BBC BASIC Keywords

Returns the arc cosine of its argument in radians. The permitted range of the argument is -1 to +1-

For example,

PRINT DEG(ACS(0.5))

will print 60, because COS(60°) is 0.5.

Performs a bitwise logical AND between two operands which are internally converted to 4 byte integers before the operation.

It is normally used to join two conditions in an IF or UNTIL statement; thus

IF length >10 AND width > 10 THEN PRINT "OK"

ensures that a rectangle is larger than 10 x 10.

Returns the ASCII character value of the first character of the argument string.

PRINT ASC("Cambridge Z88")

gives 90, the ASCII value of "Z".

The brackets are optional, and ASC"", the null string, gives -1.

Returns the arc tangent of its argument in radians.

Allows lines to be entered without first typing in the number of the line. The line numbers are preceded by the usual prompt (>).

By default the starting line number and increment are both 10, but they may optionally be specified; for example

AUTO 20

will start with line 20, and

AUTO 100,20

will start at line 100 and increment by 20. AUTO will continue generating line numbers until you press 

Returns a byte from the data file whose channel number is its argument. The file pointer is incremented after the byte has been read. For example,

character=BGET#c

reads the next character from file c.

Puts a byte to the data file whose channel number is the first argument. The second argument's least significant byte is written to the file. The file pointer is incremented after the byte has been written. Thus

BPUT#channel, char

writes char to file channel.

Calls a machine code subroutine at a specified address, passing parameters in a parameter block addressed by the Z80's IX register. The IY register is set to the address of the machine code subroutine being called. The processor's A, B, C, D, E, F, H, and L registers are initialised to the least significant bytes of A%, B%, C%, D%, E%, F%, H%, and L% respectively.

This statement could cause corruption of the Cambridge Z88 memory, and should therefore only be used by experienced programmers.

The parameter block contains the following list:

where the parameter types are as follows:

In the case of a string variable the parameter address is the address of a String Information Block which gives the current length of the string, number of bytes allocated, and start address, in that order.

muldiv=1234
CALL muldiv,A,B$,C%

A$=CHR$(90)

will set A$ to 70, since ASC"Z" is 90. The characters corresponding to values 32 and above can be displayed on the screen with the line

FOR N%=32 TO 255: PRINT CHR$(N%) ; : NEXT

Closes a specified channel. For example,

CLOSE#c

closes channel c.

Returns the cosine of its argument in radians.

X=COS(angle)

Returns the number of characters sent to the output stream (VDU or printer) since the last new line. For example,

PRINT A$::REPEAT PRINT ".";:UNTIL COUNT = 72

will pad the line with dots to 72 characters

Precedes declaration of a user-defined function (FN) or procedure (PROC). DEF must be used at the start of a program line.

For example,

DEF FNcelsiusff) = (f-32)*5/9

defines a function to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius.

Executing

PRINT FNcelsius(98.4)

will convert 98.4 to Celsius.

Returns the argument converted from radians to degrees. For example

PRINT=DEG(PI/2)

will print 90

Deletes a group of lines from the program. Both start and end lines of the group will be deleted. For example

DELETE 123,456

will delete all lines between 123 and 456 inclusive, which need not exist.

Dimensions an array, or reserves an area of memory for special applications. For example,

DIM a$(10,20)

dimensions a two-dimensional string array a$ with elements a$(0,0) up to a$(10,20). Arrays may have one or more dimensions, and may be string arrays, floating-point arrays, or integer arrays.

DIM X%24

reserves 25 bytes and puts the address of byte 0 in the variable X%.

Gives the integer quotient of two items. The result is always an integer.

X=A DIV B y=(top+bottom+1) DIV 2

An optional part of the IF...THEN, or ON...GOSUB, ON...GOTO statements, it introduces the action to be taken if the testable condition evaluates to FALSE, or the ON expression is out of range.

Returns -1 (TRUE) if the end of the specified data file has been reached. For example,

REPEAT

char%=BGET#data

...

UNTIL EOF#data

will read characters until the end of the file whose channel number is the variable data.

Performs a bitwise integer logical exclusive-or between two operands which are internally converted to 4 byte integers before the operation.

Returns the line number of the line where the last error occurred. For example,

PRINT "Error number" ERR "at line" ERL

Returns the error code number of the last error which occurred.

Returns the result of evaluating the given expression supplied as a string. For example,

a=6 : b=7

PRINT EVAL ("a + b")

Returns 'e' (2.71828183) to the power of the argument.

Returns the total length of the file whose channel number is its argument.

The file must have been opened with OPENIN, OPENUP, or OPENOUT.

Returns the value zero representing logical false. For example,

REPEAT PRINT "*" : UNTIL FALSE

will continue forever.

Initialises a FOR ... NEXT loop. The loop is executed at least once for each of the values of the control variable in the specified range.

FOR card=1 TO 6 PRINT card;

NEXT card

will print

1    2    3    4    5    6

Waits for a key to be pressed on the keyboard. GET returns the ASCII value, and GET$ returns the corresponding single-character string. For example,

REPEAT UNTIL GET = 13

waits for 

 to be pressed.

