Guide To Applesoft BASIC

Hayden Book Company has published Basic Apple BASIC, a complete guide to Applesoft BASIC from beginning concepts to advanced topics. It provides alternative techniques for programming in Apple Integer BASIC and can be used as a textbook or read by anyone interested in BASIC programming on an Apple. The book is written by James Coan, also the author of Basic BASIC.

Applesoft BASIC is explained with short, complete programs that are slowly built to larger ones. More than 80 sample programs are presented; all can be quickly located with the book's program index. Programs are divided into small segments, most of which will fit on an Apple screen. Longer programs consist of a control routine at the beginning that handles all program management using subroutines.

Chapter One explains how to enter data and get results, and the programmer's corner covers immediate-mode execution. Chapter Two offers ideas on planning a program; the programmer's corner explains the Apple's special screen editing. Low-resolution graphics are presented in Chapter Three, and the programmer's corner tells how to obtain full-screen graphics.

Chapter Four contains a potpourri of BASIC features and programming techniques, with a programmer's corner that shows how to read the keyboard without using an INPUT statement. Chapter Five presents strings, and the programmer's corner reveals the character sets used by both BASICs. Chapter Six covers numeric and string arrays, with a programmer's corner presenting integer variables in Applesoft.

Chapter Seven is a collection of miscellaneous applications; the programmer's corner concerns a menu program. Sequential and random access files are the topic of Chapter Eight, and some advanced features of file handling are in the programmer's corner. Chapter Nine presents high-resolution graphics using Applesoft, and the programmer's corner offers an example of a shape table.

Basic Apple BASIC by James Coan, 237 pp., 7x9, paper, ISBN-0-8104-5626-5, $12.95.

Hayden Book Company, Inc.
50 Essex Street
Rochelle Park, NJ 07662
(201)843-0550