAS. If it finds an AUTORUN.BAS file, it will automatically load and run this file. 4. Turbo-BASIC also prints out English descriptions of all errors, including several new ones for errors involving the new commands: Error - 22 ?NEST = Loops not properly nested. Error - 23 ?WHILE = WEND with no corresponding WHILE. Error - 24 ?REPEAT = UNTIL with no corresponding REPEAT. Error - 25 ?DO = LOOP with no corresponding DO. Error - 26 ?EXIT = EXIT is outside a loop. Error - 27 ?XPROC = Error executing PROC. Error - 28 ?EXEC = ENDPROC with no corresponding EXEC. Error - 29 ?PROC = Procedure does not exist. Error - 30 ?# = Label does not exist. Also, Error 15 has been expanded to include an UNTIL which relates to a REPEAT which has been deleted. ---Dave & Laura Yearke ---(edited: don lebow 12/25/86)