BASIC tutorials

[Chug]

Since I dug my old 800XL out of the loft the other day my daughter has shown an interest in learning how to programme it. Unlike when I was a kids schools don't teach children how to programme computers, only how to be good consumers of Microsoft and Apple products. I'm somewhat rusty on BASIC, since I'm sure that dinosaurs roamed the earth the last time I used it.

 

Is there any online BASIC tutorials out there that I can use to brush up on? Atari BASIC, or Turbo BASIC XL would be preferably.

[gozar]

There are a couple of Basic Training articles from Analog:

 

http://www.atarimagazines.com/analog/issue72/basic_training.php

http://www.atarimagazines.com/analog/issue78/basic_training.php

 

I seem to remember a series of articles where the end result was a Space Invaders game, but I can't remember where...

[Grevle]

Turbo Basic has a small Text File user manual that explains the commands for it, And the Atari Basic Reference Manual in PDF Format has a explanation for all the Atari Basic Commands, Both should be easy to locate and Download when doing a Google search.

 

I believe Atarimania.com has the Atari Basic Reference Manual and also lots of other Programming books for the Atari.

Edited January 5, 2014 by Grevle

[Chug]

Thanks guys. I can't believe how much I'd forgotten, but bits and bobs are coming back to me as I use it. Another rummage around in the loft has turned up The Atari 130XE Handbook by Lupton & Robinson. So I've now got some evening reading material.

[gozar]

Also, check out Your Atari Computer. Archive.org has it.

 

And look at the book section on Atarimania (although it can be overwhelming!)

[+bob1200xl]

Best book ever written is "Kids and the Atari". It should be available online at archive.org, also.

 

Bob

[Kyle22]

AtariArchive is great, make sure to read De Re Atari, and Mapping the Atari. http://www.atariarchives.org/

[+MrFish]

Is there any online BASIC tutorials out there that I can use to brush up on? Atari BASIC, or Turbo BASIC XL would be preferably.

 

It's not really a tutorial, but the expanded documentation for TBXL has quite a bit of example code.

 

I reformatted it into a word document. I'm not sure if I fixed the index after editing or not though.

 

Turbo BASIC - Expanded Documentation.doc

[Awch]

Thanks for the Turbo BASIC Expanded Documentation. I've just started dabbling in TBXL and this is invaluable!!

[1NG]

Nice tutorials! After understanding Basic there are a lot of tricks possible. Some programs are very short (See the NOMAM Basic Ten Liners http://atariage.com/forums/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=313429)

Not very readable due to the small number of lines restriction - Not a good example how to style a program source code at all, but with some elegant tricks for the advanced programmer.

In fact, some things are not very easy to understand, but a challange :-)

In Turbo Basic XL you can use procedures and -- for a separating line. This is a good way to code readable Basic. And it is faster then Atari Basic. I recomment using Turbo Basic XL for programming.

[+MrFish]

In Turbo Basic XL you can use procedures and -- for a separating line. This is a good way to code readable Basic. And it is faster then Atari Basic. I recomment using Turbo Basic XL for programming.

 

You can also go a step further and edit your TBXL source documents in a PC code editor, which will give keyword / remark / string highlighting, more space to play with, upper-case/lower case for better readability, and magically disappearing REM lines (if done as shown):

 

 

If only TBXL didn't require those things called "line numbers", it would be even better.

[1NG]

 

You can also go a step further and edit your TBXL source documents in a PC code editor, which will give keyword / remark / string highlighting, more space to play with, upper-case/lower case for better readability, and magically disappearing REM lines (if done as shown):

 

Cool! Which editor for the PC is this?

Is the output Basic (for LOAD-command) or ATASCII text (for ENTER-command)?

[+MrFish]

Cool! Which editor for the PC is this?

Is the output Basic (for LOAD-command) or ATASCII text (for ENTER-command)?

 

I'm using an editor called ConTEXT here, but I've also done the same thing in Crimson Editor. They're both freeware coding editors. I have the config files for both editors if you're interested.

 

The native output is ASCII. So there is one step to get it formatted to run on the Atari.

[777ismyname]

Thank you for the TBXL documentation, MrFish!

[+MrFish]

Thank you for the TBXL documentation, MrFish!

 

No problem. Thanks to Frank Ostrowski, Dave and Laura Yearke, and Ron Fetzer for doing all the real work.

 

Here's an improved formatted version. The original doc has a strange style of listing each command's format, an example, and then the explanatory text at the end. When you pile a slew of commands like that one after the other, it's not very readable. Rather than undertake the tedious task of reversing the order of each command listing, I've simply put a spacer between commands, which was a lot easier and made it much more readable. I also switched over the explanatory text to Times New Roman, leaving only the coding text in Courier. Additionally I formatted the coding text, which hadn't been done, and did some other miscellaneous editing.

 

 

[+MrFish]

Is the output Basic (for LOAD-command) or ATASCII text (for ENTER-command)?

 

The native output is ASCII. So there is one step to get it formatted to run on the Atari.

 

I should say, an extra step, unless you use H:6 - H:9 in Altirra or Atari800WinPLus.

[Synthpopalooza]

Or use this:

 

http://joyfulcoder.com/memopad/?os=windows

 

This will convert bewteen ASCII-ATASCII and even load tokenized BASIC programs too.

[+MrFish]

Or use this:

 

http://joyfulcoder.com/memopad/?os=windows

 

This will convert bewteen ASCII-ATASCII and even load tokenized BASIC programs too.

 

That's actually what I meant by an extra step; having to load it into or use some kind of converter, external to the emulator you plan to run the code in. The above mentioned is automatic line-feed translation, when you load it into the Turbo-BASIC XL interpreter, and when you save it out.

Edited February 19, 2014 by MrFish