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From: tdn@spice.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA (Thomas Newton)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Apple Press Mac Basic (Flame)
Message-ID: <453@spice.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 20-Sep-85 12:24:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: spice.453
Posted: Fri Sep 20 12:24:33 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Sep-85 06:16:04 EDT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 24

Macintosh BASIC is not the same as Microsoft BASIC.  It is a different product
that Apple was working on, but I have heard that it will never see the light
of day (Apple gave Microsoft the rights to crucial parts of it in return for
an extension to their license to produce Applesoft BASIC ROMs).  One of its
features was the ability to run several BASIC programs at once.  I don't know
how good or bad the book that you bought actually is, but it's not appropriate
to flame it because it doesn't describe MS-BASIC -- that isn't its purpose!!!

Anyone want to compute the odds that any Apple product that competes strongly
with a Microsoft product will never see the light of day?  Consider:
    * the relative utility of memory-based MacWrite and WORD on a 128K Mac
      (restricting the comparison to text storage ability)
    * the amount of time that it took Apple to bring out disk-based MacWrite
      (which is still considerably less powerful than WORD)
    * the sale of key portions of Macintosh BASIC to Microsoft, after it was
      ALREADY COMPLETED and publishers had sunk time & money into producing
      books about it.

As to a list of file I/O commands:  if you have a legitimate copy of MS-BASIC,
you should also have a reference manual which lists all of the commands.  If
you are using a school's copy of MS-BASIC on the school's computer, you should
ask them to loan you the documentation.

                                        -- Thomas.Newton@spice.cs.cmu.edu