BASIC extension: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:10, 1 October 2005

Revision as of 02:21, 2 November 2005

Line 5:

As the original language was held in immutable ROM, it generally was difficult for a toolkit to directly extend the language, except by adding new keywords to perform functions not implemented by the original interpreter.

== Functionality ==

Typical toolkit functionality included editing extensions, such as commands to renumber a program, perform block line deletions and so on, facilities to make [[structured programming]] possible, and additional keywords to perform new functions. In the case of the latter, these new functions often allowed the programmer to easily access the computer's [[computer graphics|graphics]], [[sound effects|sound]] and other hardware which was often partially or completely unsupported in the early BASICs. This would have otherwise been achieved by arcane usage of ''[[PEEK and POKE]]'' commands and [[machine language]] [[routine]]s.

== Examples ==

The [[Lightning BASIC]] toolkit extended the [[Amstrad PCW]]'s [[Mallard BASIC]] language with many new facilities - see the Mallard BASIC article for details.

Line 19:

[[Category:BASIC extensions|*]]

[[category:ProgrammingSoftware]]