Re: AppleSoft

[nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates)]

In article <44949j$6vr@hpavla.lf.hp.com>,
Mike Girone  <mike_girone@hpapg1.desk.hp.com> wrote:
>Does anyone have any information on AppleSoft?  Is this a version of the 
>operating system for older Apple's?  Does anyone know of any educational 
>software (K-8) available for this system.

   No, the more formal title of Applesoft is "AppleSOFT Basic
Interpreter." It's been built into the ROM (permanent memory, even
when no disks are present, etc) of all Apple IIs since some of the
Apple ][+s.  (About 1980, or so, if my memory's right). It allows you
to type in and run Applesoft Basic programs (fairly standard BASIC
with a few graphical extensions, but nothing like Microsoft or Visual
Basic) on your Apple II.

   There was plenty of software available for it at one time or another;
getting access to it is harder. I'm afraid that many quality programs
are being lost due to the fact that all the software was on old disks,
and people's collections are just being dumped off in garage sales.

   Applesoft can coexist with the two major operating systems for the
Apple II: Dos 3.3 (older, no relation to MS-DOS 3.3 or any other
version) and ProDOS (newer). Both allow you to save Applesoft programs
to disk and run them later. GS/OS, the operating system designed
specifically for the Apple IIGS allows you to store them on disks like
any other file, but forces you to switch to ProDOS (the 8-bit Apple II
version) to run them. A solution is in the theoretical stages.

Nathan Mates
-- 
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
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