Technical Section - Sam BASIC

Programs may be up to 217K long on a standard 256K Coupe. (470K on a 512K). Line numbers up to 61439 are allowed, with each line containing up to 127 statements. Strings and arrays can have names up to 10 character long. The names of user-defined functions and numerical variables can have up to 32 charcters. Strings can be up to 64K long; arrays can fill all available memory. SAM Basic is fully structured and inclueds procedures with local variables and parameter passing by value and reference. Long and short IF and ELSE are implemented,a s are DO, LOOP, REPEAT, UNTIL, a CASE equivalent, ON, ON ERROR and GOTO label.

Graphics are well cathered for, with vary fast DRAW, CIRCLE, PLOT and pattern FILL. RECORD and BLIZ allow complex graphics sequences to be stored and replayed at high speed. Any part of the screen can be moved in any direction with ROLL and SCROLL, and sections can be GRABbed and PUT back elswhere. PALETTE allows instant changes to the screen colours; all 128 colours can be displayed at once. The displayed screen can be instantly switch for another. The scharecter set includes block graphics and a wide range of foreign characters. Character size can be altered to give 32, 64 or 85 columns. Double-hight characters can also be used. Text and graphics screen copies can be made to a suitable printer in a variety of sizes.

Sound commands include BEEP, SOUND and a range of pre-programmed sound effects. It is possible to have interrupt driven music from BASIC.

There are 56 built-in functions, which provide a full range of mathematical and string-handling functions as well as mouse and light-pen handling, string searching, hex and binary conversion and other features.

The tape system can handle program, data, binary and screen files at a wide range of speeds.

The keyboard can be completely re-programmed; predefined strings can be generated by any key.

Programs can be automatically indented to reflect structure and renumbered.

A couple of these details are a bit dated as they are taken from the first brochure MGT released. However, most of the above is correct, at least nothing is WORSE than indicated! eg. the standard is now 512K (not 256K) with one disc drive (no real need for tape unless you want to play Spectrum games).

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