Applesoft BASIC

Applesoft BASIC (sometimes called " Applesoft II" ) was the second version of the programming language BASIC for the Apple II home computer, which followed the Integer BASIC. Applesoft BASIC was developed by Microsoft, and the product name originated from the two company names Apple and Microsoft.

Applesoft BASIC can on the earliest model of the Apple II series, the actual Apple II, are loaded from disk into RAM or ROM added as a plug-in card. In all later models of the series - the Apple II , Apple IIe, Apple IIc, Apple IIgs and Apple IIc - it is firmly installed as ROM and is thus available immediately after switch-on. The Apple software version of the individual models differ only minimally, in particular it does not support the use of more than 48 KB of RAM for BASIC programs, even in the models that bring from home a lot more RAM memory.

Background

The Apple customers wanted a version of BASIC that also allowed for calculations with floating point numbers. As Steve Wozniak, the developer of the Apple II and the Integer BASIC, was too busy with the development of the floppy drive and the associated controller for the Apple II, was at the development of BASIC variant of Microsoft, which already the BASIC for the Altair 8800 and developed for the Commodore PET had; Applesoft BASIC was in fact essentially identical to the Commodore PET BASIC, extended by some Apple-specific commands, for example, for graphics control. This Apple - specific commands were mostly taken directly from the Integer BASIC. However, were New commands for controlling the high-resolution graphics mode.

The BASIC version for the Apple was comparable with other BASIC programming language for computers with the 6502 processor, such as Commodore BASIC: The version line numbers used; Spaces between the individual commands in a row were not necessary. Unlike the Commodore BASIC but were all unnecessary spaces automatically removed when saving lines of code and then automatically inserting spaces between the commands again when listing a program. Thus, the memory requirement and readability decreased increased.

Apple Business BASIC was first delivered to the Apple III computer. Donn Denman ported Applesoft BASIC on SOS and revised it to take advantage of the extended memory of the Apple III.

• Apple
• BASIC
• Historic software