Re: A "decent" language for II's

[campbellb@agcs.com (Brian Campbell)]

2pw1brownt@vms.csd.mu.edu wrote:
: Am I the only person in the world who has longed for a "decent"
: alternative to AppleSoft and assembly for a II+/IIe?
: I'm looking for something that is small enough to leave a maximum
: amount of memory free on, say, a II+, but is faster than BASIC and
: has full access to ProDOS or DOS in a manner similar to BASIC.

I had the same desire.

: I'm I stuck with the above, or are there alternatives?  Specifically,
: does anyone know of a stable Forth with normal disk access (i.e. files)
: for either ProDOS or DOS?  Or maybe a language custom designed for the
: Apple II?

There is an alternative.  The Proton Language runs under ProDOS and provides
access to all ProDOS routines (even the ones not available through BASIC).
Here's an example to print the first 10 lines of a file:

Array Byte Line 255
Integer Ref,i
Start
Open @Parm[1], Page[4,0], Ref
InpFile Ref
For i, 1, 10
   InpStr Line,255
   If DosErr = 0
      OutStr Line
      OutChar 13
   End
Next
Close Ref
Stop

The Proton Language Compiler (compiles to p-code) is part of the Proton
Command Shell (PCS).  The shell provides many other utilites as well.
The software and Docs can be had for a mere shareware fee of $15.
Send e-mail, via internet, to campbellb@agcs.com for more product and
ordering info.

The above example was entered on the fly.  Don't know if it will compile.
You'll just have to order the compiler to find out. :-)
BTW, the example gets the file name as an parameter to the program.