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From: rick@tmiuv0.uucp
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Basic On a 3000?
Message-ID: <4616@tmiuv0.uucp>
Date: 20 Aug 90 11:57:04 GMT
References: <14617@venera.isi.edu>
Organization: Technology Marketing Inc., Irvine, CA
Lines: 27

In article <14617@venera.isi.edu>, schur@venera.isi.edu (Sean Schur) writes:
> At first I found it rather strange that AmigaBASIC wasn't included with the
> software that came with my 3000. Not even with the 1.3 software.

Microsoft blew it with AmigaBASIC.  CBM made every effort to tell programmers
NOT to use the upper byte of address registers for anything, since anything
other than a 68000/68010 uses that byte for addresses (remember that 68000s
only have 24-bit addresses).  Microsoft put stuff in there.  Now, on anything
other than a 3000, it won't hurt too much.  However, on the 3000, the OS
ends up way high in memory.  When you run AmigaBASIC, the wonderous stuff
that Microsoft slapped into the high byte of the address registers will
conflict with the OS bigtime.  1.3 doesn't complain too much, but it's not
reliable at all.  2.0 will die almost immediately.  Sorry.

Understand, this isn't the Amiga's fault, it's Microsoft's.  They chose to
ignore CBM's admonitions, and they got bit.  If you really need BASIC, I'd
suggest getting one of the BASIC compiler systems like TrueBASIC.  They work
pretty much like AmigaBASIC.  In fact, I think one of them is even fully
source code compatible.

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[- O] Rick Stevens, Technology Marketing Incorporated
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