Calls a section of a program as a subroutine at a specified line number. Control returns to the next statement when RETURN is encountered in the subroutine. One subroutine may call another subroutine (or itself).

100 GOSUB 120 
110 END
120 PRINT "Hello"
130 RETURN

Transfers program control to a line with a specified or calculated line number. For example,

GOTO 100 GOTO (X*10)

The use of the calculated GOTO, as in the second example, is not recommended as it will not be renumbered correctly by the RENUMBER command.

Sets up a test condition which can be used to control the subsequent flow of the program. It is part of the IF ... THEN ... ELSE structure. The word THEN is optional under most circumstances.

IF length-5 THEN 110
IF A<C OR A>D GOTO 110
IF A>C AND C>-D THEN GOTO 110 ELSE PRINT "CCL"

Inputs values from the keyboard.

The INPUT statement normally prints a ? prompt for each variable in the list. Alternatively strings can be included in the list of variables to be printed as prompts; omitting the comma after a string will suppress the question mark. For example:

INPUT"Enter your age:" age%, "and your name",name$

Identical to INPUT except that the entire line, including commas, quotes and leading spaces is input into a string variable.

INPUT LINE A$

Reads data from a file into specified variables.

The data should have been written to the file with a corresponding PRINT# statement.

Returns the position of a substring within a string, optionally starting the search at a specified place in the string. The leftmost character position is 1. If the sub-string is not found, 0 is returned.

For example,

PRINT INSTR("Cambridge Z88"."8")

will print 12, and

PRINT INSTR("PipeDream","e".5)

will start the search at character 5 and print 7.

Converts a real number to the next lower or equal integer.

INT(99.8) is 99

INT(-12) is -12

INT(-12.1) is -13.

Returns a specified number of characters from the left of a string. If there are insufficient characters in the source string, all the characters are returned.

Thus, if A$=" BANANA"

PRINT LEFT$(A$,3)

would print "BAN".

Returns the length of the argument string. For example,

X=LEN"fred"

will set X to 4.

Lists the program.

Examples:

To obtain a listing of a program to a printer connected to the Cambridge Z88:

Attach and turn on the printer.

Type LIST, type +P, and press 

When finished, type -P.

Controls the appearance of a listed program. The number following the command specifies which of the following formatting options are required.

The numbers can be added to combine options, the default being 7.

Loads a new program from a file and clears the variables. For example

LOAD "STAT4"

or

LOAD ":RAM.O/CONVERTER.BAS"

Declares variables for local use inside a function (FN) or procedure (PROC).

LOCAL A$,X,Y%

Returns a string consisting of a specified number of characters of the string starting from a given position. For example

A$ = MID$(B$, start, length)

sets A$ to the substring of B$ starting at position 'start', and of length 'length'. If 'length' is omitted, or if there are insufficient characters in the string, then all the characters from 'start' onwards are returned. Thus

PRINT MID$("DOZY",2,2) will print

"OZ"

Gives the signed remainder of the integer division.

X=A MOD B

is equivalent to

X = A - ((A DIV B) *B)

Provides a multi-way GOTO or GOSUB, depending on the value of a control variable. The line numbers in the list may be constants or calculated, and the unwanted ones are skipped without calculation. For example:

ON action GOSUB 1000,2000,3000,4000

Provides error trapping. If an ON ERROR statement has been encountered, BASIC will transfer control to it (without taking any reporting action) when an error is detected. This allows error reporting/recovery to be controlled by the program. However, the program control stack is still cleared when the error is detected and it is not possible to return to the point where the error occurred.

Note that under some circumstances ON ERROR can cause BASIC to generate repeated errors, requiring a soft-reset. This can be avoided by including a call to INKEY$, as in the following example, which will allow you to exit from BASIC to the Index and *KILL the activity:

10 ON ERROR REPORT: 0$=INKEY$(100)
20 ERROR

Opens a file for writing and returns the 'channel number' of the file, or 0 on failure. This number must be used in subsequent references to the file with BPUT#, PRINT#, EXT#, PTR# or CLOSE#.

X=OPENOUT(A$) X=OPENOUT(":RAM.0/DATA.DAT")

An assembler pseudo operation controlling the method of assembly.

It is followed by a number in the range 0 to 3 to specify the method of assembly:

The code is assembled into memory at the address specified by P%. For example:

10 DIM code 100
20 FOR pass = 0 TO 3 STEP 3
30 P%=code
40 [
50 OPT pass
60  .....
70 \ backslash introduces a comment
80 \ standard Z80 mnemonics are used
90 ]
100 NEXT pass
110 END

Alternatively the assembled code can be assembled into memory at the address specified by O%, with labels generated according to the value of P%, by adding 4 to each of these option values.

For more details, read the BBC BASIC and the in-line assembler in the Developers' Notes.

Allows a string expression to be passed to the operating system. For example, in the BASIC editor (see Editing BASIC programs, p. 191)

60220 OSCLI "*CLI.<" + B$

Prints characters on the screen or printer.

Items may be separated by commas, semi-colons, or no separator:

PRINT "ONE" I% "TWO"

Numbers are printed in a format determined by the value of the variable @%. This is set to a hexadecimal value as follows:

@% = &SSNIVPPWW

where

SS determines the format of strings created by STR$.

