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From: livia@blake.acs.washington.edu (Elisabeth Perrin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: Applesoft BASIC
Summary: MD-BASIC eclipses Program Writer as most useful Applesoft tool
Message-ID: <6682@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 24 Aug 90 10:04:19 GMT
References: <24148@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <1990Aug19.012206.27798@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <1990Aug19.184208.22305@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: The Broken Blade @ (206) 781-9424
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Sometime, somewhere, jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Desdinova) writes:

>So far, everyone has shown how to dump an AppleSoft program to a text file
>for editing.  Such a tactic has been unnecessary since the world's greatest
>AppleSloth tool, "Program Writer", was released.  Beagle Brothers I believe 
>handles this wonderful tool now.

I've programmed in Applesoft BASIC since 1985 or so.  Since then, I've written
dozens and dozens of programs, highlighted by VinyaMacil, a 3rd generation
ModemWorks-based bulletin board system.  My board, the Broken Blade (see the
Organization line) has run VM publicly since the beginning of this year;
earlier versions of VM (known as MiLo) have been in use for over three years.

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I edited all of my Applesoft BASIC programs
with Program Writer, an excellent full-screen editor for Applesoft.

Not any more.

Having recently received my copy of MD-BASIC in the mail, I'm still reeling
from the power that this package gives Applesoft BASIC programmers.

In short, MD-BASIC allows you to write your Applesoft programs in a
professional environment, giving you the capabilities of many high level
languages (C, Pascal, Modula-2...).  Programs are text files, editable with
your favorite text editor (on my IIe, you can't beat AppleWriter).
Document all you want, it won't show up in the object file.  Forget about
line numbers, MD-BASIC allows the use of labels.  True IF-THEN-ELSE-ENDIF
constructs are supported, along with other looping methods (DO-LOOP and
REPEAT-UNTIL come to mind...oh, don't forget WHILE-WEND).  Name your variables
anything you want, even if the first two characters are the same.  Define
constants and macros, so you cann call subroutines WITH PARAMETERS!  Include
other MD-BASIC source files into your current one, such as header files and
subroutine libraries (the disk is stuffed with samples of these).  There are
also conditional branching commands for the compiler, so you can control which
parts of your source files are compiled.

Oh, yeah, what does MD-BASIC do with these source files?  It doesn't truly
compile them, in the strictest sense of converting them to 6502 instructions;
rather, it optimizes them: numbers your executable code by ones, renames your
variables, starting at A, and going to ZZ, converts your labels, branching,
and looping constructs into Applesoft code, and compacts all of this into the
least amount of space, by using the full line length allowed by Applesoft.  The
resulting BAS-type files are gobbledy-gook, but then again, most Applesoft
programs look like that.  Don't worry about it, because you've got real source
files to edit!

My ONLY complaint about the package, is that when I sent away for it, the flyer
I received made no mention of the package requiring the use of a GS.  As it
turns out, the compiler and decompiler (oh, did I tell you that you can
convert your current Applesoft programs to MD-BASIC format?) are GS/OS files.
So, I had to ride over to my helpful Apple dealer, and borrow their GS for a
half an hour while I ran my BAS files through the decompiler--each program,
ranging in size from a few k to about 15k, was decompiled in a couple of
seconds.  I copied the resultant TXT files to a 3.5" floppy, and am now in the
process of editing them on my IIe at home.

MD-BASIC gives Applesoft BASIC a shot in the arm, and even makes programming
in the language *fun* again!  If that isn't saying a lot about MD-BASIC, I
don't know what is.

If you do ANY kind of serious programming in Applesoft, buy MD-BASIC today.
It's $50, and you can order it from the Morgan Davis Group at their address.

(No, I'm not being paid for this testimonial; I'm just a very satisfied user
of ModemWorks, and now MD-BASIC.)

One more side note, on ModemWorks: I was surprised to find a new version of
Amperworks on the MD-BASIC disk, one that supported an &MLI command to easily
interface into the MLI from BASIC.  Can someone give me the latest scoop on
what the latest version of ModemWorks is?  Last I heard, 2.0c was it.  Have
those external file-transfer drivers been written yet?

>Jawaid Bazyar               | This message was posted to thousands of machines
>Junior/Computer Engineering | throughout the entire civilized world. It cost
>jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu    | the net hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars,
>                            | to send everywhere.

--Mike Owen, through the use of Liz Perrin's account, at

livia@blake.acs.washington.edu