Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c:37069 alt.sources:3490
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From: magnus%thep.lu.se@Urd.lth.se (Magnus Olsson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,alt.sources
Subject: Re: Small introspective program
Message-ID: <1991Mar14.092452.899@lth.se>
Date: 14 Mar 91 09:24:52 GMT
References: <1991Mar10.231230.1301@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> <1991Mar12.050929.2870@research.canon.oz.au> <1991Mar13.032422.9438@cavebbs.gen.nz> <1991Mar13.151756.2885@en.ecn.purdue.edu>
Sender: newsuser@lth.se (LTH network news server)
Reply-To: magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson)
Organization: Theoretical Physics, Lund university, Sweden
Lines: 39

In article <1991Mar13.151756.2885@en.ecn.purdue.edu> steele@en.ecn.purdue.edu@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Richard A. Steele) writes:
>In article <1991Mar13.032422.9438@cavebbs.gen.nz> clear@cavebbs.gen.nz (Charlie Lear) writes:
>>Sorry, your entry is disqualified through being too large. REAL BASICs used
>>to be able to tokenise, and the winner is:
>>	1 L.
>>which when run would produce
>> 	1 L.

>You sure?  If the BASIC is tokenized, then L. will be expanded to LIST
>in the source code listing, so that you'd get
>	1 LIST
>when run.  I have to admit, my only experience with tokenized basics is
>the old 8-bit Ataris; do other basics leave the abbreviation?

I'm afraid Charlie used the word `tokenize' in a non-canonical way...
Tokenization means that tokens (identifiers, keywords etc) are saved
just as numbers, not as text. The interpreter would recognize `L.' as
a valid abbreviation of LIST, and store the corresponding number.
The LIST command would then look up this number and write out the 
corresponding word, i.e. `LIST'. Applesoft Basic did this, I believe -
`?' was accepted as an abbreviation for `PRINT', but the LIST command
printed it as `PRINT'.

Anyway, there *are* Basics that don't tokenize, but accept abbreviated
statements - like the one on the Acorn Atom (a 6502-based British machine).
A typical line from an Atom program would look something like
100F.I=1TOA.X;P.ZZX';GOS.200;N.
which would correspond to
100 FOR I=1 TO ABS(X) : PRINT ZZ(X) : GOSUB 200 : NEXT I
in Micrososft Basic.

Unfortunately, Atom Basic didn't allow LIST inside a program, so 
Charlie's program wouldn't run on an Atom...

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