Atari 5200 Guy Posted July 11, 2022 Report Share Posted July 11, 2022 I did a little BASIC programming through the night. Nothing too fancy but here's the code should anyone want to see it in person. You just need Atari BASIC built in to all XL/XE model computers. Have fun! RickR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickR Posted July 11, 2022 Report Share Posted July 11, 2022 Pretty awesome. Atari BASIC isn't the greatest version of BASIC in the world, but it sure was better than what Commodore provided with the VIC20 and C64. That version had none of those graphics commands due to Trameil being a cheapo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari 5200 Guy Posted July 11, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2022 Thank you! Believe it or not, Atari BASIC gave owners more access to the machine's inner workings than any other BASIC for any other machine. It might not have been the best but any address location on the Atari can be accessed with BASIC. I have not seen any other BASIC offer that. Not on the C64, not on IBM, not on Apple, nothing. Those kept you out of those areas. Not Atari. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickR Posted July 11, 2022 Report Share Posted July 11, 2022 Color Computer and Aquarius are two that I've used that had really good versions of Microsoft Basic that offered similar graphics and sound capabilities. I think maybe the C16 and Plus4 from Commodore also finally got a decent version of BASIC (Commodore used the really old version they used on the PET for VIC and 64). The cool thing about the CoCo and Aquarius was that the BASIC was super fast. Atari BASIC was great, but speed wasn't its strong suit. Still, Atari BASIC allowed you do do some really fancy stuff. Like mix the graphics mode (to put text at the top, draw stuff on the bottom) for example. But there are color limitations! Weird, huh? You can't change text color on the fly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari 5200 Guy Posted July 11, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2022 Yea...that is a weird trade off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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