Re: ONELINER TEXTADVENTURE

[rlb@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl (Richard Bos)]

Paul Drallos <pdrallos@tir.com> wrote:

> Dunny wrote:
> 
> > As was mentioned earlier, the QL didn't run Sinclair BASIC - it ran Superbasic.

Same difference. Basically (NPI), SuperBASIC is Sinclair Basic on
steroids. All the statements in the program in question are in
SuperBASIC; from reading the manual it _seems_ that they should all work
in exactly the same way as on the Speccy, but I can't be sure until I
find the beast itself and get it working.

> > However, having not used Superbasic, I can't say if this particular program will
> > run on the QL. 
> 
> The QL's SuperBasic was sort of an enhanced Basic with several new features.  
> SuperBasic did not require line numbers but it would accept them.

# A SuperBASIC program consists of a sequence of SuperBASIC
# /statements/, where each statement is preceded by a /line number/.

That's a direct quote from the QL manual, "Concepts", page 39.

Just as on the Spectrum, a line entered without a number was processed
as a direct command.

> allowed calling subroutines and other 'objects' by name instead of line number.

So did the Spectrum; the way both the QL and the Spectrum handle this is
by making the parameter of GOTO and GOSUB an expression rather than a
constant line number. All you have to do is LET takeroutine=2000, and
then you could GOSUB takeroutine.
What the QL also had, however, and what you're probably thinking of, was
defined functions and procedures, with parameters. That wasn't available
on the Spectrum.

> It had a LOT of new features which I can't recall now.

Two output channels, extended graphics, (somewhat) better sound,
built-in network and microdrives reachable from Basic, direct machine
code calls _with_ parameters, proper looping and selection statements,
automatic data type coercion (which can be both a blessing and a curse),
"natural" string comparison, and quite a bit more.

> >I *do* know the author though, and can quite categorically state
> > that he wrote it on a ZX Spectrum.
> 
> You should have said this in the first place.

With hindsight, it was obvious from the formatting. It looks exactly as
it does when you type it into a Speccy.

Richard