BASIC A +

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BASIC A + is a BASIC interpreter for Atari 8-bit home computers developed by Optimized Software Systems (OSS) . OSS had acquired the rights to the BASIC interpreter from Shepardson Microsystems, Inc., the developers of the Atari BASIC , and developed it further. BASIC A + is backwards compatible with Atari BASIC, but faster and has numerous additional functions for string handling (MID $, LEFT $, RIGHT $) and for using the hardware of Atari home computers, such as simple programming of player missiles -Graphic .

While Atari-BASIC was housed on an 8 KB ROM cartridge or was permanently installed in the Atari XL / XE models, BASIC A + was delivered on floppy disk. It took up 16 kB of memory, so that the programmer only had about 23 kB for his BASIC programs. BASIC A + was sold in 1983 for around 80 US dollars, and the OSS programs OS / A + and EASMD (Editor / Assembler / Debugger) were also included.

Since the interpreter was required to execute programs written in BASIC A +, programs that use the extended capabilities of BASIC A + could not be exchanged with users who did not have them. There was no compiler for BASIC A +.

In 1984 the successor BASIC XL appeared .

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