Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!bellcore!tness7!tness1!nuchat!shell!usenet
From: usenet@shell.com (USENET News System)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Re: Microsoft Basic
Message-ID: <230@shell.shell.com>
Date: 6 Apr 88 12:23:35 GMT
References: <1525@alliant.Alliant.COM> <4307@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: svh@piemur.UUCP (Steve V. Hovater)
Organization: Shell Development Company, Bellaire Research Center, Houston TX
Lines: 25

Yes, it is a very powerful implementation. I would recommend using it only
for limited idea testing, though. Seems like you get about 20k from after 
loading the extensions and that might make things a little tight. As far
as compatibility with other versions of MSB (my experience is with CP/M
MSB ), not too much has to be changed. Maybe the OPEN statments. And 
a few other stuff (CP/M MSB does not have the atari graphics commands.)
 
 I used mine in grad school for calculations in E&M, and quantum. When I
 had the idea fully thought out, I'd translate the program to FORTRAN  and
 run it on the university mainframe. 
From: svh@shell.com (Steve V. Hovater)
Path: shell!svh

One thing you might notice, is that the syntax checking you may be accustomed to
in regular Atari Basic is not present in MSB 2 - it's done at runtime.
Which may or may not be to everyone's liking. 


  
Disclaimer: These opinions are ordinarily my own, and couldn't possibly
	    reflect the views or opinions of my employer.

Steven V. Hovater
(713) 663-2711
..!{rice,sun,psuvax,ut-sally,ihnp4,soma}!shell!svh       svh@shell.com