If SS=01 then STR$ will use the format specified by 9%, otherwise @% will be ignored.

NN determines the notation format.

NN=00 General notation: integers will be printed with no decimal places, numbers between 0.1 and 1 will be printed as 0.1 etc, and numbers less than 0.1 will use scientific notation.

NN=01 Scientific notation: eg 100 is printed as 1E2.

NN=02 Fixed format notation: if the number will fit into the specified field width, it will be displayed with the number of decimal places specified by PP. Otherwise general notation will be used.

PP determines the number of decimal places to be printed.

WW determines the overall print field width.

By default, @% = &0000090A, giving general notation with a field width of 10 characters. Its value can be printed, in hexadecimal, with

PRINT ~@%

Numbers can be printed in hexadecimal by prefixing them with '-'.

A pseudo-variable allowing the random-access pointer of a specified file to be read and changed. For example,

PTR#F=PTR#F+5

moves to the next floating-point number in the file with channel number F, since 5 bytes are allocated to each number.

Outputs data to a Z80 port. Should only be used by experienced programmers as incorrect use could damage the Cambridge Z88. The full Z80 extended addressing is available.

PUT A,N :REM output N to port A.

Returns its argument converted from degrees to radians. For example:

RAD(90)

Assigns to variables values read from the DATA statements in the program. Strings must be enclosed in double quotes if they have leading spaces or contain commas.

READ A%,B,C$
DATA 27,-12.34,"Hello"

Introduces a REPEAT...UNTIL loop. For example:

REPEAT PRINT "*": UNTIL COUNT = 80

will print 80 stars on the screen or printer.

Returns a specified number of characters from the right-hand end of a string. If there are insufficient characters in the string then all are returned. For example:

PRINT RIGHT$("DOZY",3)

will print 0 Z Y -

Returns a random number. The type and range of the number returned depends upon the optional parameter, as follows:

Saves the current program area to a file, in internal (tokenised) format.

SAVE "myprog.BAS" SAVE A$

Returns -1, 0, or + 1 depending on whether the argument is negative, zero or positive respectively.

result=SGN(answer)

Prints a specified number of spaces. SPC can only be used as part of an INPUT or PRINT list; for example:

PRINT "Name"; SPCM; "Age"; SPC(6): "Address"

Returns the positive square root of its argument.
z=SQ R (XA 2+y A2)

Part of the FOR statement, this optional section specifies the step size. For example,

FOR i=1 TO 20 STEP 5
PRINT i;
NEXT

will print: 1 6 11 16

Syntactically identical to END, STOP also prints a message

STOP at line X

where X is the line number.

Returns the string form of the numeric argument as it would have been printed. A number A% can be converted to a string in hexadecimal format with the function:

STR$~A%

Returns a given number of repetitions of a string.

A$=STRING$(5,"HA")

will set AL$ to "HAHAHAHAHA"

Moves the cursor to a given screen position. TAB can only be used as part of a PRINT or INPUT statement.

There are two forms:

TAB(X) will print spaces until the cursor reaches column X (on the same line, or next line).

TAB(X,Y) will move the cursor directly to character position X,Y on the screen, where 0,0 corresponds to the top left-hand corner.

A pseudo-variable which sets and reads the elapsed time clock. The value of TIME must be initialised before it is used; for example

TIME=100

resets the value of TIME to 100 centiseconds, and

X=TIME

sets X to the value of the current elapsed time.

Returns a string giving the current date and time; for example:

Wednesday 29 April 1987, 10:12:32

The functions LEFT$, MIID$, and RIGHT$ can be used to extract parts of this string. For example, the time alone can be obtained by

Introduces the terminating value f6r the loop in a FOR ... TO ... STEP statement. When the loop control variable exceeds the value following 'TO', the loop is terminated.

Returns the value of the first free location after the end of the current program.

TRACE can be used to provide information on the execution of a program. TRACE ON causes the interpreter to print executed line numbers when it encounters them, for debugging. The facility can be turned off by typing TRACE OFF.

Enters a machine code routine at the address specified in its argument, passing the least-significant bytes of the integer variables A%, B%, C%, D%, E%, F%, H%, L%, and F% into the correspondingly-named registers of the Z80 on entry.

Unlike CALL, USR returns a 32-bit result composed of the contents of the Z80's H, L, H', and L' registers, most-significant to least-significant.

This function should only be used by experienced programmers.

Converts a character string representing a number into numeric form.

X=VAL(a$)

Controls output overall field width. Initially WIDTH is 94 (the default). For example, before printing it is a good idea to set

WIDTH 80

to give a new line after every 80 characters of output.

Sends a command to the command line interpreter. For example, in the BASIC editor (see Editing BASIC programs):

60090 *CLI .*:RAM.O/EE.CLI

Erases a specified file. For example,

*ERASE filename

or using the CLI

OSCLI "*ERASE "+file$

Gives the BASIC activity a name, which will be displayed in the list of SUSPENDED ACTIVITIES in the Index.

*NAME MYPROG

Renames a file; for example: